Poaching the scavengers: Muti harvesters target the Kruger National Park for vultures
In the northeastern corner of South Africa, between 400 and 800 vultures are believed to be killed every year for muti, according to a first-of-its-kind study that delved into the practices of traditional healers in the Bushbuckridge area in Mpumalanga. A source for these birds is often the Kruger National Park.
Some traditional healers admitted to using vultures for medicine, and, on average, were buying between one and two of the raptors a year.
Traditional healers are notoriously secretive, but researcher Mbali Mashele, with the help of an NGO, the Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners Association, was able to get some to open up about their illegal use of these endangered birds.
The study used a questionnaire and 51 traditional healers living in the Bushbuckridge area were interviewed.
“Most of the vultures are harvested within protected areas like Kruger National Park, where they [poachers] go in illegally,” said Mashele, who was the lead author on the study, which was published in the Journal of Raptor Research.
Most of the traditional healers who admitted to using vultures said they didn’t know where the birds had been killed as they had bought the carcasses from poachers. During periods of hardship, it was found that more people were willing to take the risk and poach vultures themselves.
Of those who did know where the birds came from, 16% said they came from the Kruger National Park. Vultures were also sourced from communal range lands and other protected areas such as Manyeleti, Sabi Sands and Bushbuckridge nature reserves.
Catching the raptors, the study found, usually involved poisoning or trapping.
Poisoning is decimating vulture populations across Africa.
In June 2019, 537 vultures were found dead in Botswana after they had fed on three poisoned elephant carcasses.
And it is not just poaching and poisoning; vultures are also facing many other threats.
“There is simply a bundle of things against them across Africa,” explained Prof Colleen Downs of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, one of the authors of the study.
“In some of the areas, people simply don’t realise that they provide ecosystem services by removing dead carcasses.”
Vultures are also killed by flying into power lines and, in some areas, their decline is being caused by an unlikely culprit – the elephant: “Some of the vultures use trees near rivers to nest in and elephants have been pushing them over,” said Downs.
Most of the traditional healers in the study admitted to using between one and two vultures a year, although one individual said he bought on average eight to 10 a year.
From these figures, the researchers estimated that members of the Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners Association using vultures for muti were acquiring between 400 and 800 birds a year.
This would not be sustainable for the vulture population in the area, the authors point out in their paper.
The birds were either provided to the healers whole or powdered. The study also revealed what ailments the vultures were being used to supposedly treat, such as headaches, and the liver of the vulture is believed to provide good dreams.
“The brain and the head [of the bird] are the most important parts,” explained Mashele. The eyes supposedly provide the ability to see into the future, while the vulture’s brain supposedly brings good fortune.
The price for a vulture, Mashele found, fluctuated depending on economic circumstances. Prices also varied according to the species of vulture as some of these raptors were believed to have more potent powers than others.
The most valued species, the study found, was the Cape vulture, which could sell for as much as R1,500. A white-backed vulture, common in the area, could sell for between R300 and R1,000.
The study found that there was a reluctance by some traditional healers to use vultures that had been poisoned.
Many would carefully examine the carcass to look for signs of poisoning before purchasing. The reason for that was a concern that the poison could affect the health of the user.
It is not known if there have been instances where people have been poisoned from vulture muti. Mashele believes it would be difficult to assess.
“The thing is, if you drop dead in the village, there is not going to be a postmortem… They are going to say you died of natural causes. We need to look at that in the future,” she said.
Mashele stressed that the majority of traditional healers in the area were against using vultures for muti. The Kukula Traditional Health Practitioners Association is a non-profit organisation that encouraged conservation practices, and that it was possible to change beliefs, she explained.
“There are a couple of funding proposals that we have applied for to implement vulture protection areas.
“We also want to link up with communities to say that you have a role in protecting these species,” said Mashele.
But the concern is that time is running out for the vulture, as some species are already facing local extinction within the borders of South Africa.
“They are in dire straits,” said Downs, who cites a paper from 2012 by researchers at KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife.
“They predicted that, in 10 years, the white-backed vulture would become extinct in the wild in KwaZulu-Natal. Now, 10 years later, it has almost happened. There are very few nests left in the wild.”