Helping the Hawk Conservancy Trust protect Lappet-faced Vultures in South Africa.

Kruger National Park has one of the most significant populations of Lappet-faced Vultures in southern Africa. Despite this, the Hawk Conservancy Trust estimates there to be only about 30 Lappet-faced Vulture nests in the park - an area of around 20,000km2, roughly the same size as Wales. During the Hawk Conservancy Trust’s monitoring program between 2008 and 2017, they monitored about 60 nest sites/trees for Lappet-faced Vultures and, in that time, about a quarter of them were pushed over by elephants. They now only nest in an area of about 4,000km2 in the central sections of the park – ultimately resulting in a breeding population that is under threat and on the edge of disappearing.

Above: Lappet-faced Vulture. Photo: © Andre Botha.

Lappet-faced Vultures nest in remarkably small trees and the size of these trees makes them vulnerable to being pushed over. Why the elephants appear to be targeting the nest trees is not currently known and understanding this is part of the Hawk Conservancy Trust’s research. Elephants pushing over trees is not new, with them typically pushing them over to browse the canopy or the exposed roots once the tree is down. What appears to be the unique situation with the Lappet-faced Vulture nests is that the elephants rarely browse or ‘use’ the nest tree once it is pushed over. Sometimes the elephants only push over the tree with a Lappet-faced Vulture nest in it in an area with lots of other trees, while some nest trees they push over are also generally unpalatable to elephants, further adding to the mystery.

Above: Lappet-faced Vulture and friends. Photo: © Andre Botha.

The Hawk Conservancy Trust are seeking to understand this behaviour, but also to mitigate it and protect these vital trees. Lappet-faced Vultures are notoriously fickle about nesting - they might change trees between years, decide to skip years, start nest-building then stop, build but not breed, keep feeding last year’s chick in an old nest, among other things. This not only makes it tricky to monitor the problem, but also to protect the nest trees. Given the estimated number of Lappet-faced Vulture nests is low and decreasing, there is limited time. We stress that the project does not aim to stop the elephants pushing over trees, but rather to discourage them from knocking over specific trees, and instead to go and push over another tree that the Lappet-faced Vultures don’t need for nesting.

A 50-day-old Lappet-faced Vulture chick in its treetop nest.

To do this, the team at the Hawk Conservancy Trust are looking to implement ‘tree safe installations’ to protect specific trees. Aiming to avoid any major physical impact on other species and the broader ecosystem, as well as avoiding the risk of redundancy in the bush – for example redundant electric fences – they are looking at using a more traditional deterrent method laying very large sharp rocks around the base of the trees. The method has been used for a long time in southern Africa to keep elephants away from particularly iconic trees, and while it is not always 100% effective, it meets many of the objectives mentioned above because it creates a deterrent that helps preserve the trees, with zero maintenance and no considerable impact on other species in the short or long-term.

The question now is whether the mysterious draw of the Lappet-faced Vulture nest trees outweighs the discomfort of navigating over the sharp rock patio around them. 

Watch the video below for a size comparison between an elephant and a typical nesting tree.