White-headed Vulture

Appearance

The white-headed vulture is a medium-sized vulture, 72–85 centimetres (28–33 in) in length and with a wingspan of 207–230 centimetres (81–91 in). It has a pink beak and a white crest, and the featherless areas on its head are pale. It has dark brown upper parts and black tail feathers.

Females have an average weight of 4.7 kilograms (10 lb), while males are generally lighter at 4 kilograms (8.8 lb) or less.

Published measurements include mass about 196.

Range and habitat

The white-headed vulture is widely spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, occurring from Senegal and Gambia east to Somalia and south to South Africa and Eswatini. It is estimated that 400 protected areas contain 1893 white-headed vulture nests, with 721 nests occurring in East Africa, 548 in Central Africa, 468 in Southern Africa and 156 in West Africa. It occurs at elevations of up to 4,000 m (13,000 ft) in Ethiopia, perhaps 3,000 m (9,800 ft) in Kenya, and can be found in thorny Acacia-dominated landscape in Botswana.

An extinct relative was also present in the Indonesian island of Flores during the Late Pleistocene, indicating that the genus was more widespread in the past.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

Specifically, they have a significantly wider binocular field (30°, compared to the 20° of Gyps vultures), that is thought to help with the accurate placement and timing of the talons necessary to capture live prey. It is generally a solitary species and nests in isolated, possibly territorial pairs.

From a study across 73 pairs, the average productivity of 55 breeding attempts was 0.69 chicks per pair. White headed vultures are known to exhibit a characteristic breeding behaviour. From a study in the Kruger National Park, copulation only occurred on the nest and is described as a subtle and inconspicuous process that lasts approximately 15 to 20 seconds.

In crisis

Populations have been declining steeply in recent years due to habitat degradation and poisoning of vultures at carcasses. White-headed vulture populations have been declining since the early 1940s. It was classified as Vulnerable in the 2007 IUCN Red List. Recent indications that the species is rarer than previously thought have led to a status upgrade to Critically Endangered in 2015.

The main threats to white-headed vulture populations are reductions in the availability of suitable food sources (carcasses of medium-sized mammals and ungulates) and the loss of habitat to the spread of urban and agricultural developments. Poisoning through baits set for other carnivores such as jackals and hyenas, as well as targeted poisoning of vultures (by poachers who seek to prevent vultures from drawing attention to an illegal kill), is also an important factor.

CITES lists this taxon on Appendix II. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.

White-headed Vulture is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on White-headed Vulture, Wikidata item Q755006. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.