GOING SOUTH
Griffon Vulture
Gyps fulvus.
Photo Kdsphotos/Pixabay
5
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT
VULTURES
Mass poisonings. Catastrophic and unprecedented population declines. The resultant spread of disease and death.
You’re probably sick to the crop of hearing it by now, but it’s too important not to put this in perspective: across Asia,
Africa and Europe, vultures are in serious trouble. And if effective action is not taken now, these threatened species
will go extinct in our lifetimes. Simple as that. This would be disastrous for human health (and economies) too.
This is why we’ve put together the latest spread of work that BirdLife and its Partners are doing across the three
continents to save our so-ugly-they-are-beautiful and important disease-defeating vultures. We still need to continue
to do much, much more to protect them, but the following positive developments are worth heralding now,
as we urge governments to make an international commitment to an action plan to save them. The deadline: 2029
Shaun Hurrell
SEPTEMBER 2017 • BIRDLIFE
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