Where Have All the Vultures Gone ?

South Africa's national lottery is claiming an unlikely victim: vultures. Local people - convinced these birds' superb eyesight gives them the gift to see the future - are eating vulture meat to acquire the power of clairvoyance.

And they are not alone. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, voters fearful of supporting the losing side in recent elections ate vulture meat, mainly heads, talons, eyes and hearts, believing this would enable them to pick the winning party.

In addition, in south Asia over the past five years, the use of the painkiller diclofenac in cattle has wiped out three species of vulture and reduced the remaining two species to a few dozen pairs of breeding birds. The drug, it was discovered recently, destroys the birds' kidneys.

In short, the vulture - the ultimate scavenger, for ever associated with pitiless opportunism - has been sent spiralling towards extinction, say ornithologists. 'Something very, very bad is happening to the vulture,' said Guy Rondeau, of Afrique Nature International. 'There has been an almost total collapse in numbers in many parts of the world.'

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