Korea: an overwintering paradise for young Cinereous Vultures

By Keith L. Bildstein, Ph.D.
Sarkis Acopian Director of Conservation Science
20 January 2012

I am just back from a week in Korea with some good news about vultures. 

Juveniles of the largest Old World scavenging bird of prey, the Cinereous Vulture, appear to have found a slice of heaven in South Korea just south of the Korean DMZ, the no-man’s-land that has separated the Koreas since the 1950s.  The species, which is considered Near Threatened globally, has an estimated world population of between 7.5 and 10 thousand breeding pairs, and a distribution that stretches from Spain to China and as far north as Mongolia.  

Cinereous Vultures, which are at risk from incidental and targeted persecution by people, as well as by declines in large carrion due to changing agricultural practices, are declining in many parts of their range.  One bright spot is Mongolia where breeding populations appear to be expanding.

Although adult Cinereous Vultures that breed in Mongolia overwinter there as well, juveniles and sub-adults retreat to the south and east into China, and, increasingly, into South Korea in winter.  The number of individuals overwintering in Korea was quite small in the 1990s, but it is estimated that at least 2,000 do so now, with many ranging over farmlands just south of the DMZ. 

I recently saw some of these birds on several field trips associated with the 7th Symposium of the Asian Raptor Research and Conservation Network I attended earlier this month.  Within a few kilometers of the rugged mountains of North Korea, these gentle scavenging giants are receiving a helping hand from South Koreans via “vulture restaurants,” places where people provide a “human subsidy” of carrion, offal, and animal fat, for the growing population of juvenile and sub-adult vultures. 

Each Cinereous Vulture requires at least a pound food each day to make it through the winter, and by my calculations this means that about a ton of food or more is needed each day to sustain the entire population.  The restaurants help significantly. 

Some of these “bird feeders,” which usually are located in rice paddies, are run by conservation NGOs, but many others are run by cattle and pig farmers, and butcher shops.  The feeding protocol is simple enough.  The restauranteurs disperse carcasses and offal across dry rice paddies on a predictable basis, and the birds quickly learn where and when to congregate for the handouts.  

The first restaurant I visited, which was less than two kilometers south of the DMZ, required a military escort.  The site, on a small hill surrounded by rice paddies, was being used by more than 50 vultures.  The food consisted of two adult dairy cows that had died during childbirth and their still-born offspring.  The carcasses, which had been delivered to the site the day before we arrived, were now largely skin and bones.  Our party arrived in late afternoon, and most of the birds were sitting on the tops of wooden utility poles digesting their meals, while presumably contemplating returning to their evening communal roosts. The second site I visited was even more inspiring.

We arrived at an upscale butchershop/Korean barbeque restaurant near Cheorwan at eleven the next morning.  The rice paddies surrounding the shop were dotted with more than 150 hungry vultures.  Half an hour later the butcher emerged from the back of the shop, walked into the rice paddy, and tossed 20 to 30 kilos of fat onto the field. The vultures, a bit tentative at first in front of the crowd of more 100 raptor specialists, waited impatiently as we snapped photos of the event. They then converged on the fat.

One of the vultures was wearing a white wing tag with the alpha-numeric “A6,” indicating that it had been tagged as a nestling in central Mongolia thousands of kilometers to the northwest in August 2011.  What really made the moment special was that the owner of the shop and barbeque restaurant came out to tell us that he had been feeding the vultures for five years.  It was his idea from the start. His was a culture that not only tolerated these enormous 20 to 25 pound birds, but felt obligated to help them as well.  That the butcher had erected a sign in his parking lot explaining the situation to his customers, and inviting them to watch the birds, only served make the event more even more poignant. 

Working in the Falkland Islands and elsewhere in the New World where many people consider vultures to be “disgusting creatures,” the attitude of this butcher and that of a farmer whose restaurant we visited later in the day was refreshing, as was the wonder I saw in the eyes of several children in the parking lot of the butcher shop whose parents had brought them there to watch the feeding birds.

The people of South Korea are right on target.  Protecting and helping Eurasia’s largest scavenging raptor is the right thing to do.  Spreading this idea to other cultures is also the right thing to do, and I will begin working on that later this year.

