Secrets of VulPro's Captive Breeding Colony - Yellow/Black 13 and Old Bands: Episode 1

Описание: Meet our next awesome Cape Vulture pair: Yellow/Black 13 came to VulPro in 2007 from the world heritage site, the Cradle of Humankind in the Gauteng Province, after she broke her wing when she flew into power lines. She also had an injured leg that was operated on, allowing her to walk again. Unfortunately, the extent of her injuries meant she could not safely be released back into the wild. Her partner, Old Bands, came to VulPro in 2010 from the Johannesburg Zoo. Unfortunately, as his history was and still is unknown, he was deemed non-releasable for his own safety and due to the length of time he has been held in captivity for.

Yellow/Black 13 is a very important vulture at VulPro. She was one of the birds that was part of an exceptionally important study to test the safety of ketaprofen in food consumed by vultures. Before this study, ketaprofen was registered and believed to be safe. This study proved that it is not safe for vultures to consume carcasses that had been treated with ketaprofen and, due to VulPro’s hard work, the legislature has been changed, and any animal exposed to the drug now needs to be incinerated and is deemed unsafe. This means that Yellow/Black 13 is in fact, one of our true heroes having had a huge impact on her wild counterparts globally.

These two birds have laid a number of eggs over the years. This year they laid our seventh egg, however, the egg was found broken after a few days. This is exceptionally unfortunate and not a result we had hoped for given their experience. However, with the egg having been laid relatively early in the season, it is likely this pair will lay another egg in due course. In this case, we will remove the egg from the nest and replace it with a dummy egg, artificially incubating the real egg. This is followed by giving this pair their chick back once it has hatched, giving them the chance to raise their own chick.

Neither of these vultures have been adopted. If you would, therefore, like to adopt one or both of them and contribute to the conservation of this endangered species, please contact [email protected] for more information.

Join us tomorrow at 3 pm, for Episode 1 of Mouse and Yellow/Black 92.