 Every first Saturday in September is International Vulture Awareness Day. Sadly, vultures are the most threatened group of birds in the world. The hooded vulture for instance is a species with two lifestyles. Here in West Africa, it leaves near people in towns and villages, while in Southern Africa it's a bird in the bush and protected areas. How do we protect this unique gift of nature from going into extinction? Thanks for joining us to look at this in the news is Dr. Joseph Onnoja is a director, technical program, Nigerian Conservation Foundation. Thanks for joining us Dr. Onnoja. Thanks very much for having me. Alright, interesting conversation here. There's hardly any animal we don't eat in Nigeria. We call them bush meat. Are vultures one of those? Yeah, certainly so. Some people use them for meats. But what is driving their population down is for belief based use. It is used for traditional medicine. In Nigeria, that is what is driving their population in other areas. It is caused by probably power lines, they collide with power lines, but we don't have those problems. Most of our problems is because people use them for traditional medicine and that has driven down their population. Okay, and now let's talk about Animal Conservation Court. We don't have a lot of that here in Nigeria. How do you think we can encourage this? Yeah, that is why a day like this is normally established International Watcher Awareness Day. So I'll be able to create that awareness that people will know that we live in the environment not alone. We live with these animals and nature has put them in place for us to play their part because without them playing their part we may run into problems. For instance, the vultures are put there. They are known as the Environmental Sanitation Officers. So if they are not there, cacuses will be left and these cacuses will develop different diseases, cholera, butsulizine and so on and even antrax. And it will come to the human population and it will affect us because we will not be able to stand. So these animals have their roles that they play in the environment and that is why we want you to create awareness that people will be aware of it. So people consider it an elitist kind of thing, but no, it's not elitist. In fact, the surge of the different, even the pandemics that we are seeing is as a result of our not taking care of the animal's environment because they are meant to do some work they ought to do. Yes, all right. And you know, can you share a little bit more about the average vulture's lifespan and maybe a little more on its lifestyle also? Well, yeah, the vultures can live up to 20, 25 years. And the way is, you know, if you find a dead cacus before it starts decomposing, they go in there to clean the cacuses and you can see the way their head is. Somebody thinks that because their head don't have feathers, that is to allow, that's the diabolology, allows them to stick their neck into the cacuses and they are able to clean up the cacuses very clearly. And then they do it in such a way that you will not find anything left. So, and when it goes into their system, if they have acidic content in their stomach, they are able to digest all of these pathogens without affecting them. And that is why they are very good for them. So they are well-adapted and they have a very keen eyesight where they are able to site cacuses or dead animals on the ground from far above where they are. In those days when we used to grow up, once you slaughter an animal, the abattoir, or even in neighborhood, when you look up the sky, you see vultures are already circling around. They are sorry and are waiting for you to get out of there so that they will go up and clean up the place. So it's very important for us to continue to let people know that when they see their heads without feathers, it's actually meant for them to be able to do what they do not because they are good for you or for any of those things. All right. Share with us, you know, from our concerns. What is your projected vulture survival rate for the next decade if things remain the way they are? Well, we have to reverse the trend. If we don't reverse the trend, we may wake up tomorrow and our children will not be able to load vultures. They will just be seeing them and reading them in the books to expose us to a lot of pandemics and a lot of diseases. So if we continue this trajectory, then we may not even find vultures. The buddha vultures, which is very cosmopolitan, those of us growing up, the vultures that you see commonly in towns and around abattoirs is called the buddha vulture. Now there's what we call the IUCN conservation statutes. It used to be least concerned. That means we have a lot of them in the environment. But in five years, IUCN has lifted them from this constant to a particularly endangered. That is 95% of their population have been driven down. So that if we continue this trajectory, then they will go into extinction in Nigeria and we don't want that to happen. Because that will expose us to rats and dogs going to clean cacuses. I know that rats and dogs normally find their way into the human population easily and they'll be able to spread the disease. So if we continue this trajectory, then we will not find vultures. And that is why as Nigerian Conservation Foundation, we're trying to create this awareness and not just create awareness. We're trying to know the numbers and where they are so that we'll be able to talk with the communities in the importance of conserving these bird species. It's not just these bird species, but other bird species as well so that we'll have them in perpetuity in our environment so that we'll continue to play their part. Finally, I just want you to, as quickly as possible, share how you think this message can be passed to those who use them for traditional medicine purposes. They may not really care much about the environment and some of the things that you're saying. Yes, actually, we have won our market service. We have won to beat them. We have even discussed with the traditional healers themselves and they agree with us that their raw material or their trade is no longer available as it used to. So we are trying to also discuss with them on how to get alternatives to these things and how to change their behaviour in that sense. I know it's not easy to change behaviour, but we'll find our best to see what we can do. And we are talking with them both in the south-west here and we're going to as far as in the north. In fact, my team are currently in the southeast and engaging different stakeholders as we are reaching them one on one and trying to bring them to that awareness so that they will know that we are running out of stock of these and it will eventually hit us hard when, for instance, we have this pandemic and it's related to our interaction with the environment and animals and then if we don't have vultures at all, that will expose us even more to more deadly pandemics in the future. Dr. Nogia, thank you very much for sharing with us and I wish you a very interesting work, save and vultures. Thank you very much. Absolutely.