In traveling to the symposium with as little luggage as possible I left my real camera behind in Pennsylvania.  The accompanying photo was taken from inside the barbeque restaurant.  Note the vultures outside the window in the paddy.  Better photos will follow in several days when several former Hawk Mountain interns send me theirs.  In the mean time, you may want to visit Wikipedia and Google Images for additional information and photos of this species.

A Birth at a Carcass

September 8, 2011
By Corinne Kendall, East Africa

            I was admiring the usual hoopla of twenty vultures grappling for a small kill when a few of the Marabou storks wandered behind the vehicle. They seemed to have found something more interesting than the meat in front of them and I turned around to see what they were up to. A small black lump sat on the ground about 100 meters behind us and the Marabous rushed it in their usual excitement to have found a new food source. But their joy was short lived as an angry Thompson gazelle mother, tail still raised from the pain of having just given birth, came rushing at the much larger birds. Tiny horns pointed forward she chased the birds away from her very new calf.

As the Marabou storks scattered, a Lappet-faced vulture landed to see what the commotion was about. It too was chased off within moments. Predators evaded, the mother now stood licking her newborn, pushing it to stand as she cleaned it of the afterbirth. The calf seemed tired but alert and tried straightening its little legs in a hapless effort to get up. It took nearly forty minutes, but the calf finally found the strength, motivated it seemed by the swollen teats of its mother that hung just behind its reach, and stood wobbly for the first time. It latched on and suckled as its mother continued her cleansing.

 

Happy Reunion

September 4, 2011

By Corinne Kendall, East Africa

            For the past three years, I have been adamant that it would be impossible to re-trap a tagged vulture. The birds simply go too far – spending much of the year outside of the Mara in areas where I can’t trap – too quickly and are thus difficult to locate even when a backpack is sending you their location. Today I proved myself wrong.

            Lillian is a young Lappet-faced vulture that I trapped in April of 2010. She currently has the longest working GSM-GPS unit and has been reliably sending her location four times a day for the last 16 months, giving me an incredible amount of data. Lillian has become something of a favorite as I have also resighted her more times than nearly any other bird.

After the initial trapping, we relocated her on a nest and were able to see her several times during those first few months when she was returning to her little home atop a small Gardenia tree each evening. Then in June I respotted her during some surveys in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania and starting a few weeks ago I had been seeing her every few days in the Mara.

Four days ago I saw her at a carcass with a lovely full crop, showing that despite being young she had learned how to hold her own and fight for a meal. Then yesterday I saw her sitting atop a short tree late in the evening settling in comfortably for the night. She was so low that it seemed you could almost reach her toes from the bottom of the tree and

I had now seen her so many times that she seemed to be begging to be re-trapped so with the rains coming in we decided to give it a go early the next morning. The unit had stopped working about ten days previously and I figured this might be our last chance to take the unit off her.

            Re-trapping Lillian would give us several advantages. For one, it would give us an opportunity to see how she was doing and ensure that the unit and backpack were not harming her in any way and perhaps improve on design for the future. It would also give us an opportunity to get the unit refurbished, far cheaper than purchase of a new unit, we could send the unit back and get a new one made from the old parts at a fraction of the cost. Finally, we could remove the backpack. Although the Teflon straps should wear through on their own, it would likely be another year before the unit would fall off without our assistance. Thus if we could actually trap Lillian again we could take it off a bit earlier, saving her the trouble of carrying around a 100 gram weight with no working battery.

            At 5 AM I was up and ready for action. Would she still be roosting in the same tree? Would we really be able to catch her? What other dangers would be waiting for us in the bush around her roost? We drove out in the dark of night, spotlight in hand with a plan that had thus far never worked.

When we arrived at the tree, we untied our newest trap of choice, a long pole with a noose at the end. The idea would be to spotlight the bird so she would sit still, while looping the noose around her neck. Then when she jumped from the tree we could carefully lower her to the ground and cut the backpack off.

Last time we had tried this a pride of lions had followed us to the tree and I was a bit more wary this time as we stepped out of the car onto the dark savannah. I scanned around with the stoplight but no eyes appeared and we walked towards the tree with the pole. Everything was working well; Lillian sat calmly in the tree as I shined the light on her and my field assistant, Wilson had the noose only inches from her beak, but then she flew. I followed her down and found myself chasing after her on foot.

