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Vultures play a critical role in keeping ecosystems clean of diseases found in decaying carcasses, but in southern Africa, they are sometimes deliberately poisoned by poachers or accidentally by farmers.
HARARE – At least 40 vultures have been poisoned in Botswana, the latest victims of a mass poisoning in the country in recent months.
Vultures play a critical role in keeping ecosystems clean of diseases found in decaying carcasses, but in southern Africa, they are sometimes deliberately poisoned by poachers or accidentally by farmers.
Images posted on Facebook show dozens of vultures, mostly white-backed, killed by a river or burned to prevent further poisoning.
Conservation group Raptors Botswana said the poisoning was reported by a farmer in the Rakops area in the center of the country.
Sources have said Eyewitness news that up to 60 of the critically endangered birds could have died in this incident.
Kerri Wolter of the South African-based conservation group VulPro said that many of these vultures would still have been feeding chicks in the nest.
In June of last year, more than 530 mostly white-backed vultures were poisoned by poachers in the northeast of the country. It is unclear whether this latest tragedy was accidental or a deliberate poisoning of the birds.
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