World Cup 2010 is a threat to vultures

In the context of the World Cup kicking off in South Africa, vultures are being hunted aggressively because the hobbyists believe their heads can help them accurately predict the results of the matches. ball.

A Cape vulture.Photo: Flickr.

Muti is the term people use to refer to traditional South African types that are thought to have miraculous effects - such as instant healing of the day or predicting the future. Many hobbyists believe that if smoking a drug made from vultures and heads of vultures, they will have a supernatural ability to accurately predict the outcome of football matches. Telegraph said the hunting of Cape Vulture - mainly distributed in southern African countries such as South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho - is becoming active in recent times.

Scientists fear the number of vultures will drop sharply during the 2010 World Cup. Mark Anderson, an expert at the BirdLife branch in South Africa, is concerned that the blind faith of soccer enthusiasts will speed up the extinction of Cape vultures.

'Many vultures around the world are threatened. The number of vultures in southern Africa is rapidly decreasing due to a number of causes such as reduced food resources, poaching poachers' poison and falling into power lines. The vulture for vultures is another terrible threat to them , 'Anderson said.

Steve McKean, a muti researcher from the natural conservation organization called KwaZulu-Natal, said: 'Our research shows that killing vultures to make drugs can make Cape vultures in some areas. in South Africa extinct in the next half century. In the worst situation, Cape vultures can disappear completely within 12 years'.