All language subtitles for Vultures Beauty in the Beast BBC Natural World (2014) 1080p HDTV EN SUB_Subtitles01.ENG

MUSIC: "Feast of the Mau Mau"
by Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Vultures.

The most maligned
of the world's birds.

The undertakers.

The cleaners.

# Cut the fat off the back
of a baboon... #

Able to strip a carcass in minutes.

These birds have got to be tough
and aggressive to

survive in one of the most savage
environments on Earth.

# To the feast with
the beast of the Mau Maus

# They make wine
from the spine of a bulldog... #

But there's more to these birds
than meets the eye.

And I want to prove it.

I think they're charismatic...

..intelligent...

..even beautiful.

Maybe we've got them all wrong.

The plains of East Africa.

It's here, on these vast grasslands,
where predators

and prey play out their life
and death struggles.

And it's here where vultures
thrive...

..profiting from the death
of others.

Vultures are one of the few
animals known to rely

solely on carcasses
of the dead for food.

It's a niche existence, but one
suited to this savage paradise.

'I've been filming wildlife
on the African plains for 20 years.

'Nowhere on Earth can match
it for its drama.'

But vultures are a family of birds
normally overlooked.

They're creatures to film
when you're killing time...

..waiting for something more
glamorous to show up.

I've always had a sort of morbid
fascination for them.

There are 23 species of vulture
worldwide, but I've come to

take a closer look at East African
vultures to prove

that beneath that ugly facade lurks
a creature as fascinating

and beautiful as any other.

You might have to bear with me
on this one!

The Serengeti National Park
in Tanzania.

'It's February
and the plains are empty.

'Finding vultures is proving
to be difficult.'

It's the end of the dry season
and although there are a few

animals out on the plains, there
clearly aren't enough of them dying!

I assumed the plains would be
heaving with vultures,

but it's a few
days before I find any.

And when I do track them
down, they seem very hungry.

I don't know how anyone's getting
any eating done because every

time anyone gets their head and neck
into the carcass to actually get

some meat, someone else comes along
and just batters them from behind.

And they all just end up fighting
the whole time.

And the most you see them
eating fills eight, ten seconds.

They really are the most repulsive,
disgusting,

ugly, vicious, ghoulish-sounding...

..antiheroes, which
is probably why I love them so much.

The problem is I've got no idea
what's happening here.

It's just a mass of angry birds
fighting over a carcass.

I know it must be more complex than
that. Life always is!

Do you want some food? Food!

'Simon Thomsett - world vulture
expert and nanny.'

What a dude! Come on. Look.

# Food, glorious food! #

Come on. See, you can see how big
he is.

'Simon rescued this Ruppell's
Griffon vulture after an eagle tried

'to kill it.

'If anyone can let me into the
secrets of vultures, it's him

'and his friend.'

So, do I pick a piece up?

Yup.

And oops! You're
supposed to eat this bit, not me.

Well, you can see that it's pretty
useless at eating on its own.

Cos it's just going to pull
it around, isn't it?

Yeah. It needs to have a heavy body
behind it, something that you can...

Yeah, so put... Hold it down really
hard, like this. Right.

And then... And then it can...

Otherwise it's just going to pull
it... Pull it like that

and not get anything off it.

So now you're... Turn it over.
You're being a heavy mammal. Right.

And now it can use that bill to good
effect by pulling back.

So efficient, isn't it?
Look at that!

Now, it couldn't eat that, see?
Why not? Ooh! So shall I...?

Why couldn't it eat it? Cos it wants
to eat little tiny pieces of it.

Right. So, if I hold it and
let it... Yeah.

And the other thing is try to cover
the food like this, OK? Right.

It'll actually eat
out of the middle of your hand.

So, it'll go underneath?

Yes, and tuck in underneath and put
its head in. The power is amazing!

You really don't appreciate
the power and the efficiency of it

when you... When you watch them
on a kill, do you?

Ow! Not me!

HE LAUGHS

'I can't imagine a tool more
perfectly

'designed for stripping meat
off a bone than this vulture's beak

'when combined with its strong neck
and powerful tongue.'

That's so delicate, isn't it?

Are you looking at yourself
in the lens?

You are, aren't you?

What do you think?
Have you seen yourself lately?

Well, you're looking pretty good.
Have you given him a name?

Yeah, he's called Gollum.
That's just so unfair.

THEY LAUGH

You really have
bought into the whole stereotype.

'Obviously, I fall in love with
Gollum straight away. Who wouldn't?

'He has charisma and, for a bird,
he seems full of character

'and intelligence.

'He's also surprisingly clean,
and despite trying to bite me,

'very well-behaved.'

Try and clean his bill for him.

Just grab his head and just sort of
rub your hands up and down his bill.

He really appreciates it.

He don't want to play with me.
He doesn't know me.

'Gollum's one of the only captive
Ruppell's vultures in Africa.'

Very good!

'And Simon hopes to release him
one day.'

You goofy bird!

'Understanding how Gollum eats
is fascinating.'

It's just something to
clean your bill on, hey?

