It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Latest trouble at the border: Vultures are defecating and urinating all over a CBP radio tower The mess is coating the entire 320-foot tower in southern Texas that the agency needs to communicate. The birds are also vomiting onto buildings below the tower and dropping prey from hundreds of feet in the air, an agency spokesperson said. Hooded vultures wait for scraps of meat at Bissau's main slaughter house on November 26, 2019. - Tens of thousands of Hooded Vultures flock to the city of Bissau to in search of food left behind in heaps of garbage or around market areas. Photo by JOHN WESSELS / AFP
A radio tower for the US Customs and Border Protection near the US-Mexico border has been plagued by vultures that roost there and drop feces, vomit, and even prey on the buildings below.Around 300 vultures have taken over the tower in the past six years, Quartz reports, and have coated the structure with "droppings mixed with urine," as well as corrosive vomit that eats away at the metal.CBP spokesperson told Quartz that the birds create a "terrifying and dangerous" environment at the workplace, and said there are anecdotes of them dropping prey from as high as 300 feet in the air.The Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits killing the vultures, but CBP is planning to install a "viable netting deterrent" to stop the vultures from roosting in its radio towers.
For a radio tower and surrounding buildings operated by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) near the Texas-Mexico border, vultures are no joke. Around 300 of the carnivorous birds have roosted in its radio tower, and are creating communications issues thanks to their corrosive vomit and feces.
Quartz reports that CBP filed a request for information that includes details about the problems the vultures have created at the radio tower, which is now entirely coated in "droppings mixed with urine" that have also fallen on the ground and surrounding buildings below, where people work and equipment is kept.
Furthermore, a CBP spokesperson told Quartz that workers have anecdotes of the vultures dropping prey from as high as 300 feet above, creating a "terrifying and dangerous" work environment for the past six years. fernando sanchez/Shutterstock
Vultures regurgitate a corrosive vomit as a defense mechanism that can kill bacteria on their legs but also eat away at the metal radio tower, making it unsafe for maintenance workers to climb it and reducing the tower's lifespan.
Large groups of vultures also smell like corpses – the species is known, of course, for feeding on dead flesh, or carrion. Undigested bones and fur can be found at the base of where vultures roost.
But CBP can't kill the vultures, as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act made that illegal in 1918. Instead, the agency is searching for a "viable netting deterrent" to stop the vultures from roosting on the radio tower. CBP told Quartz that it's working with the Fish and Wildlife Agency, the USDA, environmental experts, and the Texas State Historical Preservation Officer to find a solution that doesn't harm any of the vultures.
The agency also says there are no nests or baby birds in the tower. There are plans to clean and repair the radio tower before installing nets by August, before the natural heavy roosting cycle begins in the fall.
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Thursday, March 11, 2021
Wing tags severely impair flight in African Cape Vultures
Study urges the use of leg bands for marking individuals instead of wing tags
IMAGE: CAPE VULTURE WITH PATAGIAL (WING) TAG FITTED CORRECTLY TO THE PATAGIUM view more
CREDIT: VULPRO
Conservationists who apply wing tags for identifying Cape Vultures--a species of African vulture that is vulnerable to extinction--are putting the birds' lives further at risk, a new movement ecology study has shown. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany and VulPro NPC in South Africa have demonstrated that Cape Vultures fitted with tags on their wings travelled shorter distances and flew slower than those fitted with bands around their legs. The research emphasises the importance of investigating the effects that tagging methods can have on the behaviour and conservation of species, prompting a shift towards the less invasive method of leg bands in the future study of Cape Vultures.
For over a decade, many conservationists and NGOs have been marking vultures by placing a tag on the wing area known as the patagium. Patagial tags have the advantage that they are large and conspicuous enough for individuals to be identified from far away. Leg bands are smaller in size, fitted around the tarsus of the vultures leg and thus, harder to notice and record the unique number.
"After receiving many grounded and injured vultures from incorrect placement of wing tags, we felt there was an immediate need to find out exactly what these tags were doing to the flight of birds and whether this technique was, in fact, hindering the species rather than protecting them," says senior author Kerri Wolter, CEO of VulPro NPC, a vulture conservation organisation in South Africa.
The study was motivated by recent VulPro NPC research, which highlighted how an incorrect patagial tag could cause injuries and result in the grounding of vultures. To find out how patagial tags affected the birds' flights, researchers from the Max Planck Institute used GPS devices to track 27 Cape Vultures (Gyps coprotheres) marked with either patagial tags or leg bands.
The GPS devices, which were mounted to the birds' backs, recorded the birds' positions as often as every minute for 24 hours a day. These recordings allowed researchers to investigate the birds' flight performance, including occurrence of flight, proportion of time spent flying in a day, daily distance travelled and ground speed.
Individuals equipped with patagial tags covered a much smaller area in comparison to the leg band group. They were less likely to take flight and, when doing so, flew at lower ground speed compared to individuals wearing leg bands.
"Although we did not measure the effects of patagial tags on body condition or survival, our results strongly suggest that patagial tags have severe adverse effects on vultures' flight performance," says first author Teja Curk, a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.
