Dear supporters,

As most of you know, key threats to Kenya’s birds of prey include electrocution/collision with energy infrastructure, poisoning, human-wildlife conflict and impacts associated with habitat degradation. Most of these threats led to casualties featured in this newsletter. Jane the Ayres’s Hawk-Eagle had hit an unyielding thin object head on, probably a fence or power line. The Lappet-faced vulture had been poisoned. The Diani Black Sparrowhawk was a victim of human-wildlife conflict and had its feathers cut as retaliation. The African Crowned Eagle was also a victim of human-wildlife conflict with a clear underlying cause of habitat degradation, outside protected areas there are few places where they can live and hunt their natural prey.

Because many people don’t know what to do when they find an injured or dead raptor we have created a page on our website explaining what to do and when and how to contact us.

We also want to draw your attention to this petition, created by our good friend James Christian, “Make our Kenyan Power Poles Safe for Birds”. Signatures to this petition will be sent to The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) to ask them to safeguard our power poles for birds. The more signatures the more powerful the message so if you haven't signed already, please sign the petition now!

Ayres's Hawk Eagle released

The Ayres’s Hawk Eagle that Simon rehabilitated was released on the 6th of March with a lightweight gps backpack. As far as we know, Jane was one of 5 Ayres’s Hawk Eagles ever to be in captivity (during her rehab) and the first one tracked by gps. The map below shows she's settled in on Mount Kenya which is a perfect forest for an Ayres’s. The pattern of her movement shows her in a nest which means she has settled in a territory and is incubating which is very exciting news.

Read more about Jane, the rehab Ayres’s Hawk Eagle on our blog.

Young vultures rehabbed and released

On Monday the 25th of April a young Ruppell’s vulture was brought in. He was found uninjured, but very very thin. We figure he got himself lost on one of his first flights In the first week of his rehab at Naivasha Raptor Centre he was first fattened up by Shiv and his team and on the 30th of May joined the other vultures to learn how to be social and fend for himself.

On the 15th May a young White-backed vulture was brought in that had fallen out of its nest and couldn’t be returned. Both vultures were making good progress and were fitted with gps backpacks on June 28 to be released on the 2nd of July in Soysambu Conservancy.

Because both birds are very young we closely monitored their movements the first week after the release. The Ruppell’s vulture has since visited the vulture wall in Hell’s Gate NP, the Ruppell's colony at Kwenia and is now in Chyulu Hills.

The White-backed vulture at first gave us some sleepless nights, not moving around much. We checked his physical position every day and were delighted to find him in the company of other vultures on the afternoon of July 7th. Later we confirmed his presence on a zebra carcass so we knew he was getting food. The map below shows he settles in close to his release site, Soysambu Conservancy.

Released Lappet-faced vulture back in our care

On the 4th of April a Lappet-faced vulture was brought in after a suspected poisoning. After being rehabbed at Soysambu Raptor Centre he was released back into the Mara on May 21st. His gps backpack offered us the opportunity to closely monitor his progress and we soon found out he was not doing well, in fact he never flew or fed himself. So after a week we had to again rescue the vulture and bring it to Naivasha Raptor Centre where it now lives with Horace, the other Lappet-faced vulture, in the vulture enclosure. It’s a young bird so it will take some time but he or she might be able to breed in captivity one day. Lappet-faced vultures are red-listed as Vulnerable with a declining population and it’s not unlikely that one day captive-breeding programmes are an essential tool for the management of this species.

Diani Black Sparrowhawk

On May 29 we received a message leading to the rescue of a female Black Sparrowhawk in Diani. From the picture it was clear that most of her flight feathers had been cut and we knew she had a long road head.

The bird was sent to Diani Colobus Conservation to be in the care of their vet Dr Eric Onsongo, until we could arrange a flight to bring her to Soysambu Raptor Centre. Richard and Clare Hooper generously offered to fly her to Soysambu Raptor Centre for which we are forever grateful. She arrived on June 10th and the damage to her wings was truly horrendous. The only way to get her moulted into a perfect set of new feathers was to imp her. A first attempt was made on June 24 using feathers of a Steppe Buzzard as we are not in the possession of a full set of female Black Sparrowhawk feathers. Unfortunately these feathers didn’t stand a chance as she is so powerful that they dropped off one by one after a few of her wingbeats. So we really need to find her a proper set of feathers to imp her with because without she’ll never grow a set of healthy new feathers. Learn more about imping in Simon’s blog post A cruel act that took seconds to do will take us a year to recover.

African Crowned Eagle

On June 29th a report came in of a juvenile Crowned Eagle held captive at Ithe Kahuno, Nyeri. The eagle apparently was preying on cats and as a retaliation the eagle was trapped, taunted and put in an enclosure without food or water. The eagle had a severe wound on his wing which was full of pus and maggots. He must have been laying there with flies buzzing around him and laying eggs while he got weaker and weaker. It took more than a week before his situation came to light. Thankfully immediately after the first report many people stepped in to help and he was flown to Soysambu Raptor Centre the next day by Nick Sadron and David Gulden.

