THE PROJECT

A Mission – making it possible 

Bred 4 the Wild is a cross-border, cross-cultural conservation programme of people standing together to prevent the extinction of the magnificent Bearded Vulture. The last remnant group of this iconic scavenger lives high up in the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains that serrate the border between South Africa and Lesotho. Over recent decades the population has declined by at least 30%, with less than 350 birds now left in the wild. IUCN recommendation that when a species drops below 1000 wild individuals, captive conservation measures should be considered to ensure their survival. Bred 4 the Wild Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme is such a proactive initiative.

In 2022 the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission conducted a Population Viability Analysis for our critically endangered Bearded Vulture. The baseline model indicated that at the current rate of decline our wild population in southern Africa would drop to 62 birds (20 breeding pairs) in 50 years. Testing various conservation actions, it was concluded that to prevent species extinction, the Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme must build a captive flock as a genetic reservoir and release 6 chicks a year to supplement the dwindling in-situ population

OUR PURPOSE:

  • to conserve >90% of the remaining genetic diversity and, more importantly,

produce sufficient chicks for release to supplement the wild population

But how did it all begin?

The Breeding manager and programme founder relates…….

“It all started with a single bird, a beautiful near-adult female called Leseli, meaning ‘bird of light’ in Sotho, the local language of the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. Leseli, when I met her in 2012, had been confiscated from a Sangoma (witchdoctor) and brought into the Raptor Rescue rehabilitation centre for care. A rarity indeed, she was only the second of her kind to be seen in captivity in twenty years in southern Africa.

When placed in a long flight tunnel to prepare her for release, however, she didn’t fly. Just as a child, raised in a cardboard box can’t be expected to know how to run, so Leseli was yet to realize the potential of her wings. She was transferred into the care of the African Bird of Prey Sanctuary just outside Pietermaritzburg as a long-term captive.

The idea of her living out her life alone, while her wild counterparts continued to decline, seemed too awful to contemplate. During my 20 career in raptor captive management I have worked with many non-releasable rehabilitation birds; end of the line raptors that can no longer be released due to physical or behavioural defects. In each one of them I learnt to see alternative potential and it ultimately these birds that have been my greatest teachers.

Thus birthed the idea, so big that it still scares me.  I personally am called upon to perform at the full extent of my ability and recruit the best of the best of human heart and capacity to support our birds. So as the programme began, instead of being redundant, Lesedi became the visual surrogate parent to over 20 chicks, pivotal for the captive flock and perhaps even the very hope of her species. The puppet raised hatched chicks were transferred into Leseli’s rearing enclosure at twenty days of life. This visual exposure to Lesedi ensured that they grew up behaviourally sound and thus usable breeding blocks of the supplementation programme.

Tragically Leseli passing away in 2023, just before Christmas and certainly before her time. Autopsy results showed a ruptured aorta; a broken heart. Our hearts broke too, but this dear bird made the impossible, possible”

                                                                                                                                                                                                    Shannon

What started as a conservation project, has proved to be so much more.  Perhaps the programme’s value is also  in the hope it represents, a commodity which is like fresh water to a thirsty world. It is my sincere prayer that, in response to the freedom of wild places and wild things, hearts will be opened to the call to care .  Have you ever heard the ‘call of the wild’?

Project Framework

The Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme is part of a greater Bearded Vulture Recovery Programme, endorsed by the Department of Environmental Affairs in South Africa and Lesotho’s Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture. Together in 2018 these two countries (custodian to the wild Bearded vulture species) agreed upon a Southern African Bearded Vulture Recovery Strategy & Action Plan providing a comprehensive long-term strategy with a detailed actions towards conservation goals and targets to recover this critically endangered vulture  population. The Bearded Vulture Recovery Programme is guided by a bilateral Task Force (established in 2006) which implements this Recovery Strategy and promotes collaborative and coordinated international conservation actions across the species range. To prevent extinction of the Bearded Vulture in Southern Africa a range of objectives tackling poisoning, safe food, habitat and persecution threats to the species must be met. Additional to its survival is the critical population supplementation through our formal breeding programme.

BVRP long Video description : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08CruJj44UU

BVRP Short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMzndD4Wq9Y

Ensuring international best practise, the Conservation Planning Specialist Group (part of the IUCN Species Survival Commission) came onboard in 2022, concluding a Population Viability Analysis. Modelling the wild population trajectory and investigating various conservation approaches, it was confirmed that only through a reduction of in-situ mortality and captive breeding supplementation can we ensure species continuance.