In the dark, it seemed likely that she would be hesitant to take off and I might be able to sneak up behind her. She leaned forward as she trudged through the grass and I was amazed at her walking speed as I stepped gingerly behind her. After several minutes of walking I turned the light off for only a second, hoping to race up and grab her in the moment of darkness, but she took off again and this time I wasn’t able to see where she went. Realizing that I was now some distance from the car we turned around and hustled back, the moaning call of nearby hyenas following us as we did.

            The pole secured to the top of the vehicle we hatched a new plan to chase her while it was still dark. Now all we had to do was find her again. Given that Lillian is an 8 kg bird this might not seem so difficult, but she is also brown and can easily tuck behind a bush or into a grass tuff or perhaps strenuously flap her way back into a tree, so it took us an hour.

When we finally found her the sun was just beginning to breach the horizon but it was still cool and the air was calm. Amazingly she was still on the ground and had probably been tromping around trying to avoid these unusual predators (us) for the last hour. She was already exhausted, so it wasn’t long before I leapt from the car again and found myself chasing her on foot.

Running down a bird is a rather unusual experience. She was too tired to take off but that didn’t stop her from the occasional flap and she continually turned around (swiveling her flexible head) to squawk angrily beak opened wide. For my part, I just ran paying little attention to the other animals that hustled out of our way, my focus was the bird and nothing else. Eventually I caught up to her and tossed my jacket over her head. She lay down calmly in defeat and I quickly snipped the backpack straps removing the unit. She had a few missing feathers but was no worse the wear for caring our precious device for over a year. We had learned so much from her already but now she could go 100 grams lighter.

When we pulled the jacket off she sat and stared at me, unsure how to proceed. I walked up and gave her a gentle push on the tail feathers, which was greeted with one last meager attempt at a bite. Then she was up and off again. When we came back to check on her a few hours later, we found her sitting happily at a new carcass (wing tag still attached so we could identify her). I wondered as I always do after a capture, if we would ever see her again.

Two Units in the Hand

September 24, 2011
By Corinne Kendall, East Africa

             When something miraculous happens you don’t really expect it to happen again, so when we found another bird with a backpack that had given up the ghost I didn’t really think we could trap it. In fact it seemed fool-harden to even try, but the Ruppell’s vulture in question was already panting from its fights at the carcass and was very very full. The backpack in question had also slipped into a rather uncomfortable position and so I felt anxious to trap the bird not just to release it from the weight, but also from the discomfort of the unit. Plus, catching it would mean one more unit that could be refurbished and thus a bit more information that we could gain about these amazing birds.

So with no further adieu we were off and chasing the bird. It didn’t take long until I found myself outside the car running alongside it as it turned its snake-like neck in my direction. Ruppell’s vultures are considerably more aggressive than Lappet-faced and I gave it some distance before finally throwing the blanket over its head. I pulled out my Swiss army knife and with four swift snips the backpack was off and the bird was on its way.

Unit in hand I could now read the number and figure out which bird this was exactly (it didn’t have a wing tag like the other one). I had caught this bird in August last year in the Mara of course only to have its unit appear to stop working in December. It wouldn’t be until March that I got signal from the bird again since it made the longest journey of any of our study birds. This bird had gone all the way to Ethiopia and crossed into Sudan where it had spent nearly three months. Now a full year later it had returned to feed on the wildebeest in Kenya’s Mara and (unexpectedly for the bird) to suffer the same fate of being trapped again, though this time to have a little weight removed rather than added.

I really couldn’t believe it – I had just touched a bird that had been to two countries that I have never seen, a bird that had travelled thousands of kilometers to be here again; a bird that had truly taught us something with the unit and would now gift us a little more information with its unit back in my hand.

Adventures in the Triangle

September 19, 2011
By Corinne Kendall, East Africa

It is always an adventure to go to the Triangle. It is also rather far away. So we started off early and travelled to the two hours to the entrance along the Mara Bridge.

There is only one bridge to cross the Mara and this is it (unless you dare to travel the long rocky roads to the north of the park which will take you out and around the mighty river). On our way to the bridge, we came across a carcass and we drove off the road to get a closer look. As we neared the rowdy flock of vultures, we heard a small bleating shriek, the noise of an animal making one last plea for life. Oh God, I thought, we ran it over.

We looked left to see a reedbuck doe leaping from the brush and with eyes squinted closed in disgust, I looked right to see the inevitable – the calf we had run over. The brown fuzzy mass was more adorable than I could have imagined and lay flat tucked into a small sedge behind us. We reversed for a closer look. With a deep breath of despair, I looked at the small creature but there was no blood and no sign of a track mark. Was it dead? Suddenly the ears wiggled and I assumed the worst – we had injured it severely but not killed it.

