ENUGU, NIGERIA - Across Nigeria,
there's a rising demand for vultures, and poachers are driving the local
population of four large vulture species to near extinction.
The Nigerian Conservation Foundation is
now placing vulture preservation high on its agenda, hoping to revive the
threatened population. Abidemi Balogun, a senior special conservation officer
with the foundation's educational unit, is engaging with local communities
where superstitions and folklore about the birds persist.
"Someone actually asked me how do they
identity the evil ones because there's been a belief that vultures are evil
birds," Balogun told VOA with a laugh.
She's been with the foundation for
eight years and said vulture poaching was not taken seriously in the past.
Spiritual practices
She said that the birds aren't being
hunted for consumption as much as they're being killed for spiritual practices.
In 2017, the foundation conducted a market survey to see how the birds were
traded.
"Some of the findings that we made
is that the head is used for ritual purposes and the head is the most expensive
part of it," she said.
In local markets, vulture feathers are
sold for about 100 naira, or less than 50 cents. But the head can fetch up to
25,000 naira, or about $70.
In Nigeria's diverse cultural
landscape, the beliefs around vultures vary widely. In the southwest, where
they're called igĂșn, vultures are seen as sacred in traditional spirituality.
According to folklore, they can be used to communicate with the dead or to
appease the gods in elaborate sacrificial ceremonies.
In northern Nigeria, they are consumed.
But they're also sold by traders known as yan shinfida to be used in
traditional medicine and spiritual healing.
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