Species Survival Commission identified targets:   Ex situ Recommendations

There is a critical and urgent need for an ex-situ (captive) population to support the recovery of the Bearded Vulture in the wild.

  1. To effectively support the recovery of the wild population a minimum of 32 birds are required in the captive population. This can be achieved by harvesting 6 eggs per annum for the next 3 years, and thereafter between 2 and 4 eggs every 4 years to maintain an appropriate age structure and genetic diversity.
  2. Should an increase in productivity in situ of 5% not be achieved, then the ex-situ population needs to be increased to 42 birds, which would allow for increased supplementation back into the wild.

The captive breeding programme is to start releasing birds by approx. 2026.

Specialist Breeding Station

A dedicated breeding station has been established near the mountain village of Underberg within the species natural Maloti-Drakensberg home range.  Here, in natural climatic conditions, enclosures are being constructed into natural cliff faces to receive the maturing birds and to create micro-habitats for optimum breeding potential. The Breeding Programme currently holds 26 birds and ex-situ expansion target is to reach the 32-bird target in the year 2026.

The footprint of this establishment will ultimately include enclosures and the support infrastructure for these 16 breeding pairs. This is the size of the required founder population and genetic reserve as determined by an IUCN species conservation plan (completed in 2022) to fulfil the requirement of in-situ population supplementation.

This 6ha donated property leasehold is being made available to by the Williamson-Storah farming family to ensure programme continuity and safety of the birds. Breeding enclosures are 18m x 9m in size and will comprise of a structural shell built into the natural cliff-face to give the long-term captive inhabitants the best quality of life possible The rearing enclosure, containing two nest potholes to raise harvested chicks is in use annually. Support infrastructure will ultimately include a food prep and incubation room, workshop, sickbay, office war-room and two staff cottages. Water for the enclosures is gravity fed from a local spring and the power supply will need to be solar energy. Both power and support infrastructure are priority requirements in this year of writing, 2025

Meet the Team

Shannon Hoffman

Bearded Vulture Breeding Manager and founder, Shannon Hoffman began her ‘hands on’ and full time experience with birds of prey in the year 2000 in Dubai. Here she lived and worked in the Arabian desert with falcons, horses and camels. On returning home Shannon wished to use these raptor handling skills to translate the many threats that face our indigenous raptors into concepts that South Africans could see and understand. In 2006 the ‘African Bird of Prey Sanctuary’, a public awareness facility, was born. By 2022 this facility and the birds for which it was custodian was under severe threat due to illegal land grabbing and so Shannon evacuated the precious charges and now manages the ‘Bred 4 the Wild’ Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme, a specialist role to which her unique skill set is suited.

Shayna Asherwood

Zambian born, Shayna Asherwood started volunteering at the African Bird of Prey Sanctuary when she was at school, showing an affinity towards raptor training, behaviour and management. She then went onto study, completing a BSc in Environmental Science and Geography. Shayna has returned for the last three breeding season’s to be the programme’s aviculturist assisting to hatch and raise the harvested eggs. Her eye for details and honest heart make her an asset to the programme and the birds

Jenny Streatfield

Jenny is a valued part of the Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme always stepping up to support programme requirements whether at management level (as a member of the BVBP Steering Committee) or operationally at the breeding station. Trained as a hydrologist, but a bushveld conservationist at heart, Jenny provides practical and applied support of our Founder population. 

Graeme Bruschi

Durban based rock climber Graeme Bruschi is lead climber of our harvest team. Well qualified, he sits on the Mountain Club of South Africa (MCSA) KZN committee as well as the MSAR Search and Rescue team. Grae describes himself as have a strong affinity for hiking and climbing in the Drakensberg mountains and (luckily) for us he “enjoys long drives on bumpy roads and carrying heavy bags”. A steady heart and sense of humour is obviously vital for this job!

Chandra David

We are honoured to have Chandra David join us annually from the USA. With over 28years experience in the Condor Recovery Programme  under her belt we can’t ask for better guidance in the areas of harvest, incubation, hatch and raising. She stands out in the team, as the one who ‘talks funny” and can’t drive on the “right” side of the road!

Scelo Shoba

Scelo Shoba is a Underberg resident and is our jack of all trades at the Breeding station. He joined the team in building the breeding enclosures, but his affinity to the well being of the birds soon made him a valued team member as on-site keeper, groundsman security

Dr Oliver Tatham

Ollie is our programme vet and an African Raptor Trustee, donating his time and over 20 years of expertise towards the surgery and medical treatment of injured and ill birds of prey in the process of rescue and rehabilitation for release. Ollie, although highly skilled and experienced in his own right, is a perfect man for the job as he constantly pursues the cutting edge best practise liaising with colleagues internationally to provide the highest quality of care  warranted for  the critically endangered status of our species.

