Raptor Population & Threat Monitoring

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.

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.

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.

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.