Raptors News

KATHMANDU — On a bright morning in the hills of Nepal, among the green needles and brown cones of a chir pine tree (Pinus roxburghii) a pair of white-rumped vultures…

ZARQA GOVERNORATE, Jordan; ERBIL, Iraq; QAMISHLI, Syria — In the darkness of a small, windowless room, half a dozen falcons were perched on low wooden stools, their eyes covered with…

Mayra Parra presses play on her laptop, and the video on the screen comes to life for the Perez family in the town of Abriaquí, Colombia. As a spectacled bear…

KATHMANDU — When Suman Hamal was growing up in his hometown of Putalibazar in Nepal’s Syangja district, he saw birds of different species and sizes fly around in his neighborhood.…

Authorities investigating the discovery of 14 dead vultures in a feeding zone that’s meant to be safe for the scavenging birds have found that they died from eating poisoned bait…

The Philippine eagle, the archipelagic nation's iconic, endemic apex predator, has been declared threatened with extinction for nearly three decades. Yet despite its status as the national bird, little is…

KATHMANDU — When residents of Pokhara Valley in western Nepal spot Egyptian vultures nesting on cliffs and trees, they sometimes misidentify them as crows and shoo them away. Sometimes they…

KATHMANDU — On the morning of Jan. 16, the day after Yeti Airlines Flight 691 crashed near Pokhara International Airport in Nepal, killing all 72 people on board, authorities at…

BANYUMAS, Indonesia — When community foresters ascended one of Java’s most sacred mountains to survey the symbolic Javan hawk-eagle, partnering up with poachers appeared to kill two birds with one…

KATHMANDU — The “vulture restaurant” in southern Nepal received a new lone diner on July 12, leaving the people serving the food puzzled. An American black vulture (Coragyps atratus), a…

Despite some amazing rebounds, six decades after Rachel Carson’s call to curb pesticide use, the world’s birds are in deep trouble — assaulted by toxic chemicals, lost habitat, hunting, invasive species, and climate change.

A recent study confirms alarming declines in raptor populations in Kenya. Incidental poisoning is a major problem for vultures in particular, depriving ecosystems of the birds' vital role as scavengers.…

Vultures were a common sight across the Indian subcontinent until the late 1980s. But the excessive use of some veterinary drugs for cattle, which are toxic to the scavengers, and…

A team of biologists has discovered a nesting stronghold for Africa’s rarest falcon in the granite domes that tower over Mozambique's Niassa Special Reserve. The team surveyed more than 30…

A few years ago, alone on the top of a mountain in Zion National Park, in Utah, USA, I had an almost mystical experience that immediately transported me to the…

They were once considered the most threatened bird in the world: with just four remaining individuals on the island in 1974, the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) seemed doomed to extinction.…

Around 1,000 vultures have been found dead in Guinea-Bissau in the last two weeks, believed to have been poisoned. The birds, almost all critically endangered hooded vultures (Necrosyrtes monachus) were…

DURBAN, South Africa — Another mass vulture poisoning incident has ended the year on a sour note for Wildlife ACT rangers in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. Soon after…

Howick, SOUTH AFRICA – The first of at least five new “vulture safe zones” in Southern Africa are about to take off as private landowners and other partners join the…

On April 30, a pair of bald eagle mates in Washington, D.C. named Mr. President and The First Lady welcomed their newly hatched eaglet Victory to the world. Just a…

Some birds in Australia use smoldering sticks to spread wildfires and flush out smaller birds, insects, frogs and other prey, according to a recent study published in the Journal of…

How do wind energy companies kill protected bald eagles and golden eagles via turbine strikes every year without facing legal repercussions? They have renewable permits issued by the U.S. Fish…

While conducting a bird survey in the Ebo Forest Reserve of Cameroon, Scottish ornithologist Robin Whytock noted two uncommon forest raptors in a camp regularly used by commercial bushmeat hunters.…

Poisoned by cattle carcasses treated with Diclofenac, India’s vultures died by the millions in the 1990s. A captive breeding program is helping to save the once-ubiquitous birds, but the very…

Captive Egyptian vulture adult. Photo by: Carlos Delgado/Creative Commons 3.0. The hunt Around 11 AM on Thursday, 27 February 2014, Angoulou Enika was lying hidden in the tall grass on…

Critically Endangered Indian vultures (Gyps indicus) hanging out in their nest at Orchha, Madhya Pradesh. Photo by: Yann/Creative Commons 3.0. When Europeans first arrived in North America, they exterminated three…

“They look like humans: have bare skin, wrinkles, hairdos… Maybe that’s why many people don’t like them,” says Dr. Stoyan Nikolov from the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds…

The Brazilian state of Acre has had little attention by bird-lovers and bird scientists, though it lies deep in the Amazonian rainforest. Now a new survey in mongabay.com's open access…