Endangered Lappet-faced Vultures are on the brink of losing critical breeding opportunities in Kruger National Park. Breeding territories depend on a handful of key nest trees, yet elephants are destroying these trees at an alarming rate.  Our monitoring has highlighted  just how scarce these nest trees have become.  With so few trees remaining, and the slow breeding cycle of Lappet-faced Vultures, the urgency to act is clear, and we think we might have the solution to protect these trees.

Although Kruger National Park is home to one of the largest remaining populations of Lappet-faced Vultures in southern Africa, we estimate that there are only about 30 nests across the park’s roughly 20,000km² landscape, an area about the size of Wales!

Between 2008 and 2017, elephants toppled roughly a quarter of nest sites (of around 60 nest sites that we monitored). Today, the vultures are mostly confined to an area of about 4,000km² in the park’s central sections, leaving their already fragile breeding population under serious threat and at risk of disappearing from the park.

At the Hawk Conservancy Trust, we are working to protect the few remaining nest trees and understand the elephant behaviour. That’s no easy task; Lappet-faced Vultures are notoriously unpredictable in their breeding habits, often switching trees, skipping breeding, or abandoning nests mid-build. With so few nest trees left and the clock ticking, every tree matters. The aim isn’t to stop elephants from toppling trees entirely, but to steer them away from the precious ones that these vultures depend on.

Lappet-faced Vultures choose surprisingly small trees for their nests, which makes those trees easy targets for elephants to push over. Why elephants seem drawn to these particular trees is still a puzzle. Typically, elephants push trees down to eat from the canopy or exposed roots, but in this case, they often leave the fallen nest trees untouched. Sometimes they will even topple a nest tree when plenty of other trees stand nearby, including toppling nest tree species they wouldn’t usually eat.

To try to solve this complicated problem, this year we are moving to Stage 2 of this project and will implement trial “tree safe installations.”   This is a time-tested local method of placing large, concrete pyramids (pointed rocks, essentially) around the base of key trees. It is a simple, low-maintenance deterrent similar to what has been used for years to protect iconic trees, such as Baobabs, in southern Africa. It has also been used to great effect in reserves neighbouring Kruger National Park to protect mature trees from elephants. We do not know for sure whether the mysterious attraction of Lappet-faced Vulture nests will outweigh the discomfort and effort for elephants to walk over or dig up the concrete pyramids.  We are opting for this low maintenance method rather than using electric fences or anything that might disturb or affect other wildlife.

During Stage 1, we used cameras to monitor current and potential nesting trees, which proved challenging and did not bring the hoped for insights into elephant behaviour.  Several trees were monitored, but the elephants often seemed to know they were being watched, pulling down or obscuring the camera trap ahead of pulling the nest tree down. This, of course, is doubly frustrating – losing another tree but without enhancing our understanding of the problem. The threat posed by elephants is clearly pressing, and we cannot wait to fully understand their behaviour before attempting to reduce the damage. That is why Stage 2 is so urgent and starting now. We must begin protecting the very limited number of remaining nest trees before more are lost.

Installing these tree safe installations will be a pilot, the hopeful success of which, will shape our path into Stage 3, which involves rolling out protection across all the current and potential nesting trees in Kruger.  Secretary Birds also nest in similar trees to Lappet-faced Vultures, which means this project, if successful, could also help in protecting their populations too.

After last year’s incredible fundraising, we have been able to purchase the moulds for creating the concrete pyramids and are pressing ahead with getting some pyramids created now! We are set to use up to 2000 concrete pyramids per tree to protect them, which brings logistical challenges and labour costs to transport and install the bed of pyramids around these trees, deep in the bushveld of Kruger. It is quite the operation, but we are excited to be getting this next stage underway and will require urgent funds to expand this project further.  Please click here if you would like to donate to support this project.

Last week, we said a fond farewell to our 2025 Conservation and Research Intern, Sorcha. Over her five month placement with us, generously funded by the Cameron Bespolka Trust, Sorcha has supported much of our work, including our onsite biodiversity, bird of prey population and small mammal population surveys. Plus, she even supported ringing Kestrel chicks as part of our Raptor Nest Box Project!

“Unfortunately, my time here at the Hawk Conservancy Trust has come to an end. These past five months have been absolutely jam-packed and I’m not sure where to begin, but I will try my best to describe some of the highlights working as the Conservation and Research Intern here at the Trust.

