South African breeding program welcomes new baby vultures (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

The success follows a 1,000-kilometer relocation effort to protect the animals

Twenty vulture chicks have hatched at South Africa’s Shamwari Private Game Reserve during the current breeding season.

The update, reported by IOL on Wednesday, occurred just over a year after VulPro, South Africa’s foremost vulture conservation organization, transportied 160 birds 1,000 kilometers from their original base in Hartebeespoort to purpose-built enclosures at Shamwari.

“Vultures only lay one egg per year during breeding season, that’s it,” VulPro CEO Kerri Wolter said. “With such low reproductive rates, we cannot sustain the current losses,” she explained. 

Wolter warned that when populations fall too low, they may stop breeding altogether. “Our focus must be on preventing this while simultaneously tackling the various threats they face,” she said.

The breeding window runs from July 1 through mid-August, and conservationists expect more hatchlings to follow in the coming weeks.  VulPro’s breeding program uses only non-releasable vultures — birds permanently injured, often by powerlines, but still able to reproduce.

Established in 2007, VulPro has documented alarming vulture mortality. Between 2020 and 2025, at least 191 vultures from three species — Cape, White-backed, and Lappet-faced — died or were injured due to powerline collisions. About 40 deaths were recorded in a single year, with an average of three birds killed monthly. The group has tallied 473 such cases since its inception, though the actual toll is believed to be higher due to underreporting.

“In the past month alone, we’ve responded to multiple vulture emergencies—birds with severe burns, broken wings, and traumatic injuries after colliding with power infrastructure,” Wolter said.

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In May, VulPro and the Wild and Free Rehabilitation Centre in Mpumalanga, a province in eastern South Africa, confirmed a major vulture poisoning incident in Lionspruit Game Reserve near Marloth Park. Over 100 of the birds died, including 92 White-backed vultures, 90% of which were breeding adults, 9 Hooded vultures, and one adult male White-headed vulture.