24 June 2004 --
Satellite telemetry - REST is very fortunate to have been the first in
Africa to fit satellite telemetry to a vulture. While exciting, this was also a
bit scary and we thank in particular, Bill Woodley from Israel, for his support
in the design of our harness. We found that Microwave Telemetry from the USA
has developed a superior satellite telemetry unit and their customer service is
fantastic. We began this program in January 2004 and to date have fit 10
vultures with telemetry. Currently only 6 birds have units fitted. The data
coming in is much better than we ever anticipated. We gather approximately 5-8
direct locations a day. The information is downloaded to Argos in France and
sent to REST via the Internet. Once
the units were fitted we began discovering
information never believed possible. We have now found that at least one and
probably 3 of our adult male Cape Griffons are possibly interbreeding with
female white backed vultures. We believe the original population became so low
and with only two females of eight adult birds, the males found mates in their
cousin - the white backed vulture.
One bird has crossed Namibia’s border 3 times - she has traveled to Angola a number of times - once 400 km inland - and traveled across to Botswana and Zambia, even venturing along the borders of Zimbabwe and South Africa.
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