A friend joining us for the day stepped from the car and lay a hand slowly and gently on the animal’s back. The same mournful bleat emerged from its body and it pushed itself up on the wobbly legs of an infant designed for hiding and promptly, decisively, ran away.

We hadn’t killed it after all. We had run over it, but hadn’t actually hit it, just covered it with the car for a  few frightening moments. My feeling of relief quickly returned us to the task at hand and the observations at the carcass began.

            An hour later we were back on the road heading towards the bridge once more. We arrived to find the stench of drown wildebeest and the sound of fighting vultures though the primary bird was actually the Marabou stork. These partially immersed and immensely rotten carcasses were perfect for their long wading legs and beak and they wandered around poking and proding each carcass with glee.

After the usual negotiation with the rangers at the gate we made our way into the triangle. Just a few kms in we came across a group of feasting lions with vehicles a bit too close for comfort. One was following the lions closely as they moved away from their kill and stopped with a lionness’ head just beyond the driver’s reach out the front window.

A second lion moved to the back of the car and actually went under the car for a closer look. The lion seemed to be rummaging around under there and the driver drove forward in an effort to escape this unexpected attack. As he neared the road it was clear something was wrong. We had stopped along the road to watch a Hooded vulture and Tawny eagle who had arrived at the carcass and the tour guide now drove up to us looking for help. The lions had chewed through his fuel pipe he explained as he questioned whether we had anything he could repair it with. I gave him the dirtiest look I could muster for driving too close in the first place and then handed him a roll of duct tape.

            We continued on the main road until we came across another odd sight – two tourists out of the car, grabbing some glistening creature with their bare hands. I was confused, but mildly impressed. What brave ladies to go after a snake like that, but what were they doing? As we neared we could see the slimy bodies lying in the ditch along a large pool of water. Catfish had haplessly followed the stream to their dooms and these women were trying to save them. A rather sad, though valiant, effort that was unlikely to result in any real savior given the catfish would likely repeat their folly, but I grabbed a bucket and joined them (partially as Wilson had said he had seen a lungfish which would have been an exciting first for me).

As a team we herded the fish into the bucket and I flung them back in the pond one by one. Satisfied that we had saved them all, the ladies returned to their vehicle and I refilled the bucket with our vulture trapping supplies before we continued on. It wouldn’t be until four hours later, when we passed the pond again, that I would realize that a hippo had been hiding there all along. How fortunate we were that the disturbance of tossing catfish had scared rather than annoyed it.

Wild Tsavo

August 30, 2011
By Corinne Kendall
East Africa

             Based on our movement work, we know that vultures from the Mara spend about five percent of their time in the two Tsavo National Parks. For this reason, I decided that it might be worth exploring the area one more time to get a feel for this unique ecosystem during the dry season as well.

If the Mara is the land of plenty, then Tsavo is the world of giants. Huge red-dusted elephants walk silently upon the dry earth and dig incredible holes in their constant search for water. Beautiful baobabs are scattered around, their fuzzy fruits littering the ground as their impressive trunks and finger-like branches cover the landscape. Hyraxes can be seen in the many rocky outcroppings and we were lucky to find one climbing a small branch reaching hopefully for some tiny green berries. Pale chanting goshawks were the bird of plenty here though we saw only a handful of vultures.

A Pile of Vultures

August 25, 2011
By Corinne Kendall

It isn’t often that you get to watch a carcass from start to finish, but I got lucky. We came upon a single lioness finishing off a fresh wildebeest kill. On her own, she was only able to consume perhaps a quarter of the carcass and with vultures, hyenas, and jackals gathering around the lion was beginning to feel the pressure.  So she left.

Two hyenas moved in first feeding for a half hour they ate the bulk of the carcass with the occasional jackal or vulture rushing in to steal a soft piece of organs. Then it was the jackal’s turn. The pair rushed the vultures viciously, leaping and snarling to keep them away. The little dogs fed greedily, but their small stomaches were soon rounded and they slowly moved away.

Down to the last half, the vultures swarmed, forming perhaps the most perfect pile I am yet to have seen. The wriggling brown mass of wings bounced above its prey as all fifty heads vanished into the food. Occassionally a full bird would eject itself from the mass standing on top of its comrades to gain enough leverage to leap away.

