A historic attack on vultures leaves the species in a critical state.
South African National Parks recorded one of the largest vulture poisoning events in Southern Africa on 6 May 2025. A total of 116 vultures were found dead at the scene, and 84 were retrieved alive from the scene.
The vulture scene in depth
Andrew Desmat, Mahlangeni section ranger where the poisoning incident occurred, painted a picture of the state of the scene on the infamous day.
“The way we found the scene was due to the vultures; we could see that there was a feeding event at this location. There were three or four birds that had tracking devices that landed here,” Andrew said.
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He further emphasised that vultures, by nature, feed off carcasses, so feeding events are a normal part of their routine.
Around 9.30pm, one of his colleagues alerted the group that he suspected there could be a mortality alert from one of the vultures.
“Gareth, on our WhatsApp group, said he had received a mortality alert from one of the vultures. That means the tag it had was not moving as it should. Then we were all in emergency mode, I said I’ll get airborne first thing in the morning. Kyle lives outside the park, so he said he will get inside the park early. Carien, my wife, was on standby to man the base in case we found something, so we had a coordinated response”.
The deadly feast
Vultures are known to keep the ecosystem healthy by consuming carcasses and preventing diseases from spreading, so feeding on carcasses is their way of life.
Reflecting on the day’s events, Andrew said: “I got here quite early, as I flew overhead, I could see there’s an elephant’s carcass. I couldn’t see what the cause of death was, but what I could see was a number of dead vultures around the carcass. I could see many live vultures in the trees around here.”
The vultures were feasting on a carcass that was laced with poison.
John Davis, a wildlife expert, commented on the nature of the poison: “This is a kind of organophosphate chemical, and it’s readily found on a lot of farms that are doing citrus or tomato production. Often, those chemicals are removed from storage units.”
Kruger National Park Communications and Marketing Manager Isaac Phaahla added that there is an ongoing investigation by the South African Police Service (Saps) regarding the origin of the poison.
“We are not able to speculate as to how did they get hold of it, but the police will possibly let us now after they finalise their investigation.”
Treatment of the captured vultures
Nikita Rapo, from Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, arrived with her team on the scene and began treatment momentarily.
“As we arrived, we started with the treatment. The treatment initially is with an injection called Atropine that you give the bird after that they have a crop, and that crop normally has the poison in it, and you don’t want the bird to digest the rest of the crop.
“We milk the crop, so we take all the meat and poison out of the bird, and then we give it activated charcoal that neutralises the poison. After that, we give them fluids, from there you have to give fluids every hour and a half to two hours so they can flush the poison out of their system.”
Of the 84 vultures transported to Moholoholo for treatment, only three died at the facility. A total of 81 vultures were released after a two-week period.
From the three that died, Nikita clarified: “One died during transport, the other one had a broken pelvis, and the other one had aspiration problems.”
Lia Brown, vet nurse from Wildscapes Veterinary Services, highlighted “what the poison actually does to the body is that it slows the heart rate down to a point where the animal can no longer circulate its own blood. If your heart fails, you won’t survive, so the medicine Niki mentioned, Atropine, is crucial. It works to elevate the heart rate, keep the circulatory system going so that we can at least try and treat everything else that’s happening. As long as the cardiovascular system is working, then we can try and work on whatever else that’s going on.”
Poachers choose meat over ivory
Andrew highlighted: “The poaching of elephants is to get ivory, they are looking for the tusks. In this case, we found the tusks, removed and booked them into our safe. The main thing these poachers were after was meat. They harvested meat from this elephant, and when they finished harvesting the meat they wanted, they laced it with poison.”
