Understanding continent-wide variation in vulture ranging behavior to assess feasibility of Vulture Safe Zones in Africa: Challenges and possibilities

Survival rates of wild and released White‐rumped Vultures (Gyps bengalensis), and their implications for conservation of vultures in Nepal

“…Home-ranges of vultures can be huge, often crossing national boundaries, as birds search for often unpredictable sources of food. However, our estimates are smaller than those of three species of Gyps vultures in Africa (KDE 95 23 649 km 2 (White-backed Vulture) to 172 450 km 2 (R üppell's Vulture G. ruppellii; Kane et al 2022)), and in a previous study of five White-rumped Vultures in Pakistan (MCP 95 10 225 versus 24 154 km 2 ; Gilbert et al 2007). Variation in home-range size in the Pakistan study was attributed to the differing provision of supplementary food, with movements more restricted when birds were regularly feeding at a vulture restaurant (Gilbert et al 2007).…”

“…Although vulture restaurants do not always result in smaller movements (Kane et al 2016), the individual variation observed in our study was probably also the result of differing reliance on the vulture restaurant located at the release site, and the location of an individual's breeding colony (several tagged birds nested within 5 km of the feeding site). The availability of supplementary food may also explain the similarity in home-range size of adults and immatures, whereas in other studies, immatures often range over larger areas (Kane et al 2022). The impact of the vulture restaurant at the release site was most obvious in the comparison of wild and released birds' home-ranges, with the former being one to two orders of magnitude larger (Table 4).…”

Combining models for animal tracking: Defining behavioural states to understand space use for conservation

“…Until now, conservation studies have largely focused on habitat use of vultures based on analysis of home range or analysing GPS data without distinguishing between behaviours (Bamford et al, 2007; Fischer et al, 2013; Kane et al, 2022; Phipps et al, 2013). We illustrate the value and benefits from using more complex models that allow us to interpret how habitat use changes with behavioural state, thus making findings more relevant to management goals.…”

“…Previous movement studies on vultures have used regression models of gridded occupancy to identify the importance of habitat and legislation on foraging behaviour of the European Cinerous vulture (Arrondo et al, 2018), simulation models to explore population size and density on efficacy of foraging and information transfer in Griffon vultures (Jackson et al, 2008), and minimum convex polygons, fixed kernel density estimations, Brownian bridge methods and grid cell range estimates to determine core foraging ranges and use of protected areas (Kane et al, 2022; Phipps et al, 2013). However, kernel density estimation of distribution models face difficulties such as autocorrelation, irregular time gaps and error in observed locations (Johnson et al, 2011).…”

A lifetime track of a griffon vulture: The moving story of Rehovot (Y64)

“…This was also reflected in the distances moved between consecutive night roosts: in his first year of life, Rehovot moved on average 11 km between roosts (SD = 17 km, maximum = 85 km), while in his eighth year of life, Rehovot mostly occupied the same areas and only moved on average 5 km between consecutive night roosts (SD = 10 km, maximum = 38 km) (Figure 2). Occupying smaller ranges as an individual ages is a common trend in griffon vultures (and several other species; e.g., Kane et al, 2022). Food is plentiful in Israel thanks to the large quantities of contaminant-free food provided by the INPA in several supplementary feeding stations for vultures (Duriez et al, 2022), thus reducing the risk of poisoning and allowing vultures' foraging movements to be quite local (Spiegel et al, 2013).…”