by Mike McGrady and Bernd Meyburg
As you may remember, we fitted 12 adult Egyptian vultures with GPS telemetry back in January 2018, thinking that at least some of them would be from migratory populations farther north. It turned out that we were wrong. All the birds stayed in Oman, except one, which just hopped across to Iran. Below is a map of locations over the summer of 11 of the birds we have tracked, each bird has a different colour. You won't be able to make out the locations of some of the birds because their locations will be buried under the others... we have tens of thousands of locations all together. Despite that, the map tells the main story - Oman, especially the eastern Hajars, appears to be a real stronghold for resident vultures. This is real news because in almost all other locations in their huge global range (Iberia to Central Asia, south to India, Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa right across to West Africa) Egyptian vultures are declining and under severe pressure.
We, along with co-authors from the Environment Society of Oman and be'ah, the national waste management company, will be presenting these and other results at international conferences in the coming months.
In the coming days we will be updating you on the movements of the bird that went to Iran, so revisit this site.
As you may remember, we fitted 12 adult Egyptian vultures with GPS telemetry back in January 2018, thinking that at least some of them would be from migratory populations farther north. It turned out that we were wrong. All the birds stayed in Oman, except one, which just hopped across to Iran. Below is a map of locations over the summer of 11 of the birds we have tracked, each bird has a different colour. You won't be able to make out the locations of some of the birds because their locations will be buried under the others... we have tens of thousands of locations all together. Despite that, the map tells the main story - Oman, especially the eastern Hajars, appears to be a real stronghold for resident vultures. This is real news because in almost all other locations in their huge global range (Iberia to Central Asia, south to India, Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa right across to West Africa) Egyptian vultures are declining and under severe pressure.
We, along with co-authors from the Environment Society of Oman and be'ah, the national waste management company, will be presenting these and other results at international conferences in the coming months.
In the coming days we will be updating you on the movements of the bird that went to Iran, so revisit this site.
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| Locations of 11 adult Egyptian vultures tracked between January and October 2018. |
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