Where There’s Life - Vulture A733
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
I’ve often questioned the value of wildlife rescues, particularly when it’s obvious that rehabilitation into the wild will not be possible for a particular animal. That in no way seeks to devalue the efforts of those who strive to save them. This is doubly so when their efforts are trying to combat human activity related casualties. E.g. seabirds caught in oil slicks, or perhaps mass strandings of cetaceans. It's a very human emotion to want to save wild animals, even so I often wonder how successful the rehabilitation actually is.
Sometimes it is possible to find out if a released animal survives. One such animal is A733, a White-backed Vulture I photographed near Punda Maria Camp, Kruger National Park on the 28th November 2025. This bird was carrying large yellow wing tags emblazoned with the inscription A733.
I was intrigued by this bird, and I knew that there had been a series of poisoning incidents involving large numbers of vultures across Southern Africa, including a few incidents in and around Kruger National Park. I wondered, was this bird one of the lucky survivors?
I reported the sighting to various authorities in South Africa hoping for a response. On the 13th May this year I heard back from Liam Taylor Field Officer, Birds of Prey Unit, Endangered Wildlife Trust.
It turns out that A733 was one of the fortunate rescues from a notorious vulture poisoning event. It was tagged prior to release.
Liam wrote; “In 2022, this vulture was the victim of a poisoning, along with other individuals. It was taken in for care at Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre, from which it was brought back to health and released 🙂
It clearly liked the Punda area (who can blame it!) and flew back to where you spotted it. This is the only resighting of this bird and therefore provides immensely important data for our conservation efforts.”
It’s gratifying to know that the efforts of the rescuers were not in vain and that by reporting my sighting it has helped the researchers to understand how the rehabilitated vultures respond to treatment long-term.
Given how many visitors Kruger National Park receives, it is surprising that the bird had not been previously sighted and reported. If you do see a wing-tagged bird, or a bird with a readable ring please report it, you never know how valuable that information will be.
The otheroutcome from this sighting is that it has made me feel more positive about large-scale wildlife rescues.