Egyptian vultures in Oman are a local population: Researchers

Muscat: Researchers have revealed that the Egyptian vultures in Oman do not migrate and are therefore a local population.
They were able to figure this out based on their tagging programme in which tracking devices were fitted on 17 birds of the endangered species.
This was under the Environment Society of Oman’s collaborative raptor tagging programme, which started in 2014. International Avian Research and the Bernd Meyburg Foundation for Raptor Research and Conservation are a part of the project.
Researcher Dr Michael McGrady said he had been surprised that none of the 17 tagged vultures migrated. “Surprisingly, none of the vultures we tagged have migrated. So, based on that and the fact that almost all of those birds were adults, we think the tagged birds belong to a non-migratory local population,” said McGrady.
He added that the tagged birds mostly stayed in Oman, but some strayed a little away from the Sultanate’s borders. “One tagged vulture did hop across to Iran across the Strait of Hormuz and is currently near Bandar Abbas. Mostly, birds have stayed within the eastern Hajars framed by Bidbid, Muscat, Sur, and Ibra. Some of them show signs of being breeders,” he said.
Multiple threats
McGrady added that Egyptian vultures in Oman, like other vulture species across the world, faced many dangers.
“In Oman, electrocution is certainly a threat because we have documented incidents. Changes in food availability, unintentional poisoning due to poor disposal of toxic waste are also potential problems. However, no assessment of these threats has been made in any scientific way,” he added.
McGrady pointed out that Egyptian vultures played a key role in the eco-system. “Well, Egyptian vultures and other scavengers are important because they provide ‘ecosystem services’, in that as a group they remove huge amounts of potentially dangerous waste from the environment, waste that could enable the transmission of diseases to other animals and humans.”
“Additionally, when they are lost, other scavengers increase, which might have negative effects. In India, as a result of the loss of most of their vultures, feral dog populations have increased and so has the incidence of rabies in humans,” he pointed out.
There are three sub-species of Egyptian vultures, one on the Canary Islands, one that is mostly on the Indian sub-continent, and then the rest, the researcher said.
McGrady added that Oman was an important habitat for the species. “The global estimate is between 12,000 and 38,000. The published estimate for Oman is 100 pairs, but that is certainly an underestimate. That estimate was based on an estimate of 12 pairs on Masirah Island. When ESO and its partners did a survey of breeding birds on Masirah, the population was estimated at 65 pairs.”
“The large numbers of vultures seen at rubbish dumps in Oman and the radio tracking data suggesting that most vultures are residents and not migrants intimates that the mainland Oman population must also be larger than estimates, as a guess, 250 to 500 pairs,” he said.