Vultures on the brink: Understanding climate change's impact on Africa's essential scavengers

By Kerri Wolter, Caroline Grace Hannweg and Lynda du Plessis

16 Apr 2025

A landscape without vultures would be a toxic, fetid place, with lingering carcasses and unchecked, potentially dangerous bacterial growth. Without them, the spectre of plague would loom.

It’s a whimsical, what-if debate that’s enjoyed by everyone from historians to sports pundits and conservationists: what would the knock-on effects be of changing one aspect of reality? What if Marie Curie hadn’t discovered radium, or if Edward Jenner hadn’t developed the first vaccines? And so on.

That speculation extends to the natural world, in all its dazzling, sometimes bizarre diversity.

Pandas amuse us with their roly-poly clumsiness. We’re enthralled by the speed of peregrine falcons and cheetahs, the intelligence of dolphins, and humbled by the towering, leisurely, unstoppable heft of an elephant herd.

But what would be the so-called butterfly effect of removing one species?

Across the spectrum of study into the natural world, everyone from biologists to botanists and ornithologists remind us that each species has a role in its ecosystem, regardless of whether it entertains or intrigues us.

The removal of each species from its ecosystem has an effect, and that can be profound, even calamitous. And so it is with vultures.

Our anthropomorphic sensibilities may be bewildered by the sight of these birds squabbling raucously over a carcass. But vultures have an indispensable role in maintaining healthy ecosystems: they’re flawlessly evolved to efficiently scavenge and consume carrion.

Animal cadavers can harbour lethal diseases like anthrax, rabies and botulism, yet vultures can consume them without harm, preventing the buildup of organic waste, recycling nutrients into the soil, enriching it and greatly reducing the risk of disease outbreaks in wildlife, livestock and potentially humans.

Toxic

A landscape without vultures would be a toxic, fetid place, with lingering carcasses and unchecked, potentially dangerous bacterial growth. Without them, the spectre of plague would loom.

That’s why the fact that several of the 11 species of African vultures are either endangered or critically endangered is of grave concern. They face a number of existential threats: they’re injured or killed by crashing into power lines and wind turbines in flight, and being electrocuted on power lines. In some African folklore, they’re believed to have clairvoyant powers, and are killed in an effort to access those powers.

They’re also poisoned due to human-wildlife conflict, and poachers poison them to prevent them signalling the presence of poached animals by gathering around poached carcasses. At times, this kills off an entire flock.

There are professionals and volunteers who work tirelessly to counter these threats. Education programmes help debunk the mythology around vultures’ organs and brains having any medicinal benefits.

At Vulpro’s facilities — at Hartbeespoort in North West and at Shamwari Private Game Reserve near Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape — injured vultures are meticulously nursed back to health and released. Those that can’t be safely returned to the wild become part of the breeding programme and their offspring are released.

As conservation efforts go, it’s an inspiring success story. But what lies ahead for the planet and all who live on it will affect each of us because of its impact on the natural systems that sustain us.

Climate change is driving a number of impacts in Africa, including droughts, rising sea levels and more extreme weather, threatening infrastructure, ecosystems, food security and socioeconomic progress. It’s increasing heat stress and flooding and reducing crop yields and livestock productivity.

Natural extinction rate

By some estimates, what was once regarded as a natural extinction rate has accelerated up to 10,000 times. The coming decades are likely to see unprecedented socioeconomic and ecological upheaval.

Through its own research efforts and collaborations with other research bodies, Vulpro is able to help provide science-based evidence of the most pressing threats to African vultures and what’s required in the battle to protect these important birds.

One such project, being carried out by Vulpro, the University of Pretoria, the Max Planck Institute, and the North Carolina Zoo, focuses on the effects of climate change on African white-backed vultures in southern Africa.

This species is present in most of the northern regions of South Africa, and further up into southern Africa.

They’re exquisitely adapted to the task of being a vulture: They can spot a metre-long carcass from nearly 5km away, at a height of 3km.

But the dramatic decline in their numbers over the past three decades has led to these birds being listed as critically endangered, and halting that decline is urgent. One aspect of their life history that hasn’t yet been explored is their relationship with the climate around them.

The project has been taken on by Vulpro, and PhD student Caroline Grace Hannweg is exploring how temperature and precipitation affects their breeding, movement, foraging and roosting site selection. The results have repeatedly and unequivocally shown that birds are at risk through the effects of climate change in their environment.

Particularly at risk

Previous research has also shown that vultures are predicted to move south in their regions as temperatures continue to soar. African White-backed Vultures in southern Africa may then be particularly at risk, as there’s only so much further south these birds can move.

They’re also at risk to extreme temperature and rainfall during the breeding season as their nests sit high in the tops of trees, exposing adults, chicks and eggs to the elements.

By understanding these important parts of their lives in the context of climate, we’re able to paint a picture of what we can expect for these birds in the future as their landscapes continue to change. This is imperative for their conservation as we can then make predictions for what the landscapes will look like in the future, and thus which areas are the most important to conserve now for their future.

For the sake of vultures as a species, and for the benefits they deliver, they must be protected in any way possible. This includes shielding them from the threats mentioned above, as well as providing so-called vulture restaurants: undisturbed areas where non-toxic, poison-free meat and carcasses are provided for them and other scavengers to feed.

Climate change means that an uncertain future awaits us and generations to come. But losing vultures would have catastrophic consequences beyond the extinction of a species. That can, and must, be averted. DM

Kerri Wolter is founder and CEO of Vulpro; Caroline Grace Hannweg is a PhD student and researcher at Vulpro; Lynda du Plessis is manager of the Ford Wildlife Foundation, which has supported Vulpro since 2002.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

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Africa

Toxic

Natural extinction rate

Particularly at risk