Michel & Christine Denis-Huot Lappet-faced Vulture; one of six vulture species known to have declined dramatically in the region. Zoom In

Guinea declares Africa’s first vulture sanctuary

05-01-2007

The Republic of Guinea has designated a specially protected area for vultures, the first of its kind in Africa. The ‘vulture sanctuary’ consists of approximately 450,000 ha in the Fouta Djallon Highlands, a region that holds a significant proportion of West Africa’s vultures.

This is encouraging news for conservationists, who are seriously concerned by recent findings showing that populations of six vulture species in the region have plummeted.

“The decline in our vulture numbers is deeply disturbing” said Mamadou Saliou Diallo of Guinée Écologie, with whom BirdLife International has been working. “But by protecting vultures in this way, we are making our first steps toward their recovery in the region.”

According to Guy Rondeau of conservation NGO Africa Nature International: “Vultures are vanishing from the skies of West Africa primarily because of human persecution. Indirect poisoning, caused by birds feeding on treated carcasses left out by livestock herders to control ‘problem’ animals (jackals, lions, hyenas), is also a significant reason for the drastic declines, and another factor is the increasing rarity of carcasses because of a decline in numbers of big-game throughout West Africa.”

“by protecting vultures in this way, we are making our first steps toward their recovery in the region.” —Mamadou Saliou Diallo, Guinée Écologie

Conservation organisations, including Fauna and Flora International, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, and the IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands, have been working with Guinée Écologie under Africa Nature International’s Duga Programme on a regional West African vulture conservation project aimed at stabilising vulture populations in rural refuges and helping numbers recover in the sub-region. Recent surveys of vultures have confirmed the seriousness of the regional decline and also located relict vulture populations in Mali and Gambia, where numbers are also dwindling.

“Because of their role as scavengers, vultures are a crucial component of Africa’s biodiversity” said Hazell Shokellu Thompson, Head of BirdLife’s Africa Partnership Secretariat. “Helping to conserve them by protecting important areas has a positive ‘knock-on’ effect for other kinds of wildlife, many of which are facing similar threats.”