Vultures are scavengers. By feeding on dead animals, they play an important role in the ecosystem due to the services they provide, such as preventing the spread of infectious diseases, recycling organic material into nutrients and stabilising food webs.
"Therefore, restricted flight potential and a reduction in the area covered by these birds, caused by improper tag attachment, can have far-reaching consequences at the ecosystem level," says co-author Kamran Safi, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.
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Original publication Teja Curk, Martina Scacco, Kamran Safi, Martin Wikelski, Wolfgang Fiedler, Ryno Kemp and Kerri Wolter Wing tags severely impair movement in African Cape Vultures Animal Biotelemetry 9(11) 09 March 2021
CAPTION
Cape Vulture with a coloured leg band. By feeding on dead animals, vultures play an important role in the ecosystem due to the services they provide, such as preventing the spread of infectious diseases, recycling organic material into nutrients and stabilising food webs.
CREDIT
VulPro
Sunday, July 24, 2022
It was long thought these fossils came from an eagle. Turns out they belong to the only known vulture species from Australia
The Conversation July 21, 2022 The extinct species may have been a relative of the living Griffon Vulture (pictured). Shutterstock
In 1905, a fragment of a fossil wing bone discovered near the Kalamurina Homestead, South Australia, was described as an extinct eagle and named Taphaetus lacertosus, meaning “powerful grave eagle”.
Now research published by myself and mycolleagues can reveal this species was no eagle at all. It was an “Old World” vulture, which we have renamed Cryptogyps lacertosus, or “powerful hidden vulture”.
This is the first time one of these scavenging raptors has been found to have lived in Australia. Living more than tens of thousands of years ago, we believe Cryptogyps likely died out with ancient Australia’s megafauna. There’s much about the species we’ve yet to find out.
Here’s me at the Flinders University palaeontology lab, holding the fossil vulture tarsus (left) and a tarsus of a living vulture species (right). Author provided A puzzling absence
Vultures are birds of prey that feed almost exclusively on decaying flesh. They play a vital role in their ecosystems by speeding up the consumption of carcasses. In this way, they assist in redistributing nutrients, and help limit the spread of diseases.
They can be divided into two groups. “New World” vultures inhabit North and South America and belong to their own distinct family. “Old World” vultures are found in Africa, Europe and Asia, and belong to the same family as eagles and hawks.
Considering they’re so widespread today, it’s surprising vultures long appeared absent from Australia. It’s even stranger when you look at the fossil record across South-East Asia, where vulture fossils have been found as far south as the Indonesian island of Flores. Surely they could have flown a little further?
What’s more, the Australian environment would have been well-suited to support vultures until about 50,000 years ago. Back then, megafaunal marsupials were widespread and abundant across the continent, and would have provided plentiful carcasses for scavengers. The shape of a scavenger
We aren’t the first to consider there might be vultures in Australia’s fossil record. Other palaeontologists have previously suggested some Australian bird fossils could belong to vultures, and the Kalamurina “eagle” was one such example.
My colleagues and I wanted to find out if this really was the case, and so we began comparing the fossil bones of Cryptogyps to a wide range of living birds of prey, including vultures.
Being scavengers, vultures have a very different musculature and bone structure to eagles. This fact proved to be crucial in confirming Cryptogyps lacertosus was indeed a vulture.
A silhouette size comparison of a Wedge-tailed Eagle (left) and Cryptogyps lacertosus (right), and tarsi comparisons of both below.
Ellen Mather, Wedge-tailed Eagle silhouette derived from photo by Vicki Nunn.
The material used in our research included the original wing bone from the Kalamurina Homestead, two identical wing bone fragments from the Wellington Caves in New South Wales, and two “tarsi” (lower leg bones) – one from Wellington Caves and the other from Leaena’s Breath Cave in Western Australia. All of these bones are thought to belong to Cryptogyps.
Close examination of the bones, and comparison to eagles and vultures from around the world revealed their muscle scars and structure are more vulture-like than eagle-like, especially for the tarsi. This strongly indicates they belonged to a scavenger.
To further test this, we placed the fossils in an evolutionary tree with other birds of prey. Our results confirmed what the comparison suggested: Cryptogyps was indeed a vulture, and potentially a close relative of the Griffon Vulture found across Europe and Asia. The life and death of a species
Based on the leg bones, we can infer Cryptogyps didn’t actively hunt and grab prey with powerful talons. Rather, it would have scavenged dead animals as vultures do now.
At this point in time, we don’t have enough of the skeleton to know exactly what Cryptogyps lacertosus looked like, or what it ate.
It could have been a social species, gathering in large flocks around the corpses of megafauna such as Diprotodon or Protemnodon. Or perhaps it was a solitary bird, searching and feeding alone, or in pairs. It may have fed on the soft insides of the body, or may have preferred the tougher muscle and skin.
Gaining this information will require more discoveries in the future. What isn’t in question, however, is that like all vultures today Cryptogyps lacertosus would have played an important role in ecosystem health.
Fossils of Cryptogyps are believed to date from the Middle to Late Pleistocene, somewhere between 770,000 and 40,000 years ago. Its extinction was very likely related to the demise of Australia’s megafauna around 60,000–40,000 years ago.
