Endangered vultures face added threat

January 30 2014 at 09:17am 

By Tony Carnie

Durban - Two endangered African vulture species face danger from dozens of new wind turbines in Lesotho, the world bird conservation network Birdlife International warned on Wednesday.

Reacting to the approval of a wind farm near the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg world heritage site in KwaZulu-Natal, Birdlife said the 42 turbines were likely to have “severe impacts” on vulture conservation.

The Letseng wind farm is in one of the main breeding and roosting grounds of the Bearded Vulture and Cape Vulture.

There are only 100 breeding pairs of Bearded Vulture in southern Africa, with nearly 60 percent of the population in Lesotho. This species is listed as endangered, but is expected to be relisted as critically endangered in the next edition of the Red Data book of birds.

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