The first priority was to stabilise the Crowned Eagle; cleaning the wound and exterpating all the maggots, feeding and watering him and giving him antibiotics.

On the 2nd of July the eagle stood up in his box during the night and during the day was more responsive. His rescue was widely shared on social media and people were requesting an update on his situation. So we shared that he was improving and it looked like he was out of the woods.

Two days later the situation deteriorates and the eagle is not looking good. A wildlife vet visits Soysambu Raptor Centre and confirms Simon’s suspicion that the wound is caused by a projectile, probably a blunt-pointed arrow. A week passes and we still have to force-feed him as he shows no interest in food at all. Every night alarms are set to change his hot water bottle as he can’t properly regulate his temperature. During the day he is kept warm by holding him, putting him in the sun and next to the fire on cold days. On 12th July we were finally able to take him to the vet in Nakuru for X-rays which revealed a broken humerus which is already rapidly healing but out of position, as you can see in the X-ray picture.

We think he might also have brain damage and it's quite possible this resolves by itself over many months. As you can understand this juvenile Crowned Eagle is not a bird we consider for release. We do hope that in time he improves and can have a good quality of life in captivity where he can contribute to conservation as an educational bird and some day even as part of a captive breeding programme.

Mara Raptor Project

July is one of the busiest months for the Mara Raptor Project! Not only is it the start of the high season for tourism, but it is also peak breeding season for most of the raptors that nest in the Mara. Our team is busy monitoring over 100 active nests in the main game reserve. These nests include 20 Endangered Lappet-faced Vulture nests and 58 Critically Endangered White-backed Vulture nests. Our fingers are crossed for a bumper breeding season. We are busy trying to raise the funds to expand our team so that next year we can triple our nest monitoring effort in the greater Mara ecosystem.

Our poisoning response and vulture rescue efforts have continued this year. In partnership with KWS, Cottar’s Wildlife and Conservation Trust, and Naboisho Conservancy we have rescued 4 different vultures that we presume were poisoned. Two of the four birds were released, one bird is still in rehab, and one bird is unfortunately showing signs of neurological damage and is currently being assessed at our Naivasha Raptor Centre.

In July, we began developing our “Mara base” on the edge of Olderikesi Conservancy. We just completed a double container garage and storage area and hope to install rainwater harvesting infrastructure, a solar system, and a small bridge over the stream through the plot in the coming months. We will keep you all posted!

Kwenia Vulture Sanctuary

As we come to the end of Phase 1 of the Kwenia Project we are happy to share news as to progress in establishing the Kwenia Vulture sanctuary and Lake Kwenia Wetland Reserve.

Many community meetings have been held on site over the past year, and with very positive support from the landowners we have settled on a boundary for the Sanctuary consisting of three zones - the cliffs (A), the lake (B) and the surrounding lakeshore (C). Each zone will have different management priorities that will be developed further over the next year using the now complete first edition of the Management Plan.

We have also established the Kwenia Vulture Trust whose Board will be made up of landowners and partners. All future Sanctuary management decisions will pass through the Board. 

Kenya Wildlife Service have participated in the establishment of the Sanctuary and very soon we will be formally registering the sanctuary with KWS. We are also in the process of registering the sanctuary with Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA).

During the first year of the project we were able to employ 8 Raptor Guardians, and take on a Wildlife Research and training Institute (WRTI) intern. The Raptor Guardians have been learning to identify raptors along the cliffs and the surrounding areas. They have also been patrolling the Sanctuary area and ensuring that the cliffs and other wildlife are not disturbed. Most recently they found a large python which would have previously been killed, and they are now protecting it and teaching fellow community members not to kill it.

We would like to thank ICFC, the landowners, the area chiefs, KWS, KWCA and Robert Kaai, the Project Manager, all of whom have made this project possible, and we look forward to continuing to build the Sanctuary in Phase 2 starting in August 2022.

In the media

• African Birds of Prey: Former Abundance and Catastrophic Decline - by Simon Thomsett, recorded presentation, Leadership for Conservation in Africa (LCA)

• Poison, persecution and people: why Kenya’s raptors are disappearing

• For Kenya's birds of prey, power lines are a deadly enemy

• Why we should all be worried about a vulture apocalypse

Support Kenya Bird of Prey Trust

We would like to thank all of our sponsors for their generous grants and donations to the Kenya Bird of Prey Trust. With your continued support we:

• Rescue and rehabilitate bird of prey, many of which are returned to the wild

• Respond to raptor poisoning events

• Advocate for safer powerline transmission to prevent power-pole electrocutions of raptors

• Raise awareness of raptors amongst all Kenyans and school children in particular

• Monitor raptor populations and research their ecology to effectively guide conservation work

• Protect critically important raptor habitats like the Kwenia cliffs, home to the largest Ruppell’s Vulture colony in Southern Kenya

You can help us make an even greater difference for Kenya’s birds of prey.
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Thank you for your support

Our work to understand, protect and restore Kenya's birds of prey wouldn't be possible without the generous support of our partners and donors.  
Together we are making a difference!