Vultures die from poisoned elephant carcasses.

[Catherine]

Poachers killed several elephants and deliberately poisoned the carcasses. They didn't want the feeding vultures to attract attention and the poison took care of that. Sadly these are endangered vultures and 537 of them died along with two eagles.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-23/o...s/11239038

It is bad enough that poachers kill rhinos and elephants. The loss is terrible. Poisoning the dead elephants so their bodies will kill vultures as well is unthinkable. Is there no end to the destructiveness of humans.

[LPC]

(07-10-2019, 03:53 PM)Catherine Wrote: Is there no end to the destructiveness of humans?

Sadly, it would appear not.

Vultures provide a valuable service to nature, by devouring dead bodies. Otherwise the corpses would normally rot slowly and encourage disease, lots of flies, etc. It is tragedy that so many have been killed, alongside the poor elephants.

[Catherine]

The 537 vultures should have feasted well on the elephants and gone back to their nests and raised chicks and thrived.
Instead they are dead. I am sure there are a lot of smaller creatures who died because of the poison, but their boobies have not been discovered. Killing the elephants was an evil act that keeps on giving more evil. Poaching is more than just a serious crime. It is a crime against the planet. It damages ecosystems and destroys the natural order.

I think they need to do much more to fight poaching. The damage caused by poachers is not sustainable and ecosystems in some areas could collapse. Vultures perform very essential services in their natural environment. Losing so many is going to have consequences.

[Tobi]

How terrible.
I can't imagine why people woudl want to kill vultures. They only (as far as I know) eat carrion. What harm does that do to anyone?

[Catherine]

I can't figure why they want to kill elephants or anything else. Poisoning the carcasses  is a weird and twisted thing to do.
It is very sick behavior and it is probably motivated by greed. Poachers are in it for the money. They don't care about life.
They must think killing the vultures benefits them somehow. I hope they are able to identify the criminals and prosecute them.

It is only when they take this seriously and prosecute more poachers that they have a chance of stopping them from doing more harm.