'But I want to see vultures
feeding in the wild.

'And right now is the perfect time.'

The long-awaited rains have finally
come to the southern Serengeti.

Too late for some.

LION ROARS

Rain is as important to the vultures
as it is to any animal here...

..because following the rains
are the herds.

The great wildebeest migration is
just a few days away

and everyone's waiting for it.

It won't be long before this
place becomes vulture

heaven as they fly in from all over
East Africa, so it's the perfect

time for me to really get to know
them and see them at their best.

'Simon wants to show me
that there's a lot more going on

'when vultures are feeding
than meets the eye.

'So we've come out to the
Serengeti in search of carcasses.'

It's last night, isn't it?
Must have been.

You see the way that it's all been
cut right through here? Yeah.

Incisors or something.
This, for vultures?

Honestly, this is the best thing
ever. Nice and fresh.

And they do like fresh meat.

How long would they take to strip
something like this down to

basically skin and bone?
Well, about 100 vultures?

Take them about 20 minutes. Really?

Each one eating about 500 grams,
a kilogram. 20 minutes? 20 minutes.

That's incredible, isn't it?

They just come in. Choo! Can
clean this thing up within minutes.

You see all these white lesions here?
Yeah.

They're going all the way,
spread throughout the whole
of the lungs, everywhere, really.

It looks to me
like it might have bovine TB.

Whatever it is, it's
certainly diseased.

So, if that's bovine TB, it's
basically very contagious to

other animals that could then pick
that up and spread it?

Certainly, especially to other
wildebeests. So, yeah.

So, what you want really is
a cleaning crew to come in

and completely clean it and get rid
of all that disease, don't you? Yup.

And guess who that's going to be?

OK, let's get these cameras in it.
When I say in it, I mean in it.

All right, you go!

'I want Simon to explain exactly
what's going on

'when vultures turn up
and fight over this carcass.

'So, in order to dissect the action
on the obliging wildebeest, we rig

'it with cameras, which we can then
watch on a monitor back in the car.

'Simon then insists we get well
back as the vultures will be

'nervous of us.

'But it's not long before their keen
eyes spot the kill.'

How far would they be able to spot
a kill like this from?

Wouldn't be surprised if they can
see at least 20 kilometres, you know,

especially other vultures going in.

These things really are amazingly
cautious.

They come in, a few of them send out
a couple of scouts beforehand.

They go in and have a look.
Sometimes they just fly over,

sit in the trees,
and a long distance away.

Then they all start massing around
and basically, they're sort

of pulling straws, you know, who's
going to be the first one to go in.

And it's usually the less cautious,
you know, juveniles,

who really don't know what's up
and they just go in there first.

And then, if she doesn't get harmed,
all the other adults

and other species come in.

This is sort of the typical
idea of what most people

have about the African savanna,
you know, predator kills,

and then all the vultures come piling
in. But no, they're very cautious.

They know, as we do,
that thing was killed by a carnivore,

so they're not
going to come in in a hurry.

Simon, I've got
a vulture on the ground.

'I'm amazed how cautious
the vultures are.'

And they're coming right...
No, they're on the carcass.

They're feeding straight away. Yeah,
they're now... Ice has been broken.

Everybody's just going to pile in.
So it's every man for himself now.

'Armed with cameras on the ground
and a long lens in the car,

'Simon and I can get a really good
look at the action.'

To me,
this looks like complete chaos.

Everyone fighting over the...
the food,

actually reminds me of Sunday lunch
when I was a kid.

But is there any order to this?

If you were to take a photograph
from directly above, you'd see

the carcass in the middle,
the dominant vultures immediately

eating it, the less dominant
vultures around the outside.

Marabou storks, hooded vultures,
in a sort of a growing ring.

So it looks like chaos right now,
but there is some order.

And you can see when they really are
getting very angry, they stretch

out their necks and they just make
that horrible hissing roar.

And they're just bashing into one
another. They're real thugs,

aren't they?

They have incredibly strong necks.
So when you see them

actually biting one another, you
think they're doing terrible damage.

But their necks are a bit
like pythons and snakes.

They have such incredibly
strong necks.

They can pull about 20kg,
40-pound pull,

straight pull with just
the muscles of their neck.

'So vultures might be ugly to us,

'but they're actually beautifully
designed to do what they do.

'They have long necks to reach right
up inside the carcass, which,

'critically, have few feathers

'so they don't get dirty
and store bacteria.

'They've got strong hooked
beaks for ripping flesh

'and a powerful tongue with
backward-facing spines.

'And listening to Simon, I realise
there does seem to be some

'order in this chaos -

'a hierarchy decided by age,
bluff and species.

'There's not just one
species of vulture here.'

What's this vulture here, then? That
one's a... They're both white-backs.

White-backs have the black bill,
slightly smaller.

That one's the other one.

The Ruppell's -
a totally different skull shape.

It has an ivory-coloured bill.

Adults have that...
that pale yellow eye.

White-backs have a dark eye
all the time.

'And then another vulture turns up -
a Lappet-faced vulture.