As large-bodied animals died off, the supply of carcasses scavengers need to survive would have dwindled significantly. Starvation would have become common, breeding attempts less successful and eventually the total population would have fallen below the threshold needed to survive.
Other more generalist raptors such as Wedge-tailed Eagles and Black Kites subsequently filled the reduced scavenging niche.
The Wedge-tailed Eagle is the largest bird of prey in Australia today. Shutterstock
Australia has the sobering distinction of being the only continent to lose its vultures entirely. Sadly, around half of all living vultures today are endangered and under threat of extinction.
And the consequences of this decline have been dire, including increased disease transmission in both animal and human populations, potential impacts on the nutrient cycle, and the restructuring of ecosystems. Ellen K. Mather, Adjunct associate lecturer, Flinders University
‘Our culture is dying’: vulture shortage threatens Zoroastrian burial rites
Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom
Sonia Gulzeb Sat 4 May 2024
THE GUARDIAN
Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan.
For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses.
Bodies are placed on top of the towers, where they decompose, while vultures and other scavengers eat the flesh on the bones. After being bleached by the sun and wind for up to a year, the bones are collected in an ossuary pit at the centre of the tower. Lime hastens their gradual disintegration, and the remaining material, along with rainwater runoff, filters through coal and sand before it is washed out to sea.
“We are no longer able to fulfil our traditions,” Hoshang Kapadia, a Karachi resident in his 80s, said. “We’ve lost a way of life, our culture.”
Kapadia explained that the purpose behind the Parsi burial customs was to “take less and give more” to the world. “The whole idea is not to pollute the earth,” he said
Vultures gather on a Parsi ‘tower of silence’, circa 1880. Offering one’s deceased body to the birds is regarded as the devout Zoroastrian’s ultimate act of charity.
Photograph: Sean Sexton/Getty Images
Karachi, which is built upon a river ecosystem on the western bank of the Indus River delta, is home to only 800 Parsis out of a population of 20 million people. The city has just two remaining towers of silence, both barely functional.
Another Karachi Parsi, Shirin, said: “The vulture’s mystical eye is believed to aid the soul’s cosmic transition, and offering one’s deceased body to the birds is regarded as the devout Zoroastrian’s ultimate act of charity.”
“The massive urbanisation and environmental changes in Karachi have led us to revisit our burial rites, as dakhmas were usually built on top of hills in locations distant from urban areas.
“Our tradition is dying. Our culture is dying in a time of increasing environmental change.”
Unlike many scavengers, vultures are classified as “obligate”. This means they do not opportunistically switch between predation and scavenging, as their mammalian counterparts do, but rely solely on locating and feeding on animal carcasses.
In recent decades, vultures have been dying in large numbers across the Indian subcontinent, primarily due to inadvertent poisoning with the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, which is extensively administered to cattle in India and Pakistan.
When these cattle die, vultures feed on their carcasses and ingest the drug, which causes painful swelling, inflammation, and ultimately kidney failure and death in vultures. Research in 2007 estimated that about 97% of the three main vulture species in India and the surrounding region had disappeared.
Bombay, the Parsee Repository for their Dead, an illustration from 1722.
Photograph: CPA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy
The Parsi community in India is exploring captive vulture breeding and the use of “solar concentrators" to expedite the decomposition of bodies. As the solar concentrators only work in clear weather, some have been forced to opt for burial instead.
Kapadia said: “Parsis in Karachi [are forced to] opt for alternative methods of disposal, such as cremation or burial in designated Parsi cemeteries, as the two towers of silence in Karachi are barely functional”. He added that when vulture numbers declined at the towers of silence, some community members suggested creating a small captive group of vultures in an aviary to continue the traditional practice.
To prevent the extinction of vulture species, scientists have recommended banning the use of diclofenac in livestock, a move so far taken by India, Pakistan and Nepal. Captive-bred vultures have also been released into the wild in India in a bid to boost the threatened populations.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Buzzards that vomit when threatened and leave piles of acidic dropping have invaded a small town and nobody knows why
Alia Shoaib
Roosting black vultures. Getty Images
Residents of Bunn, North Carolina, are puzzled why buzzards have been invading their town.
Dozens of birds have congregated in the town, and attempts to scare them off using cannons and horns have failed.
Buzzards, which are black or turkey vultures, have a bad reputation but are generally harmless to humans.
Buzzards have descended on a town in North Carolina, and attempts to scare them off with loud cannons and fake effigies have failed, reports say.
Over the past year, the birds of prey have converged in Bunn, North Carolina, The News & Observer of Raleigh said.
Local resident Ally Leggett told the paper that at the height of the invasion, she counted 58 buzzards perched around her house.
"This weekend, they were up there swarming," she told the paper, gesturing to the roof. "It makes my dogs insane."
She said the unwelcome visitors would perch on her chimney leaving a trail of destruction due to their habit of pecking at the bricks, pulling them down.
On Wednesday, 28 buzzards sat on a cellular tower along Main Street, and another 21 gatheed at Bunn High School across the street, the paper said.
Bunn residents are puzzled over why the birds' attraction to their town, and have tried to scare them away with various tactics.
