The Vulture Project works to conserve South Africa’s threatened vulture species through research, monitoring, and targeted conservation action. A central focus of our work is understanding and reducing the impacts of lead poisoning from lead-based ammunition. We monitor blood lead levels in wild birds, track their movements across the landscape, and work with the hunting and game management sectors to encourage the transition to non-lead ammunition.
Alongside this, we study breeding success, nesting behaviour, and survival rates through long-term monitoring projects, tagging, and camera-trap research. These data help us identify key feeding and breeding areas, assess risks, and guide conservation planning.
We work closely with conservation agencies, government departments, Protected Area managers and associations in the wildlife sector to reduce threats to vultures by strengthening conservation actions. Our goal is to ensure the health and sustainability of vulture populations and secure the vital ecosystem services they provide.
Through research and testing of non-lead ammunition, we host targeted conservation engagements in key vulture breeding regions to demonstrate shifting to non-lead ammunition. White-backed Vulture chicks are sampled annually and blood samples taken to determine lead levels in the population. Consultations are held with landowners and Nature Reserves where White-backed Vultures breed to establish Vulture Safe Zones where threats are mitigated.
“Vultures are distinctive and important components of our biodiversity” – Barbera Creecy, Minister of Foresty, Fisheries and the Environment.
When vultures disappear, ecosystems suffer. Protecting vultures means protecting the health of our wildlife, livestock and people.
South Africa has a rich diversity of vultures, with seven resident species. Vultures are among the world’s most threatened bird groups, and South Africa’s seven resident species face a range of pressures that continue to drive population declines.
Five of South Africa’s breeding resident species are listed as Critically Endangered as per the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. These include the White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus), White-headed Vulture (Trigonoceps occipitalis), Hooded Vulture (Necrosyrtes monachus), Lappet-faced Vulture (Torgos tracheliotos), and Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), which is regionally listed as Critically Endangered. The Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres), a species endemic to southern Africa, is listed as Vulnerable, while the Palm-nut Vulture (Gypohierax angolensis) is currently classified as Least Concern globally but occurs only in a small portion of South Africa. Rüppell’s (Gyps rueppellii) and the Egyptian Vultures (Neophron percnopterus) are rare vagrants.
Our country’s vultures face a multitude of threats. Vultures are particularly susceptible to poisoning, both intentional and unintentional. As scavengers that feed socially, a single poisoned carcass can have devastating consequences for regional populations. Intentional poisoning can include lacing a carcass to evade detection of poaching activities, in response to human wildlife conflict, and to harvest body parts for belief-based use. Vultures are victims of unintentional poisoning when they ingest lead fragments from spent ammunition when they feed on carcass waste and gut piles harvested with lead-based ammunition. The illegal use of agricultural poisons to target damage-causing animals results in indiscriminate poisoning of non-target species, including vultures.
South Africa’s expanding energy network presents significant risks to vultures. Collisions with energy infrastructure and electrocutions are major contributors to vulture mortality. Habitat loss, reduced access to safe food resources, and disturbance of breeding colonies further exacerbate the pressures facing South Africa’s vultures. Since vultures are long-lived, slow-breeding birds that typically raise only one chick per year, even relatively small increases in adult mortality can have severe impacts on population recovery.
BirdLife South Africa’s Lead Project aims to reduce lead poisoning in South Africa’s vultures and other scavenging wildlife by encouraging the shift to lead-free ammunition in the hunting, culling, and game management sectors. Building on pioneering research into lead exposure in Gyps vultures, the project combines scientific research, field monitoring, and ballistic testing of locally available lead-free alternatives to support the transition away from lead-based ammunition.
The project works closely with stakeholders across the ammunition value chain, national and provincial park authorities, hunting organisations, conservation agencies, policymakers, and government departments. Through this collaborative approach, BirdLife South Africa is becoming a leading authority on lead-free ammunition in South Africa and is at the forefront of efforts to reduce lead contamination in wildlife and the environment.
Scientific Publications
A Vulture Safe Zone (VSZ) is a defined area in which targeted conservation measures are implemented to address the key threats facing the vulture species present.
The VSZ concept was pioneered in Nepal as a response to catastrophic declines of Asian Vultures due to diclofenac poisoning and was subsequently adopted by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) as a key conservation action within the Multi-species Action Plan to Conserve African-Eurasian Vultures (Vulture MsAP). VSZ’s have since been adopted and integrated into the National Vulture Multi-Species Biodiversity Management Plan (BMP) published in 2024 in terms of section 43 of the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act, 2004 (Act No. 10 of 2004). The BMP describes the approach as ”A new, collaborative initiative, aimed at engaging with landowners and encouraging them to remove threats to vultures in key vulture foraging and breeding areas, as identified using tracking data.”
It is a landscape-scale approach whereby large tracts of suitable habitat are secured and the threats to vultures are reduced through targeted conservation actions. The landowner/s or management authority commitment to reducing threats by implementing the following actions:
1. All agricultural and electrical infrastructure in the VSZ is vulture-friendly
2. Water reservoirs are modified to prevent drowning
3. Breeding vultures (whether cliff or tree nesting) are protected from disturbance
4. Lead-free ammunition is used to cull/hunt game/livestock
5. All carcasses provided as supplementary food at vulture restaurants are lead- and contaminant-free
6. Poison is not used in the control and killing of mammalian predators such as jackals and caracals, or crop damaging species or agricultural pests
7. All vulture populations are monitored
8. All known vulture mortalities, including on powerlines and WEFs, are reported to BirdLife South Africa
9. Only synthetic pyrethroid livestock and game dips are used for ectoparasite control
The Lead Task Team (LTT) was established in 2019 under the National Wildlife Poisoning Prevention Working Group (NWPPWG) to address the environmental impacts of lead poisoning in South Africa’s wildlife. The mission of the LTT is “to ensure that wildlife is not harmed by exposure to lead”. Lead is a well-documented environmental toxin that poses significant risks to both human health and wildlife. Although human exposure to lead is tightly regulated, environmental lead contamination remains poorly recognised, with limited policies, legislation, or management guidelines addressing its impacts on wildlife. Recognising the need for a coordinated, science-based response, the NWPPWG established the Lead Task Team to bring together experts from across sectors to improve understanding of lead poisoning, guide research, and develop practical solutions to reduce lead exposure in the environment.
The aims of the Lead Task Team are to:
Every rescued vulture represents an opportunity to save an individual bird while contributing to the conservation of an entire population.
Successful vulture rescue relies on a network of dedicated partners. BirdLife South Africa collaborates with wildlife rehabilitation centres, veterinarians, provincial conservation authorities, protected areas, private landowners, and volunteers to ensure that injured vultures receive the best possible care and, where possible, are returned to the wild.
