Kenya’s wildlife has been declining substantially for decades, due to rapid human population growth and its associated impacts on natural habitats. Predators and scavengers are particularly sensitive to anthropogenic pressures, such as poisoning, electrocution and collision with power lines and wind farms, and the excess use of pesticides to control locusts. Their changing status has corresponding impacts on the ecosystem services they provide. Understanding the rates of raptor decline, identifying key areas of the highest decline and associated threats are vital to the creation of long-term plans and partnerships across sub-Saharan Africa to protect the health of this continent's ecosystems.

Our Impact: 24,000 kilometers of roads surveyed, 30 years of raptor data collected

Ben Mugambi

Africa's Raptors are in Crisis

Our Solutions

For more than a decade, we have systematically monitored raptors and increased national capacity by conducting 5-day annual road surveys.  This work has contributed to important publications describing  Africa’s vulture crisis and Kenya’s widespread raptor declines, as well as the uplisting of nine raptor species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Darcy Ogada

Africa's Raptors are in Crisis

Our Solutions

Using a small plane, we are surveying all the current and historical breeding sites of Rüppell’s Vultures to establish a national population estimate for this critically endangered species. This population data will support Kenya’s National Action Plan for Vultures that we are currently assisting the Kenya Wildlife Service and other conservation partners to write.

Joseph Wahome

Africa's Raptors are in Crisis

Our Solutions

Poisoning is the biggest threat to Africa’s vultures and is a considerable threat to many other wildlife species across the continent. In partnership with Endangered Wildlife Trust and the IUCN’s Vulture Specialist Group, we established the African Wildlife Poisoning Database - a centralized and accessible database to document the scale of wildlife poisoning, identify hotspots and targeted species, and as an important tool to aid in informed decision-making and research outputs to reduce the impact of poisoning on vultures and other African wildlife.

Darcy Ogada

Africa's Raptors are in Crisis

Our Solutions

Raptors die from electrocution on poorly designed power lines, which are being constructed across Africa at an alarming rate. Data collected opportunistically in Kenya over the past four years indicates that about one third of power line mortalities were raptors, representing 10 different species. We have recently begun conducting standardized walking & driving surveys beneath power lines to count dead raptors and other wildlife in order to assess how and where to best address this issue with the relevant authorities.