Another busy summer of fieldwork has come to an end for the Central Asian Vultures Project and the partners, with our teams working across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to monitor vultures, deploy satellite tags and better understand the threats facing these remarkable birds.
This year, our field teams tagged five Cinereous Vultures and seven Egyptian Vultures in Central Asia. These birds will provide valuable information about their movements, habitats and survival as they disperse across the region and begin to establish their own breeding territories.
Tracking the Next Generation
One of the most exciting aspects of long-term satellite tracking is the opportunity to follow individual birds over several years. Some of the Egyptian Vultures we have tagged as juveniles in their nests are now reaching breeding age and beginning to establish territories of their own.
Several of our tagged birds are already associated with breeding territories, including Anya, who has become part of a pair, and other birds that are beginning to show signs of settling into breeding areas.
It is an exciting possibility to follow not only individual vultures, but potentially generations of the same family. If these birds successfully breed, we may one day be able to tag their offspring and follow the movements of two generations from the same territory.
This kind of long-term information is incredibly valuable for understanding how Egyptian Vultures use the landscape and which areas are most important for their survival.
A Worrying Discovery in Uzbekistan
Alongside tagging and monitoring vultures, the team also spent time investigating one of the most serious threats facing birds of prey in the region: poisoning.
In Uzbekistan, we collected information from livestock breeders and local people about the use of poisoned baits. These baits are used in several regions to control predators such as jackals and foxes. While they may be intended for these target species, poisoned carcasses and baits can also pose a deadly risk to scavenging birds such as vultures.
This year, the team was able to recover the satellite transmitter from a bird that had been poisoned. The bird was Arys, the very first Egyptian Vulture tagged by the project in 2021.
Arys had survived his first years with a satellite tag and was just reaching breeding age. He had occupied a territory and was beginning an important new stage of his life. Losing him to poisoning is particularly disappointing, but recovering his transmitter means that we can learn more about what happened and continue to build our understanding of the threat.
The information gathered from local communities, together with the data from satellite-tracked birds, will help us to understand where poisoning is taking place and how it may be affecting vulture populations.
Building a picture of vulture survival
Every field season adds another piece to the puzzle. The satellite tags allow us to follow vultures far beyond the places where we can observe them directly, revealing the routes they take, the areas they depend on and the threats they encounter along the way. At the same time, working with local communities and conservation partners helps us understand the threats that cannot be seen from satellite data alone. There is still much work to do, but with each tagged bird and every year of monitoring, we are building a clearer picture of the lives of Central Asia’s vultures.
The hope is that, in the years ahead, we will not only be able to follow the birds we have tagged, but also see the next generation take flight from the territories they have established. For now, the fieldwork continues, and so does the work to ensure that these magnificent birds have a future across Central Asia.
With thanks
This fieldwork would not be possible without the dedication and support of our project partners, field teams and the local communities who contribute their knowledge and help us to monitor vultures across the region.
We are also extremely grateful to our supporters, the Hawk Conservancy Trust, the Vulture Conservation Foundation and the Ornithological Society for the Middle East, whose support makes it possible to continue satellite tagging, field monitoring and research into the threats facing Central Asia’s vultures.
Our thanks go to everyone involved in this year’s field season. Each tagged bird, each piece of information gathered and each conversation in the field brings us one step closer to understanding these birds and protecting them for the future.