Roadmap for conservation action - prioritising threats to vultures along the flyway

Abstract

Egyptian Vultures (EV) migrate across dozens of countries, and their conservation depends on safe passage through any of the countries  across three continents. To efficiently address the most prominent threats affecting the species, an understanding of the relative  importance of threats in different geographic areas is required. We used an expert assessment to prioritise which threats to mitigate in  13 countries along the eastern Mediterranean flyway to protect EVs. We informed this assessment by satellite tracking 71 birds to  quantify where and how mortalities occurred, surveying 4,216 km of powerlines to detect carcasses, conducting 910 interviews to  quantify poison use, and by surveying markets and hunters to assess direct persecution. Mortality of 50 birds occurred in Europe and the Mediterranean Sea (44%), the Middle East (18%), and Africa (38%), and mortality causes varied geographically. Inadvertent poisoning  resulting from rural stakeholders targeting predators occurred along most of the flyway. On the breeding grounds in eastern Europe and  in Saudi-Arabia, poisoning and collision and electrocution are the priority threats to mitigate. Electrocution on small and poorly designed electricity pylons was the priority threat in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Ethiopia. Direct persecution for belief-based use of vulture  products was the priority threat in Nigeria and Niger, while other illegal killing was the priority threat in Lebanon and Syria. Our work  cannot quantify which threat has the greatest demographic impact on EVs, but has provided a roadmap which threats to mitigate in each  country along the flyway.