At the end of March 2026 a White-backed Vulture landed at a home in in Keidebees, Upington.  The owner of the house, Mike Knoetze, cared for the bird for a couple of days and fed it delicious steak while searching for someone to collect the bird. I was contacted about the bird and drove to Upington to fetch it.

On 22 April Danielle du Toit, Field Officer for the Birds of Prey Unit, was contacted in Graaff-Reinet about a White-backed Vulture that was sitting on the roof of a local church. When it landed on the ground Danielle was there to capture it. She took it to the veterinarian for a check-up and got permission from the local Nature Conservation authorities to transport it to the border of the Northern Cape where I could pick it up.

Both these young vultures were very hungry and had probably got lost from adult birds that could find food for them. When the juvenile vultures cannot find food, they quite often go to people or land at farmyards. If people feed them, they will follow them around and appear to be tame. But, when the juvenile vultures are properly fed and have gained enough weight, their natural wild instinct returns.

After two months of feeding the young vultures as much food as they could eat, they were ready to return to the open skies where they belong. They had become very restless in the aviary and wanted to get out.   Before their release back into the wild, both were ringed and fitted with wing tags for identification purposes and so that their flight paths can be monitored.

In early June I drove went to Mokala National Park near Kimberley and released both the vultures at the breeding colony where they could find adult birds to guide them.  

Note:  If people see tagged vultures, they can report them to Safring or on the email address resightings@ewt.org