In December, the town began firing a propane cannon off the roof of the local high school at regular intervals, day or night, hoping the shotgun-like sound would scare off the birds.
"That worked for a while," police chief Steve Massey told the local newspaper. "It seems they're back."
Massey added that he often goes by the birds to blow his horn at them.
The town also tried hanging "effigies" around the rooftop of the high school to keep the birds away, but the 2-foot tall black birds remained undeterred.
Although called buzzards, the birds are either black or turkey vultures, both of which are protected species. Federal and state law outlaws killing, hurting, or harassing the birds.
The turkey vulture has a five-foot wingspan and the black vultures are six-foot, according to NC Wildlife Resources Commission.
Vultures are often disliked because they feed primarily on carrion, and are often depicted as harbingers of doom and death in popular culture.
The birds' habit of vomiting when threatened adds to the revulsion people feel towards them. Their droppings are acidic and can eat through the paint on a car, according to the News & Record of Greensboro.
Despite their reputation, they are mostly harmless to humans.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Vulture invasion besets residents of Florida neighborhood
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Residents of a Florida neighborhood say they are beset by an invasion of turkey vultures that are damaging homes and causing major messes.
Resident Judy Oliveri told WFLA-TV that her neighborhood in the Tampa suburb of Westchase is overrun with the large black birds, and they've been multiplying since they showed up three years ago.
“We could have 20 to 25 vultures on our roofs. They land on our screens, their under-feathers are all over the roof, their droppings are all over the place,” Oliveri said.
Other homeowners say it's possible the vultures were dislocated from their previous habitat by ongoing development in the area.
Residents say the U.S. Department of Agriculture has promised to remove the vultures, but no timetable has been set.
“They are destroying our neighborhood and our property values. I would like them gone,” Oliveri said.
Vultures are state and federally protected as a migratory bird. That means it is illegal to harm or kill them without a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Associated Press
Monday, April 10, 2023
VISITING FROM FLORIDA
Black buzzards are circling New York City in sightings that 'would have been unheard of' 30 years ago, ornithologists say
American Black Vulture, Coragyps atratus, pulling at rubber seal on parked car at Anhinga Trail Florida.
David Tipling/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert Mon, April 10, 2023 Black vultures have been making their way north due to milder weather caused by climate change.
Ornithologists in New York have recorded more than 300 sightings in the last year.
The number "would have been unheard of" 30 years ago, one researcher told the NYT.
Climate change is behind the unusual appearance of hulking, bald-headed black vultures across parts of New York City, ornithologists say.
The vultures, which usually make their habitat in the southern states and across Mexico and other portions of Latin America, are now being seen regularly as far north as Manhattan.
The birds are changing their migratory patterns, being driven north by dwindling habitat space and milder winter weather, The New York Times reported.
Just 30 years ago, spotting groups — or committees — of black vultures so far north "would have been unheard of," Andrew Farnsworth, a researcher at Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology, told The New York Times. Yet, over the last year, the Cornell-backed public science project eBird has documented more than 300 sightings in the city.
Farnsworth told Insider the sightings are significant because, as the species expands its habitat in the region, the vulture's presence can impact relationships with other scavengers and omnivorous crows, as well as white tailed deer and other mammals that the birds eat, which as a result could impact how food chains in the region function or how diseases like West Nile Virus spread.
While the environmental impact of the vulture appearances remains unclear and will for some time, Farnsworth told Insider, it is likely to have impacts on other species, and those impacts can reveal information about the relationships between animals, changing climate, and epidemiology.
"All I do know is these huge creatures that have a wingspan of about five feet have invaded Staten Island," Deena Tomasulo, a resident of the Midland Beach neighborhood, told NBC News New York in August. "They perch on the roofs and stare at the animals — the feral cats, raccoons, and opossums. I have never witnessed an attack yet, thank God ... I just don't want any of the feral cats to get harmed, people have little small dogs. And if you put the dog in your yard, these birds will swoop in and attack."
Often regarded as an omen of death and renewal, the frightening-looking birds appear more intimidating than they are dangerous.
"They're not geared to killing, like a hawk or an owl would be, where they grasp and kill. They will come down and just eat mostly roadkill," said Don Riepe, with the Jamaica Bay American Littoral Society, a wildlife refuge, told CBS News. Representatives for the Littoral Society did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The new presence of the large birds may spell longer-term consequences for the ecosystem, The New York Times reported. Should the vultures disrupt the food chain or displace other birds by moving into the region, the impacts can ripple beyond just the sightings — potentially endangering entire species of insects and other animals by wiping out their food supply.
"All of our societies depend on these natural systems of insects, birds, plants in multiple ecosystems across the earth," Tod Winston, a researcher with the New York City Audubon Society told The New York Times, adding that environmental changes that impact birds should be a warning to us all, saying "people are in trouble," too.
The New York City Audubon Society did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Friday, November 26, 2021
Vying with vultures: Widespread poverty has some Hondurans living off rubbish Marlon Escoto has spent 45 years picking through rubbish at a municipal dump in Honduras to try to find things to sell and earn a living
(AFP/Luis ACOSTA)More Moises AVILA Fri, November 26, 2021,
Marlon Escoto has been rummaging through rubbish since he was 14, trying to chase off vultures while picking out pieces of plastic and fragments of metal to sell.
