Durban -
A white-backed vulture with poor vision is receiving urgent treatment to try to get it gliding through the skies again.
The vulture, which was found by farmers in the Wakkerstroom area last week about 80km from Newcastle, had initially been released into the wild eight years ago at Otjiwarongo, in Namibia.
This was after Andre Botha of Endangered Wildlife Trust found that its vision had been severely impaired.
Ben Hoffman, of African Bird of Prey Sanctuary west of Durban, where the vulture is being kept, said: “It still has some vision issues. It can see better than it could when it was found. Our first priority is to get it back in the wild as soon as possible.”
Hoffman said it was not possible to help the vulture surgically. He said they were giving it pain medication, anti-inflammatory medicine and supportive treatment.
He said there could be a number of reasons for the vulture’s condition. It could have flown into an electricity power line.
Botha said he had put tags on the bird when he released it into the wild in Namibia, as part of the trust’s rare and endangered species programme.
He said it was a pleasant surprise to find one of the birds he had tagged almost a decade ago. “If it is released, we will put a tracking unit on it.”
Botha said the tracking unit would be able to give information on its movements daily and was more advanced than the trackers they put on the vultures eight years ago.
“White-backed vultures are globally endangered… In Africa they are going through a substantial decline.”
He said some farmers in Zululand were poisoning vultures and that the current population was estimated to be 3 000-3 500.
Botha said vultures were known to help stop the spread of certain diseases by eating the carcasses of dead animals.