Vulture Awareness Day

On Saturday, September 3rd 2011 wildlife conservation organizations around the world including the Welsh Mountain Zoo – National Zoo of Wales, will celebrate the third-annual International Vulture Awareness Day (IVAD). IVAD initially started as a local annual event in South Africa in 2005 and originated from the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and their affiliates. The [...]

Posted in: Events
Posted on 31st Aug 2011

On Saturday, September 3^rd 2011 wildlife conservation organizations around the world including the Welsh Mountain Zoo – National Zoo of Wales, will celebrate the third-annual International Vulture Awareness Day (IVAD).

IVAD initially started as a local annual event in South Africa in 2005 and originated from the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and their affiliates. The original idea behind the event was to focus on educating local farmers about the importance of vultures and their conservation.

There are 23 species of vultures and condors around the world and of those, at least 11 species are threatened in some way. Vultures face numerous threats including poisoning, persecution, collisions with power lines, food shortage, loss of habitat and hunting for traditional folk medicine. In addition to these threats, vultures are also affected by drugs being given to other animals in the vultures’ food chain.

Vultures are essential to the health of an ecosystem. They are efficient and effective controllers of disease and without them, disease can spread quickly as is happening in India where human and animal cases of anthrax and rabies are running rampant.

The aim of International Vulture Awareness Day is to create awareness of the plight of all vulture species and to highlight the work done by the conservationists who monitor populations and implement measures to conserve vultures and their habitats.

A pair of Andean Condors, Gus and Sonya hold residency at the Welsh Mountain Zoo. Male Gus was born at Chester Zoo in 1987 and arrived at the Welsh Mountain Zoo in 1988. Along with his female companion, 22 year old Sonya, he is part of a carefully controlled European Breeding Programme.

At the Zoo we will be showing our support by holding a number of exciting activities for visitors to get involved in. At 2pm there will be an opportunity for visitors to hear some interesting facts and learn more about the Condors we have at the Zoo, during a ‘meet the Keeper’ talk. As well as this, there will a Poster Presentation highlighting the importance of the species and their conservation. There will also be craft activities in the media centre where visitors can colour their own Vulture and Condor masks.

Head Keeper Michelle Pywell said,

“I think International Vulture Awareness Day provides a great opportunity to educate our visitors about the plight that Vultures in the wild have faced in the past. I also believe that this is an area that visitors will find extremely fascinating and look forward to providing some interesting facts during my keeper talk. ”