Simon Thomsett carefully removes a pink bandage from the wing of an injured Bateleur, a short-toed eagle from the African savannah, where birds of prey are increasingly at risk of extinction.
“There’s still a long way to go before healing,” Thomsett explains as he lifts the bird’s dark feathers and examines the injury.
“It was injured in Masai Mara National Park, but we don’t know how,” says the 62-year-old veterinarian who runs the Soysambu Raptor Center in central Kenya.
The 18-month-old eagle with the distinctive red beak and black body was brought to the animal shelter five months ago, where he is kept company by about 30 other injured birds of prey.
The protected area in Soysambu Reserve is one of the few places where the birds of prey are safe.
A study published in January by The Peregrine Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit, found that the continent’s bird of prey population has declined by 90 percent over the past 40 years.
“Today you can drive maybe 200 km on one road [125 miles] and not see a single bird of prey,” says Thomsett.
“If you had done this 20 years ago, you would have seen a hundred.”
The reasons for the decline are varied.
Vultures and other scavengers have died from eating livestock remains, falling victim to a practice by ranchers who poison carcasses to deter lions from approaching their herds.
Deforestation also plays a role, as does the spread of power lines across Africa, which are proving deadly to birds that perch on them to hunt prey.
Some species are declining so quickly that conservation initiatives fail to produce results, says Thomsett. “We are too late.”
Birds of prey also suffer from an image problem.
“Vultures are considered ugly, unsightly, dirty and disgusting,” said Shiv Kapila, who manages a bird sanctuary in Naivasha National Park, about 50 km (31 miles) from Soysambu reserve.
Some communities even go so far as to kill species such as owls and vultures because they believe they bring bad luck.
“We have to convince people that not only are they absolutely amazing, but they are also incredibly useful,” he says, as long-legged ruffed vultures and pink-headed vultures rub shoulders in a cage.
It’s important to educate people about birds of prey, says Kapila, who organizes school trips to the sanctuary and visits to local communities to change public opinion.
“We see a big difference in attitudes,” says 25-year-old veterinarian Juliet Waiyaki, who started working at the Naivasha sanctuary last year, helping care for the 35 birds of prey housed there.
But sometimes she wonders whether her work as a veterinarian makes a difference.
“I can’t tell you if it makes a difference if we save eight vultures out of 300,000,” says Waiyaki. “But we’re doing our part.”
In the Naivasha Sanctuary, birds of prey can stay from just a few days to several years. Staff often travel across the country to rescue injured birds.
“We pick up an injured bird from the field or the public brings it to us and we treat it,” says Kapila, adding that 70 percent of his patients eventually recover enough to return to the wild.
Despite the massive decline in numbers, Thomsett sees “room for optimism,” especially when thinking about injured birds that seemingly “had no chance at all…” [but] are alive and well today.”
He even gets repeat visitors, he says, with some birds coming back to greet him years after they were released into the wild. “It’s extremely rewarding,” he says.