Bill Howells

Bill Howells sits on our BVBP Steering committee in the position of Independent In-situ specialists. Having spent his career in formal conservation both in Zimbabwe and South Africa Bill understands the working cogs of the industry. With his personal interest in raptors, (especially vultures) and hours of field work on the ground and population monitoring from the air, coupled with his understanding of physiology and data collection gleaned from years of taxidermy and egg collection, Bill provides us with invaluable project support both in technical programme management and in-situ breeding behaviour monitoring.

Shobana Makhubu

As a member of the Bearded Vulture Task Force for many years and with an extensive understanding of vulture biology and the nesting territories in Lesotho, Shobana is the obvious choice for the programme’s liaison officer and private species expert, representing the mountain kingdom on the Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme Steering Committee.

Kim Fraser

Offering her time and expertise to the Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme, local Underberg farmer Kim Fraser has natural rehabilitator’s heart and practical. Trained in animal science Kim expands our management capacity at the specialist breeding station whenever necessary.

Dr Alex Llopis Dell

Dr Alex Llopis Dell not only sits on the Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme Steering Committee but is the Captive Breeding Manager and Coordinator of the Bearded vulture European Endangered Species Programme (EEP). Alex ‘s extensive expertise and commitment to the species on both sides of the Equator is remarkable and he is always just on the other end of a call to offer advise and support to the southern hemisphere ‘newbies’ on the block

Born in Switzerland and based at the Catalan recovery centre “Centre de Fauna Vallcalent” in Spain. He began his training as veterinarian studying at the Vienna University. During this time he collaborated with the Bearded Vulture Reintroduction Project in the Alps in both Austria and Switzerland, and volunteered with the legendary Hans Frey at the Richard Faust Zentrum. Since 1996, he has worked directly with the breeding of bearded vultures in Europe and sits on the Vulture Conservation Foundation Board. It truly is an honour to work a man of this experience in the field of formal vulture conservation breeding.

African Raptor Trust

South Africa has one of the most diverse varieties of birds of prey found anywhere in the world. Even though 81 raptor species live alongside us every day, most people are unaware that they even exist, or that many human activities threaten their survival. Just under a quarter of these magnificent birds are now listed in the Red Data Book as rare, threatened or endangered. Active conservation management is required to ensure their survival.

Birds of prey are important indicators of environmental stability. Being at the top of the food chain, their presence in a habitat shows that all the lower elements of that ecosystem remain intact. A healthy environment is as important to  humans as it is to raptors. So, by taking measures to protect these birds, we are in fact ensuring the sustainability of our own living requirements.

Established in 2005, the African Raptor Trust (ART) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization that supports this cause. ART provides the legal and financial framework behind the non-profit work undertaken, ensuring project continuity and professionalism.

For many years the ART offices were based at the African Bird of Prey Sanctuary in KwaZulu-Natal and supported 3 vital aspects of raptor conservation during this time.

1) Due to the threatened status of many raptor species, conflict casualties need to be actively treated. To this end a dedicated raptor treatment facility Raptor Rescue was developed and approximately 150 birds of prey were treated annually. Biologist and longtime raptor rehabilitator Ben Hoffman worked with veterinarian Dr Oliver Tatham to become leaders in the field of African raptor veterinary and rehabilitation practice.

2) The African Raptor Trust also seeks to prevent the factors that actually threaten raptors by increasing public awareness and undertaking formal youth environmental education about birds of prey. This took place primarily at the African Bird of Prey Sanctuary, which is located just off the N3 highway, within easy access of both KZN’s major cities.

3) From 2015 the Bearded Vulture Breeding Programme was launched and supported and is now the African Raptor Trust’s primary programme, adding conservation breeding to it’s repertoire. The smaller size of the African Raptor Trust allows for a targeted approach into pro-active conservation actions and facilitates a range of donor participation. No donor support is too big, or too small, on the path to avert species extinction as our Bearded Vultures are “Bred 4 the Wild”. 

African Raptor Trust (No. IT 1467/2005),
Non-Profit Organization number: 053-515-NPO
Public Benefit Organization number: 930027969

Office: Tel (082) 9253023

Address: Lot 9 Madalene Avenue, Monteseel, KZN, 3760

ART Trustees: Dieter Schauerte (Chairman)                                       Gavin Farquhar (Treasurer)

                              Shannon Hoffman (Secretary)                                     Dr Oliver Tatham      (Trustee)                                                     

                              Frans Du Toit (Trustee)