Ravaged by drug trafficking, violent gangs, corruption, political instability and hurricanes, Honduras sees more than half its 10 million people -- 59 percent -- scraping by in poverty.
"I look after my children from here... from the rubbish," Escoto, 59, told AFP as he stood in a sprawling dump on a hill overlooking the capital city Tegucigalpa.
He will not be leaving it anytime soon.
Escoto's wife is in hospital and he needs to pay for her treatment. But he says his earnings from scavenging barely put food on the table.
On this particular day Escoto is one of perhaps 100 people picking through the mountains of garbage at the municipal dump.
Honduras will hold presidential elections on Sunday, and Escoto does not know who to vote for.
Left-wing candidate Xiomara Castro, a former first lady who leads in several opinion polls, will be trying to break the decades-long, alternating grip on power of the ruling National Party and the Liberal Party.
"Everyone has the right to vote because we're citizens," Escoto said. "But none of the parties have helped me. I paid for everything in my house."
Handouts, though, are common in Honduras, and they seem to spike as elections near.
A month ago, the government started distributing vouchers worth 7,000 lempiras -- about $290 -- per family to alleviate poverty. The minimum wage is around $400 a month, although most people work in the underground, off the books economy.
Queues of people formed to receive their vouchers as the opposition accused the government of buying votes.
"We have to see what the effects of the money dance will be," said Eugenio Sosa, an analyst and professor at the National University.
Liberal Party candidate Yani Rosenthal has also promised vouchers -- worth $60 a month to each adult -- if elected, without saying how he would fund it.
"Here we collect plastic bottles, cardboard, glass bottles, paper," said Marco Antonio Cruz, 69, another recycler working at the dump. "They haven't given us much, just enough for a plate of food."
Magdalena Cerritos, 72, and her four children all work at the municipal dump close to Honduras's capital, but she holds no grudges against the governing party (AFP/Luis ACOSTA)
- 'Vultures circle above' -
As soon as the sun rises, trucks turn up at the dump -- known locally as the "crematorium" -- to unload more mountains of rubbish.
Vultures circle above before swooping down to compete with humans for scraps of food.
The recyclers have municipal permits to scavenge. Some even consider their permit a gift from the mayor, Nasry Asfura, the presidential candidate for the ruling National Party.
Many work alone, others as part of a cooperative.
The stench stings nostrils and seeps into clothing.
An aerial shot of people looking through rubbish for pieces of plastic or metal to sell at a municipal dump on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa (AFP/Luis ACOSTA)
Recyclers pick animal entrails off plastic bottles with no sign of disgust. They joke that even Covid-19 would not enter the dump.
The pandemic was largely responsible for pushing unemployment here from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 10.9 percent in 2020, according to a study by the Autonomous University.
"I brought up my children here," said Magdalena Cerritos, 72. "I have four children that work here," since there is "no work" elsewhere.
Even after 40 years picking through rubbish at the "crematorium," Cerritos, ever hopeful, plans to stick with National Party candidate Asfura, whose nickname is Papi a la Orden (Papi at your service).
"I'm a Nationalist, and I'll go for Papi," she said. "I think Papi could do well."
mav/bc/bbk/dw
Hondurans weary of corruption look for change in election
Free Party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro acknowledges supporters accompanied by her running mate Salvador Nasralla, right, during a closing campaign rally, in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021. Honduras will hold presidential election on Nov. 28. (AP Photo/Delmer Martinez)
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — For many Hondurans, Sunday’s election will be about stripping power from a party whose successive administrations are widely seen as having deepened corruption and driven tens of thousands to flee the country, many toward the United States.
Expelling President Juan Orlando Hernández’s National Party after 12 years is more important to them than who takes power when it’s gone. The animosity toward Hernández is such that for several years, migrants walking out of Honduras have chanted “Get out J.O.H.!” referring to his initials.
Complaints against Hernández and his party are multiple. An already difficult life has gotten even harder for many. Honduras was hit by two devastating hurricanes in 2020. The pandemic raised unemployment to 10.9% last year, according to the National Statistics Institute. The economy shrank by 9%, according to the World Bank. And street gangs rule swaths of territory through terror.
Hernández has also become a national embarrassment. U.S. federal prosecutors in New York have accused him of running a narco state and fueling his own political rise with drug money. Hernández has denied it all and has not been formally charged, but that could change once he leaves office.
And many believe Hernández isn’t legitimately their president. A friendly court sidestepped the constitutional ban on reelection and Hernández won a 2017 contest filled with irregularities that nonetheless was quickly recognized by the Trump administration.
So the National Party’s candidate in Sunday’s election, Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, has faced significant headwinds as Hernández’s chosen successor.
Honduran prosecutors also accuse him of diverting more than $1 million in public funds to personal use, but the Supreme Court has put the case on hold until a sort comptroller court investigates.
Try as he might, Asfura hasn’t been able to shake Hernández’s stigma. At a recent rally in Tegucigalpa, Asfura pleaded, “I am different.”
