Conservationists are launching a project to protect dwindling vulture populations in Chad amid a Central Africa-wide decline.
Run by the nonprofit Sahara Conservation, the project is part of a larger EU-funded LIFE EV Safe Return program that focuses on protecting the endangered Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus).
Egyptian vultures migrate from their breeding sites in the mountains of Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia, to winter feeding sites in sub-Saharan Africa, including in Chad.
Sahara Conservation’s efforts will focus on Chad’s Ouadi Rimé–Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve and Lake Fitri, which Egyptian vultures visit. Meanwhile, critically endangered Rüppell’s vultures (Gyps rueppelli) and endangered lappet-faced vultures (Torgos tracheliotos) use both areas as their breeding grounds.
“This project really aims to tackle the main threats to vultures in Chad, with a focus on Egyptian vultures,” Cloé Pourchier, program officer at Sahara Conservation, told Mongabay in an interview. “Any action for vulture conservation will benefit all species as well.”
Indications are that vulture populations in Chad are declining. Like those in West Africa, they’re threatened primarily by demand for belief-based use, where people kill vultures believing the birds’ body parts can bring luck or misfortune.
Last year alone, poisoning claimed the lives of more than 100 Rüppell’s vultures in Chad in three incidents. Several birds were decapitated, indicating they were killed for belief-based use. Investigations and interviews with locals by the Sahara Conservation team revealed the birds’ parts were destined for markets in Nigeria and Niger.
“They were saying that there were people coming from Nigeria, killing the birds, taking the heads, and going back to Nigeria,” Pourchier said.
“Such illegal killing is only one of many formidable threats to Egyptian Vultures in Chad, but Sahara Conservation’s stepping up to take a leadership role in their protection could be a game-changer,” Nico Arcilla, president of the International Bird Conservation Partnership, which isn’t involved in the new project, told Mongabay by email.
Chad’s vultures also die from incidental poisoning. Livestock owners sometimes poison carcasses with the intention of killing jackals or leopards, but end up killing scavenging birds.
Pourchier said the Sahara Conservation team plans to conduct training with wildlife and environmental authorities in Chad to strengthen responses and enforcement to poisoning incidents. She added they also hope to conduct investigations into poisoning cases and market surveys to shed light on the belief-based use supply chains operating in the country.
Community engagement will also be key, Pourchier said, focused on addressing misconceptions about vultures and sharing their importance in the landscape. They also plan to support livestock owners with low-cost interventions, such as fencing and visual deterrents, to reduce wildlife conflict and deter them from using poison.
“We see more and more countries in West Africa where there are no vultures anymore,” Pourchier said. “If we’re not acting, at some point, it’s just going to go from one country to another.”
Banner image: An Egyptian vulture in Chad. Image courtesy of Sahara Conservation.
