Several vulture populations in Africa have declined by up to 95% over the last few decades. The critical nature of this rapid decrease was highlighted when parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) adopted the Multi-species Action Plan to Conserve African-Eurasian Vultures (Vulture MsAP). Unlike the Asian Vulture Crisis, where the veterinary drug diclofenac was responsible for the collapse, there appear to be multiple drivers of the African Vulture Crisis, with the importance of each varying between species and region.

Vultures provide important ecosystem services, and their rapid decline will have a dramatic effect on people and wildlife in Africa. The FitzPatrick Institute is committed to helping to conserve vultures by engaging in collaborative research projects throughout the continent.

Over the years we have worked with various partners to better understand the scale of the declines and their drivers and help identify solutions for these problems. We have worked with the conservation NGO Raptors Botswana to quantify changes in vulture populations in Botswana over the last 30 years by repeating road transects undertaken in the early 1990s and repeating aerial surveys of key colonies. We have also partnered with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in the conservation of the Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus in southern Africa. 

Building on our successful predictive space use model for the Bearded Vulture, we have now also completed a space use model for the Cape Vulture Gyps coprotheres across its entire global range. This was a large collaborative project using data from almost every organisation that has put GPS tags on this species. These predictive maps are now being used by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) to help guide wind farm placements to protect this important and threatened species. Additionally, we have been involved in analysing tracking data from an isolated population of Cape Vultures at the Potberg colony in the Western Cape to help better understand their food requirements and habitat use.

Activities in 2025

  • Our published space use model for Cape Vultures continued to be incorporated into the DFFE protocol to guide wind farm placement for vultures. This protocol was made available for consultation in 2025 and we engaged with various parties over their concerns with this protocol. We remain hopeful that the protocol will soon be gazetted by government.
  • In collaboration with researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Dr Andrea Santangeli used data from 30 GPS-tracked White-backed Vultures Gyps africanus from Etosha, Namibia, to run simulations and test the cost-effectiveness of using GPS-tracked vultures as sentinels for early detection and decontamination of poisoned carcasses. The findings are instrumental as they give guidance for designing and implementing a broad-scale system based on sentinel vultures and contribute to mitigating poisoning-related mortalities, one of the main threats to vultures in Africa. 
  • Former CB MSc student Tevin Adams continued to work on writing up his dissertation research for publication. The work explored the movement and diet of GPS-tracked Cape Vultures from the Potberg colony and ground-truthed over 40 potential feeding sites based on the GPS ‘signatures’. Tevin was supervised by A/Prof. Arjun Amar, A/Prof. Robert Thomson and Dr Gareth Tate (EWT). Tevin also conducted a series of questionnaire interviews with farmers in the region to better understand their perspectives on vulture conservation in the areas around the Potberg colony. 
  • CB MSc student Nkazimulo Lima commenced her research dissertation in 2025. Supervised by Arjun Amar, Robert Thomson, Gareth Tate and Dr Lindy Thompson (EWT), she is using tracking data from the many White-backed Vultures that are tracked annually as part of the EWT and partners’ Eye in the Sky project. She is investigating the potential to use these tracking devices to monitor the breeding success of this species remotely. If validated, this would mean we could monitor the breeding performance of this species annually across large parts of their southern African range.

Highlights

  • Andrea Santangeli published a paper titled ‘Using animal tracking for early detection of mass poisoning events’ in Journal of Applied Ecology.
  • Nkazimulo Lima completed a field season working with the EWT team in the Greater Kruger region to ground-truth the nesting activities of tagged birds. Nkazi will submit her MSc thesis in February 2026.
  • Arjun Amar and Robert Thomson were both invited to give talks at a special symposium on old world vultures which took place at the 2025 Raptor Research Foundation Conference in Costa Rica in October. Arjun spoke about the Cape Vulture model and Robert spoke about the work that Christiaan Brink did for his PhD, which was focused on vulture restaurants in southern Africa.

Impact of the project
Our research aims to understand important ecological issues affecting vultures, quantify population trends of multiple species, and identify key drivers of their population declines. Using our research on vulture restaurants, poison use, blood lead levels and hunting, and more recently our research on foraging behaviour, we hope to deliver solutions to help reverse the declines in these species in Africa. The outcomes of these projects will help us understand why, what, where and how threats to vultures occur, with implications for targeting cost-effective conservation actions.

Key co-supporters
NRF Innovation Scholarship; ABAX Foundation; BTE Renewables; JW Jagger Grant; Denver Zoo; Raptors Botswana; Rufford Grant; Wilderness Wildlife Trust; Colombus Zoo; Leslie Brown Memorial Grant; Peregrine Fund; IDEA Wild; Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife; Endangered Wildlife Trust; N3TC through Wildlands; Vultures Namibia; HawkWatch International; University of Marburg; WildBird Trust, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.

Research team 2025
Team leaders and collaborators:
A/Prof. Arjun Amar (FIAO, UCT)
A/Prof. Robert Thomson (FIAO, UCT)
Dr Andrea Santangeli (IMEDEA / FIAO, UCT)
Dr Francisco Cervantes (FIAO, UCT)
Dr Megan Murgatroyd (HawkWatch International)
Dr Gareth Tate (Endangered Wildlife Trust)
Dr Lindy Thompson (Endangered Wildlife Trust)
Dr Sonja Krüger (EKZN Wildlife)
Dr Glyn Maude (Raptors Botswana)
Tevin Adams (CB MSc alumnus)

Student:
Nkazimulo Lima (CB MSc, UCT)