The National Party’s strength is its ability to distribute benefits and mobilize voters, including some 200,000 government employees, and Asfura is still in the race. Whichever of the 14 candidates gets the most votes Sunday wins; there is no runoff.
Polls give Xiomara Castro the best chance of beating Asfura. This is Castro’s third try. She lost to Hernández in his first run and then dropped out in 2017 when she joined the coalition backing television personality Salvador Nasralla, who this year dropped out to back her.
The 62-year-old candidate of the leftist Liberty and Refoundation party is the wife of former President Jose Manuel Zelaya, who had aggravated both the U.S. and Honduran establishments by building close ties with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He was ousted by the military in a coup in 2009. Officials justified his ouster by alleging he planned to violate the same constitutional ban on reelection that Hernández later ignored.
He too has faced corruption allegations. When a Honduran drug trafficker was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said he had paid millions in bribes to government officials, including $2 million to Zelaya, an accusation Zelaya denied. Castro’s campaign has focused on the need to remove the existing power structure, and tying Asfura to Hernández at every opportunity.
“They call Honduras a narco state because of this mafia that governs us and because of which they also say we’re the most corrupt country in Latin America,” Castro said at a recent campaign event. “This is the moment to say enough of the misery, the poverty and the exclusion that our country experiences now.”
For years, the U.S. relationship with Honduras has been governed by Honduras’ willingness to cooperate in the war on drugs as a key transshipment point for cocaine headed north and in helping to stem migration?. But U.S. prosecutors have shown that while the government was assisting in interdiction, its politicians were benefitting from drug proceeds and helping protect other shipments, most notably in the case of former lawmaker Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, the president’s brother, who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States.
The Biden administration has continued to struggle with Central American migrants arriving at the Southwest border, many of them from Honduras. Vice President Kamala Harris has said corruption in the region as one of the key problems driving that movement.
According to the Vanderbilt University’s Americas’ Barometer Pulse of Democracy 2021 report released this month, more than half of the those polled in the nation of 9.3 million expressed a desire to live or work abroad — 30 percentage points higher than in 2004.
In addition to president, Hondurans will elect a new congress and their representatives for the Central American Parliament.
Luis Vásquez, a 43-year-old systems technician in Tegucigalpa, said he was underwhelmed by all of the candidates.
“There isn’t an option of proposals that we can trust; it’s just more of the same,” he said. But he was sure his vote would not go to the National Party, “because of the high level of corruption it has shown.”
An international team of researchers has found that Africa’s birds of prey are facing an extinction crisis.
The report, co-led by researchers from the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews and The Peregrine Fund, and published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution (4 January 2024), warns of declines among nearly 90% of 42 species examined, and suggests that more than two-thirds may qualify as globally threatened.
Led by Dr Phil Shaw from St Andrews and Dr Darcy Ogada of The Peregrine Fund, the study combines counts from road surveys conducted within four African regions at intervals of c. 20–40 years and yields unprecedented insights into patterns of change in the abundance of savanna raptor species.
It shows that large raptor species had experienced significantly steeper declines than smaller species, particularly on unprotected land, where they are more vulnerable to persecution and other human pressures. Overall, raptors had declined more than twice as rapidly outside of National Parks, Reserves and other protected areas than they had within. Worryingly, many species experiencing the steepest declines had suffered a double jeopardy, having also become much more dependent on protected areas over the course of the study.
The study’s authors conclude that unless many of the threats currently facing African raptors are addressed effectively, large, charismatic eagle and vulture species are unlikely to persist over much of the continent’s unprotected land by the latter half of this century.
The study also highlights steep declines among raptors that are currently classified as being of ‘least concern’ in the global Red List of threatened species. They include African endemics such as Wahlberg's Eagle, African Hawk-eagle, Long-crested Eagle, African Harrier-hawk and Brown Snake-eagle, as well as Dark Chanting-goshawk. All of these species have declined at rates suggesting that they may now be globally threatened.
Several other familiar, widespread raptor species are now scarce or absent from unprotected land. They include one of Africa’s most powerful raptors - the Martial Eagle - as well as the highly distinctive Bateleur.
Dr Phil Shaw commented: “Since the 1970s, extensive areas of forest and savanna have been converted into farmland, while other pressures affecting African raptors have likewise intensified. With the human population projected to double in the next 35 years, the need to extend Africa’s protected area network – and mitigate pressures in unprotected areas – is now greater than ever”.
Dr Darcy Ogada added: “Africa is at a crossroads in terms of saving its magnificent birds of prey. In many areas we have watched these species nearly disappear. One of Africa’s most iconic raptors, the Secretarybird, is on the brink of extinction. There’s no single threat imperiling these birds, it’s a combination of many human-caused ones, in other words we are seeing deaths from a thousand cuts”.
Professor Ian Newton OBE FRS, FRSE, a world-leading ornithologist who was not involved in the study, commented: “This is an important paper which draws attention to the massive declines in predatory birds which have occurred across much of Africa during recent decades. This was the continent over which, only 50 years ago, pristine populations of spectacular raptors were evident almost everywhere, bringing excitement and wonder to visitors from many parts of the world. The causes of the declines are many – from rampant habitat destruction to growing use of poisons by farmers and poachers and expanding powerline networks – all ultimately due to expansions in human numbers, livestock grazing and other activities. Let us hope that more research can be done and, more importantly, that these birds can be protected over ever more areas, measures largely dependent on the education and goodwill of local people.”
