Jenyva Made it to South Africa! Day 1 and 2 in Africa

We are excited to finally receive word from Jenyva! She made it to South Africa safely and has already started the process of SAVING THE VULTURES! Over the next few weeks we will help share her journey on the blog. Please send Jenyva well-wishes on this amazing expedition. We can't wait to share all of her adventures along the way.

My South African Journey
By Jenyva Turner

18 January 2011

Rhino & Lion Wildlife Conservation Reserve, Gauteng province, South Africa


Eight hours after landing in South Africa, our bakkie jostled its way down the rough dirt road rutted from the recent rains in the Rhino & Lion Wildlife Conservation Reserve. We rounded a corner and the jet lag fatigue that I was succumbing to quickly disappeared as I saw the birds I had travelled thousands of miles to help save. A Cape vulture flew above the ridge, then another, then another, then dozens were riding the wind currents low above the vegetation! It was truly awe-inspiring and moving to see the species I have been able to care for and help protect fly free around me with their 9-foot wingspans!

We were there to set up the capture site for the next day’s capture for our research project. The capture pen is a 25ft x 15ft mesh pen with shade cloth and 1 side that opens up/closes by pulling a shade cloth curtain across. It is right next to a “vulture restaurant” (special feeding sites for vultures in Africa to help supplement their decreasing natural diet).

Preparing the capture site entails adding “fresh” carcasses to the pen to draw the birds in.


Because of the recent rainy weather, Kerri Wolter, of Vulpro (the organization CMZ is supporting thru Quarters for Conservation) decided that we needed to capture the vultures that night while it was dry just in case it started raining in the morning (vultures do not fly around when it’s raining).

After baiting the pen, we all went into the hide and, well, hid, until the vultures appeared. It didn’t take long for the 1st bird to appear. Vultures have excellent eyesight and do not miss when another vulture seems to have found food, so within 5 minutes there were well over 100 vultures near the “restaurant.” After about 30 vultures (and 3 jackals) went inside the pen, the curtain was drawn and we raced down to the pen to secure it thru a sea of vultures who were madly trying to get out of our way. What an experience to be literally leaping over giant birds! We then had to hand grab/herd the jackals to remove them from the pen so they wouldn’t hurt the vultures. Since it was getting dark, we then left for the night with plans to return at sunrise to “process” them and gather our research data.

19 January 2011

Our research team of 8 people hit the road at 4 a.m. to get to the site as soon as possible to avoid stressing the vultures out further by keeping them in the pen too long. We set up our field lab and went to work catching/processing all 29 Cape vultures.



The testing we were doing will provide a better snapshot of the overall health of the wild Cape vulture population in the Magaliesberg Mountains. We drew blood to run uric acid and glucose tests, complete CBC, and DNA and sexing. We took some feather samples to test for presence of heavy metals. The bird was weighed and a complete physical exam was made. A cloacal swab was then taken as well as measurements of the head and foot pads to determine if one can determine if a vulture is male or female based on head/foot size. Every bird was ringed and tagged with patagial tags. Then the bird was released. We worked together smoothly and everything was done within 6 minutes!



The biggest threat to vultures in the wild is poisoning. Sometimes this poisoning is intentional, sometimes it’s accidental. When a vulture is poisoned, it goes into kidney failure, which causes their uric acid levels to go way up. Our original research grant proposal suggested that we might be able to detect early-onset kidney failure by using a human uric acid reader since it only requires a drop of blood and can be read within minutes. This way, if a vulture during a routine tagging capture has high uric acid levels, then they could be taken in and given supportive care before it’s too late. We will compare our field test levels with uric acid levels from the CBC. Let’s hope the levels are consistent because if this proves true, this could have a great impact on vulture conservation around the world!

We are scheduled for another vulture capture on Friday, provided the rains do not return, but tomorrow we are off to Mabula Game Reserve 2 hours north of here to meet with researchers from The Ground Hornbill Project, where I volunteered in 2007. I’m excited to see the birds I got to know years ago and see their chicks!

Stay tuned for more news from Africa!