14 DAY TRIAL // 600 vultures living in Namibia's Bwabwata National Park died after feeding on poisoned elephant corpse.
Their death is attributed to poachers, who are believed to have poisoned the animal meat precisely in order to kill these birds.
Global Animal explains that wildlife rangers rely on vultures to lead them to the bodies of poached elephants and rhinos.
It goes without saying that, because of this, poachers don't keep these birds very close at heart.
“By poisoning carcasses, poachers hope to eradicate vultures from an area where they operate and thereby escape detection,” conservationist Leo Niskanen says.
“The fact that incidents such as these can be linked to the rampant poaching of elephants in Africa is a serious concern. Similar incidents have been recorded in Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia in recent years,” he adds.
Authorities are yet to find the people who have killed these birds.