Since starting here in May I have been carrying out on-site biodiversity surveys, and as the weather begins to cool many of these surveys have been wrapping up. Over the summer myself and some of our lovely volunteers carried out 11 nights of moth trapping, split between Reg’s Wildflower Meadow, the Savannah Arena, the Woodland Arena and the Discovery Barn. Over 500 individuals from 290 species were recorded in total. Some of my favourites included the Leopard Moth, the Black Arches and the Chinese Character, as well as some beautiful micro moths like the Ypsolopha scabrella and the Argyresthia goedartella (the little ones don’t usually get nice, easy-to-remember names). The Trust, in particular Reg’s Wildflower Meadow, was brimming with pollinators this year, including butterflies, day flying moths, beetles, hoverflies and bees. 23 species of butterfly and six species of day-flying moth were recorded, including Small Skippers, Small Coppers and always popular, the Hummingbird Hawk-moth. It was also lovely to see the three ponds at the Trust so full of life during aquatic surveys. Some of the most exciting finds were dragonfly larva (resulting in some beautiful adult dragonflies such as Emperors, Southern Hawkers and Broad-bodied Chasers) and newt efts!

One of my favourite tasks has been conducting the early morning bird point counts, it was a real pleasure to walk around the empty Trust with only myself and the birds. The Trust hosts an incredibly diverse array of birds, my most memorable spots included Hobbies, a frequent Sparrowhawk visitor (often followed a mob of angry Swallows) and one special encounter with three Green Woodpeckers in Reg’s Meadow.

Trust Research Assistant, Tanith, very kindly taught me the ropes of small mammal trapping. Together we conducted three rounds of small mammal trapping at the Trust and four rounds at three external sites. Whilst slow to initially take off, the small mammals eventually showed themselves, giving us an insight into how they, and vicariously raptors like kestrels, were fairing this year. It was extremely interesting to see how the sites differed in terms of abundance and diversity, with one site being particularly favoured by Wood Mice (a rather energetic species to work with, to say the least). Across all sites we recorded Short-tailed Voles, Bank Voles, Common Shrews, Pygmy Shrews and Wood Mice. I am extremely grateful to Tanith, not only teaching me all she knows (about small mammals and otherwise), but putting up with me on many early mornings and late evenings whilst we put smelly casters into traps and got excited over small mammal faeces. We also had lots of exciting non-small mammal interactions, including a very close encounter with a young badger and a hunting Goshawk and lots of cool invertebrate findings (both in the traps and around the general sites).

Since the beginning of June, I have been undertaking a small project looking primarily into butterfly and day-flying moth abundance and diversity across Reg’s Wildflower Meadow and three other local wildflower meadows (Broughton Down, Magdalen Hill Down and Bury Hill Meadows). This has allowed me to work on project management skills as well as brush up on some coding skills too.

I have been lucky enough to venture out into the field with Dr Matt Stevens, the British Projects Manager, on a couple of occasions. Under the very watchful eye of Matt, a licensed ringer, I was able to ring my first ever bird, and a Kestrel chick is a pretty special first bird. We also went out to investigate a couple of Barn Owl nest boxes in the area and made a very exciting discovery of a male and female Barn Owl, both seven years old and doing very well. Matt is an absolute wealth of knowledge on these amazing birds (on many birds), I am extremely grateful to have been able to pick his brains and learn so much from him on only a few trips out.

Towards the end of my internship, I have also managed to squeeze in a few raptor transects to monitor raptor densities across the south-east of the UK. This has taken me around the local area and as far as Dungeness, Kent, they are an extremely lovely way to spend a day. I have been lucky enough to see Kestrels, Ravens, Red Kites, Common Buzzards, Goshawks, Sparrowhawks and Marsh Harriers!

I have spent some time during this internship getting to grips with camera traps that will hopefully lay the foundations for some exciting new conservation and research work the Trust will be undertaking in the future. This has involved putting camera traps on roadkill to attempt to monitor raptor’s, particularly scavengers like Red Kites and Common Buzzards, interactions with roadkill and traffic. Roadkill so far has mostly been taken by foxes, and one strong cat, but a capture of a Red Kite scooping up a Common Wood Pigeon from the road was enough to fuel a lot of excitement for the whole day.

I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity, and I have learnt so much from so many people during my time as Conservation and Research Intern at the Trust. I have really enjoyed my time working here, everyone has made it an incredibly welcoming environment, and I couldn’t ask for better people to work with. My biggest thank you goes to Dr Jamie McKaughan, the Conservation and Research Coordinator, who has supported me immensely throughout this internship.

A huge thank you to the Cameron Bespolka Trust. This internship has been a huge stepping stone into a career in conservation and without their support I would not have been here.”