Raptors of all sizes lead an increasingly perilous existence on Africa’s unprotected land, where suitable habitat, food supplies and breeding sites have been drastically reduced, and persecution from pastoralists, ivory poachers and farmers is now widespread. Other significant threats include unintentional poisoning, electrocution on power poles and collision with powerlines and wind turbines, as well as killing for food and belief-based uses.
The late Dr Jean Marc Thiollay laid the foundation for this study in the 1970s, by initiating a remarkable long-term monitoring effort in West Africa, where the average decline rate was more than twice that of other regions. The Peregrine Fund’s Dr Ralph Buij, who has re-surveyed some of the original areas, noted that: “the human footprint is particularly high throughout West Africa’s savannas, and the near complete disappearance of many raptors outside that region’s relatively small and fragmented protected area network reflects an ecological collapse that is increasingly affecting other parts of the continent. Some raptors that occur mostly in West Africa, such as the little-known Beaudouin’s Snake-eagle, are vanishing into oblivion.”
The study’s findings highlight the importance of strengthening the protection of Africa’s natural habitats and aligns with the Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP15 goal of expanding conservation areas to cover 30% of land by 2030. They also demonstrate the need to restore natural habitats within unprotected areas, reduce the impact of energy infrastructure, improve legislation for species protection, and establish long-term monitoring and evaluation of the conservation status of African raptors. Crucially, there is a pressing need to try to increase public involvement in raptor conservation efforts.
To this end, the study’s authors have developed the African Raptor Leadership Grant to address the immediate need for more research and conservation programs. It supports educational and mentoring opportunities for emerging African scientists, boosting local conservation initiatives and knowledge of raptors across the continent. This initiative, which was launched in 2023, awarded its first grant to Joan Banda, a raptor research student at AP Leventis Ornithological Research Institute in Nigeria, who will be studying threats to African owls.
SDE BOKER, Israel, January 8, 2024 – Two types of experiences affect the behavioral skills of animals: the animal's environment during its early development and acquired experience. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's researchers followed Egyptian vultures during migration, a critical and challenging period for them, and investigated how their flying skills developed by examining their performance using high resolution tracking.
Their findings were published in the journal Current Biology last month.
The flight skills of two groups of birds of the species Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), a long-distance soaring raptor, were assessed using GPS transmitters for 127 autumn migrations of 65 individuals. The two groups were quite different in terms of their early life experiences: one group was raised in captivity and the other in the wild. The birds in both groups improved their flight and migration performance as they gained experience. However, the improvements observed were most evident for vultures raised in captivity.
During their first migration, the captive-bred birds were less efficient but were able to catch up with the migration performance of those raised in the wild as early as the second migration. Thus, the experience gained helped offset the shortcomings of their early life experience at an early stage. Just as it is harder for humans to learn a language in old age, the vultures that hatched in captivity and were set free at a later age found it difficult to learn the necessary flying and roaming skills, but eventually caught up with those that learned earlier.
"We were able to generate data on the vultures' migration and flying skills. The data made it possible to learn about the value of early experience and acquired experience and their impact on the ability of birds to cope with challenging periods such as migration," explained Dr. Ron Efrat, one of the lead investigators, who recently completed his doctoral studies in the laboratoryof Prof. Oded Berger-Tal of theJacob Blaustein Institutes forDesert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "It seems that birds, like humans, are also affected by their life experience," he concluded.
The research group included: Prof. Nir Sapir from the University of Haifa, Prof. Thomas Mueller from Frankfurt University, and the Senckenberg Research Center in Germany, and Ohad Hatzofe, Bird Ecologist of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
This study was supported by the German Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF), grant number I-1465-413.13.2018. In addition, Ron Efrat was supported by the Adams Fellowship of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Early and accumulated experience shape migration and flight in Egyptian vultures
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Why the bad rep? A spunky group of raptors deserves a public relations makeover
RAPTOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION
IMAGE:
AN ADULT RED-THROATED CARACARA (IBYCTER AMERICANUS) VOCALIZING AND PERCHING ON A BRANCH OF A TREE IN THE UPALA'S (ALAJUELA PROVINCE) RAIN FOREST OF COSTA RICA.
Caracaras are an inquisitive, gregarious, highly intelligent group of predatory birds in the falcon family, whose quirks go largely unnoticed by the public. Caracara researchers, however, say it’s time for that to change. In a caracara-focused issue of the Journal of Raptor Research, long-time caracara researcher Joan Morrison and co-author Miguel D. Saggese, from Western University of Health Sciences, present salient reasons for expanding research efforts on the nine species of living caracaras. In their paper “Assessing Knowledge of the Caracaras: Compiling Information, Identifying Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations for Future Research,” they present findings from a literature review that revealed alarmingly large knowledge gaps in the field of caracara research. Several species have hardly been studied at all. While caracaras are generally listed as species of Least Concern, this may be inaccurate given the lack of completed research on their population trends and basic life histories. Caracara researchers are calling all colleagues to rectify these gaps at a time when new technology is increasing research possibilities, and several caracara species are expanding their ranges into more urban centers.
