Birds of prey centre striving to save 'nature's binmen'

Efforts to save endangered vultures in South Africa are being boosted by conservationists working at a wildlife centre in Cheshire.

African vulture species have declined by up to 97% during the last 50 years, according to wildlife organisation BirdLife International.

Now the Gauntlet Birds of Prey Centre in Knutsford is trying to help reverse that trend.

"Vultures are vital in every way because they're a clean-up service - they're pretty much like nature's binmen," explained Jake Bessant, who works at the centre. "They get rid of carcasses, they stop the spread of disease, they clean up water sources - they've just got a massive importance because they do a job that not many animals can do."

Jake and his sister Daisy grew up surrounded by birds of prey after their father Graham opened the centre 30 years ago.

It raises awareness by holding education events and flying shows, describing the species that live there as their "bird ambassadors".

Due to having very strong stomach acid, vultures can consume animals with diseases like rabies and cholera without being affected.

Vultures are still one of the most threatened groups of birds on the planet, however, and are in huge decline due to poaching and poisoning.

They also have only one chick a year, with many species not reaching sexual maturity until the age of five to seven.

Daisy, 25, explained the critical role played by vultures in delicate ecosystems.

When their numbers dwindle, she said: "You'll start to see this massive knock-on effect - species that rely on the vulture to tell them where the meal is [by circling in the skies above them] - lose that signal.

"The vulture is the glue that holds everything together - suddenly everything starts to fall apart."

Jake, 23, said that vultures have an unwarranted bad press.

"A vulture's no threat to a human," he said.

"They're completely friendly - a lot of them will live around villages. You've got an animal that you can trust your kids to play around."

When vultures are no longer around, he said "feral dogs" fill the void, some of which have rabies.

"You wouldn't think this adds such a domino effect, but [when] you lose that one animal, it just spirals out of control."

For the last 18 years the centre has funded conservation projects.

This includes deploying a "vulture ambulance", based in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Believed to be the first of its kind, it can get to the site of mass poisonings and save birds of prey.

Each year Jake and Daisy make trips to South Africa to work with different projects in places including Dronfield nature reserve and Mokala National Park in Kimberley.

Mokala has been declared a "vulture safe zone" thanks to the work of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), which Jake works with during his trips.

He explained: "We'll climb up the the trees of white-backed vultures, we'll take the baby, we work with an amazing charity who have the scientists who can run multiple tests and occasionally even fit them with GPS backpacks.

"If we record the areas where young birds are going to then you can protect those areas and hopefully you see an increase in population."

His sister Daisy supports a charity called Vulpro which helps with the rehabilitation and re-release of injured birds.

They also have captive breeding programmes in which injured birds that cannot be released can still help to improve populations.

Back in Knutsford, the centre has had a record-breaking year, with 29 bird of prey chicks having been successfully hatched.

With 180 birds now living there, the team says it has outgrown its current facility and has applied for planning permission to build a new one for its growing conservation work.

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