Even with the mammals gone, the feeding frenzy of White-backed vultures was soon interrupted by their larger brethren, the Lappet-faced vultures. A pair jumped onto the mass, biting down on the backs of the birds beneath it. Once removed, the damage to the carcass was clear, perhaps only ten percent remained. The Lappet-faced vultures fed slowly and laboriously, ripping and tearing the last few tough pieces of tissue, while Hooded vultures wandered the edges of the carcass finding small treasures in the intestinal remnants. A pair of Tawny eagles made a brief appearance, but could do little more than steal a small piece of organs to fly away with as the vultures so clearly dominated the scene.

In the Tree

August 21, 2011
By Corinne Kendall

Carcasses can be found almost everywhere. Over the course of the migration, thousands will be found in the river. Lions and hyenas often enjoy dragging their kills into the darkest recesses of the bush but more often then not, carcasses are lying out in the open plains just waiting for the vultures to find them.

On rare occasions, dead animals can get dragged into trees. In my first year, I had the pleasure of watching two White-headed vultures feed on a treed Thompson gazelle carcass before being pushed off by some tourists who seemed more interested in the carcass than the birds.

Today we came across a treed wildbeest, the head dangling from a branch with much of the body consumed. Sitting behind it was the cause – a large female leopard fast asleep after her efforts lay stretched limbs hanging below the branches and head resting on her paw. She was completely at peace – content with today’s efforts and meal.

We sat with her for a while and eventually she decided to get up. Her eyes opened first and were slowly followed by her sitting up, looking rather unsure that she was really ready to leave. She hissed a few times while moving the carcass around, trying to decide it was worth leaving. When she finally leapt down, it was to grab one last piece (part of the spine), which she wandered off with, back into the bush. The carcass was well hidden beneath the branches and although vultures flew overhead I was pretty sure none would land here.

Love Bite

July 30, 2011
By Corinne Kendall

Vultures aren’t generally known for their affection, but on rare occasions you do see acts of kindness. Merely the fact that vultures spend so much time at the carcass long after they are full is perhaps a sign of how much they enjoy each other’s company.

Allopreening, when one animal cleans another, is surprisingly common and I have seen it between members of the same species for all five species present in the Mara. Lappet-faced vulture pairs will lovingly comb through the feathers of their mate and juvenile White-backed vultures will preen each other as they stand on a mound near a carcass waiting their turn to feed. Today was the first time I had seen “preening” between species. A full juvenile Lappet-faced vulture stood next some other successful birds of the White-backed variety. She tilted her head and eyed them carefully as if this was perhaps her first close glance at one. She inspected the neighboring bird with interest. Then she reached towards it, gently, not in the typical aggressive style of feeding birds, but simply so that she might touch the other bird with her beak. The White-back stood by calmly, closing its eyes during the tender embrace. But then the inspection got a bit too personal. Perhaps enticed by the red (carcass-like) patches on the White-backs shoulders, the young Lappet went in for a nibble, testing to see if these “pieces of meat” might come off. In offense, the White-backed scooted back just out of reach of the next love bite.

SuperMom

July 25, 2011
By Corinne Kendall 

Carnivores have it easier in the Mara, especially this time of year when the park is filled with wildebeest. As I drive around searching for carcasses, the number of lion, leopard, and cheetah kills has been staggering (though the number of vultures at these carcasses is usually minimal). Thus it shouldn’t be too surprising that some carnivore moms are atypically successful.

For no animal could this be more true than the cheetah I saw today. We drove up to see just one cheetah sitting in the short grass under the shade of a small Orange Leaf Blossom bush. She didn’t have a kill and I was just about to head out when I realized there were many more spots in the bushes. In the fact, the spots of not one but seven cheetahs were clearly visible.

Although cheetahs can often have large litters it is unusual for more than two or three of the cubs to survive. Yet lying in a heap of freckles were six healthy nearly full grown cheetah cubs. Super Mom had made it happen. Having had a short rest, Super Mom was back to business and got up with a large stretch and a yawn before ducking low to get a closer look at some nearby Thomson gazelles. The cubs took interest too getting up one by one to see if it was time to hunt. Mom had decided they better wait and returned to a bush near the cubs for another much deserved nap.