Caracaras live exclusively in the Americas. Of the nine living species, only the Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) reaches the United States. The rest range throughout parts of Central and South America, where they fill the niche usually held by crows and ravens in North America. Caracaras are scrappy, plotting, and adaptable. They are scavengers, and therefore suffer from an arguably undeserved negative reputation, which results in human persecution and likely limits them from appearing in conservation discourse.
To establish an understanding of caracara research to date, Morrison and Saggese conducted a thorough literature review on all the research published on caracaras between 1900 and 2022. They categorized their findings by research topic and species, offering a revised picture of what we know (and don’t know), about these birds. The species most studied were those with broad ranges and significant overlap with humans, such as the Crested and Chimango (Milvago chimango) Caracaras. In fact, 82% of the sources identified focused on the Crested Caracara. The least studied species were the forest-dwelling Black Caracara (Daptrius ater) and Red-throated Caracara (Ibycter americanus). Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the U.S. have conducted most of the studies on caracaras thus far. Overall, foundational gaps still exist on basic life history information for many species, even though the tools exist to conduct such projects. It is the interest and funding that are lacking.
These findings are important because caracaras face a disproportionately high number of threats compared with other birds due to their life history, ecology, and reputation. Dangers include entanglement, poisoning, leg-hold traps, and unfortunately, direct human persecution. As top predators and scavengers, caracaras are agents of prey regulation and biomass removal, which are important ecosystem services. Recent population crashes of Old World vultures made it undeniably clear that without vultures, rotting flesh and disease remain on the landscape for longer periods of time, which impacts both human and ecosystem health. Little was known about vultures at the time of these crashes. Few were interested in them. Sound familiar?
The Old World vulture crashes demonstrate the importance of scavengers, and the unpredictable danger of knowledge gaps. Morrison and Saggese encourage collaboration between vulture and caracara biologists to bolster collective knowledge and prevent similar consequences from occurring in the Americas. Morrison says, “if we have a similar message, that these birds are interesting, we can work towards eliminating the persecution and negative reputation,” and she says now is the time for increased research efforts. “There are new advances in technology making research on rare and remote species more possible. There has simply not been enough attention given to this group and we argue there should be.”
Saggese points out that ignorance has already led to the disappearance of one caracara species, and as such, “we need to start looking at them as a group.” The Guadalupe Caracara (Caracara lutosa), endemic to Guadalupe Island, was intentionally eradicated by goat herders in the 1890s. Limited understanding and misperceptions often result in such undeserved hostility towards scavengers, something that more research can help prevent. Human-caracara conflicts (both real and perceived) are likely to increase given their expansion into areas inhabited by humans, so understanding the causal effects of these interactions is a timely priority.
Moving forward, Morrison and Saggese recommend additional research on basic natural history, foraging ecology, and evolutionary biology — specifically on the evolution of cognition in caracaras given their puzzle-solving abilities and use of play to investigate novel objects. Caracaras are ideal research subjects: brazen, social, easily intrigued, and big enough to fit with GPS transmitters. For up-and-coming conservation biologists, caracaras offer an untapped realm of research innovation, and an opportunity to aid in conserving a fascinating group of birds. As Saggese reminds us, “we cannot conserve what we don’t know.”
For more information on how to get involved with the Caracara Working Group, contact either author.
A juvenile Chimango Caracara (Milvago chimango) perching on a roof top in Mar del Plata city, Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
CREDIT
Franco Bogel
An adult Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) eating road kill (A European Hare hit by a car) along a highway near Calafate, Santa Cruz province, Argentina.
Nestling Crested Caracaras (Caracara plancus) in southern Patagonia, Santa Cruz province, Argentina. There this species nest in native shrubs, exotic trees and human-made structures.
CREDIT
Miguel D. Saggese
Paper
Joan L. Morrison and Miguel D. Saggese "Assessing Knowledge of the Caracaras: Compiling Information, Identifying Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations for Future Research," Journal of Raptor Research 58(2), 141-152, (6 May 2024). https://doi.org/10.3356/JRR-23-39
Notes to Editor:
1. The Journal of Raptor Research (JRR) is an international scientific journal dedicated entirely
to the dissemination of information about birds of prey. Established in 1967, JRR has
published peer-reviewed research on raptor ecology, behavior, life history, conservation,
and techniques. JRR is available quarterly to members in electronic and paper format.
2. The Raptor Research Foundation (RRF) is the world’s largest professional society for raptor
researchers and conservationists. Founded in 1966 as a non-profit organization, our primary
goal is the accumulation and dissemination of scientific information about raptors. The
Foundation organizes annual scientific conferences and provides competitive grants & awards
for student researchers & conservationists. The Foundation also provides support &
networking opportunities for students & early career raptor researchers.
Hooded vultures wait for scraps of meat at Bissau's main slaughter house on November 26, 2019. - Tens of thousands of Hooded Vultures flock to the city of Bissau to in search of food left behind in heaps of garbage or around market areas. Photo by JOHN WESSELS / AFP
fernando sanchez/Shutterstock
