Eneke the bird boasted that since hunters have learnt to shoot without missing, it has also learnt to fly without perching. As Chinua Achebe, the inimitable Nigerian novelist has told us in several of his books, eneke has simply adopted or adapted to a survival strategy to outlive the hunter’s gun. These days very few species in the avian world can boast of successfully dodging the hunter’s bullet because they are either hunted for food or for sport.
But there is one bird that is neither edible nor fit for any particular sport. Yet, it is more threatened than birds in the wild or their domestic counterparts. That is the vulture. Why is this so?
An ungainly and not particularly attractive bird, the vulture conjures all kinds of negative image in the mind of many Nigerians – it is seen as a bad omen in some cultures; the bird’s habit of balancing on power lines causes electrocution. And then, there is the deliberate poisoning by humans through the carrions they feed on. What is to be done?
To balance the ecosystem for men and beasts, a Save Vulture Conservation Advocacy Campaign commenced last year with a public lecture on “Decline of Vultures: Consequences to the Human Health and the Economy.”
The lecture itself was organized under the auspices of Chief S.L. Edu Memorial Lecture delivered by Deputy Secretary General to the United Nations, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, former Minister of Environment in Nigeria.
According to her, the decline of the bald-headed birds in Nigeria “should be everyone’s concern if we understand and appreciate their importance or contributions to human health and the economy.”
Ugly as they are, vultures help hoover bacteria and germs they consume from carcasses. That way, they help keep the environment clean and safe for human habitation. Any hygiene inspector worth his onions knows too well that carcasses are vectors of diseases both in the wild and human populations. Without vultures to gobble them, it will be only a matter of time before humans succumb to a spate of diseases and infections from rotten carcasses. This is why the decline in the number of vultures is causing considerable concern to stakeholders in Nigeria.
Of the 15 African-Eurasian vulture species faced with different level of conservation threat (with ranges across Africa, Asia, and Europe) eight species are critically endangered; three are endangered; and three are near threatened. Therefore, as one participant observed at a recent stakeholders conference on vultures, “attention is being devoted to vultures because of the alarming rate of their decline. Threats to vulture species are from humans. Vultures today are in dire situation especially outside conservation areas.”
In the same vein, another participant outlined the economic importance of the birds of prey to humans. “Vultures play a crucial role to human health and the economy. They keep our environment free of carcasses and waste thereby restricting the spread of diseases such as anthrax and botulism. They are of cultural value to the Nigerian communities. They have important eco-tourism (bird watching) value. Vultures are nature’s most successful scavengers, and they provide an array of ecological, economic, and cultural services. As the only known obligate scavengers, vultures are uniquely adapted to a scavenging lifestyle. Vultures’ unique adaptations include soaring flight, keen eyesight, high sense of smell and an immune system adapted to degrading carcasses with no negative effect.”