'He looks bigger than the others
and a little more handsome,

'if I dare say.'

I love that strut,
that attitude they've got!

Look at that guy!
A stunning-looking creature.

And he's just piling in there,
saying, "I'm the man!"

'This guy is clearly the boss
and the other vultures know it,

'backing off, giving him
the space he needs to feed.'

He is tearing away at the edges
of the scapula here,

tearing off the sinew.

He's not eating any of the raw meat.

He's eating these tiny little
stringy bits of tendon, isn't he?

There's all that meat there.

You know, this film really is
very valuable

because we can see precisely
what he's eating.

You wouldn't think that that is
going to sustain a huge vulture.

'So each vulture species
has a niche.

'The Lappet-faced eats the tendons
and visceral tissue.

'The Ruppell's dominate the best
meat on the carcass.

'And the smaller white-backed
vultures get what they can.

'Within just half an hour, they've
cleaned up the disease-ridden

'wildebeest.

'Their stomachs are full
and they've stored more

'meat in their bulging crops,
ready to digest later.

'Some are now so stuffed that they
struggle to fly.

'Others, however, have chicks
to feed

'and head off on a long journey
back to the nest.

'And that's exactly where
we're going next.

'Simon tells me that vultures make
very dedicated parents.

'So we head for their nest sites

'across the border from Tanzania
into Kenya en route to Lake Kwenia.

'This hidden wildlife oasis
on the edge of the Rift Valley is

'criss-crossed with high cliffs -

'perfect nesting
sites for Ruppell's vultures.

'Ruppell's vultures don't just
nest anywhere.

'They're very sensitive to
disturbance and very picky about

'where they'll lay their eggs, so
finding a nest to film isn't easy.'

Ah, there's a few vultures, Simon.

It's pretty good, isn't it?
Look at that!

Wow! It's nice to be in their world,
isn't it, on their level?

Yeah, and this is a totally different
experience from out on the open.

Look at this guy! He's just coming
right in to have a look.

You have a huge amount coming
straight over your head,

over this way.

Wow!

That's incredible.

Wow!

That's a lot of vultures, isn't it?
It's looking good today, isn't it?

100 or so? Eh? 100? What do
you reckon? Looks like it could be.

Well, very few people in the world
get to see this kind of thing.

At this level.

That's pretty stunning.

'Simon's keen to show me
an old nest, which is

'apparently made of a rather
unusual material.'

So, there you go.

What, this is...? This is a nest?

This is a solid lump
of vulture guano.

That's amazing! That's vulture poo
over hundreds of years. Really? Yeah.

It's just incredible. Who knows,
it could be thousands of years old.

I mean, this is a very dry
environment, there's no...

hardly any rain here.

Something as thick as this must have
been built up very slowly.

Really quite disgusting, at the same
time, that I'm rubbing

and tapping what is essentially
a massive great pile of poo!

And you're sitting in it!
I'm sitting in it!

THEY LAUGH

Simon and I are after
an active nest though,

one preferably with a
decent sized chick in it.

I like those guys there. That's
nice hard, solid rock there.

The ones out on the right? Yeah. OK.

Yeah, we'll go for those ones. OK.

Early the next morning, Simon

descends the face to find a
good nest and install a camera.

Hello, buddy, hi.

Oh, very cute.

The chick sits still,

pretending it's not there,
hoping Simon won't see him.

Back up top I can monitor what the
camera is seeing on my laptop.

Yeah, that's it,
that's spot on.

Which means we can watch the
birds without disturbing them.

Have a look at this.

Ah. Has anyone ever filmed
vultures here before?

No, never before. Not here in Kwenia.

In fact, the whole species,

very little has been done like this.

That's actually a pretty
big chick, isn't it?

How old do you reckon
it is? It's deceptive

cos it... I mean, physically
it's very big

but it's only about, I think
about 45 to 60 days old.

It has, at least, another
month or so to go.

Right. I suppose an
animal that big needs,

certainly a chick, it's going to
need a lot of food, isn't it?

He needs at least a kilo,
maybe a bit more, a day.

A kilo? A kilo of food.

So, Mum and Dad are coming back
feeding him a soup of, you know,

nutritious guts and livers and all...

A kilo of that a day!

But Simon and I are concerned.
We haven't seen either of

the parents visiting the nest.

Back in the southern Serengeti and
the wildebeest have finally arrived.

1.4 million of them!

Around 500,000 tons of fresh meat.

And when they arrive, they calve.

No other animal is as important to
the vultures here as the wildebeest.

Vultures mainly eat the bodies of
animals that have died naturally,

of old age or starvation and
it's the other scavengers

and predators that
benefit from vultures,

not the other way round.

Hyenas use vultures like
their eyes in the sky.

Where they circle may well be food.

Vultures and hyenas
rely on each other

but their relationship
is a fractious one.

Without hyenas, the vultures
can't break through the

tough hide of the wildebeest,

and are only able to eat it
through the nose, mouth and anus.

Competition for these
openings becomes intense

and all the fighting means that
few vultures actually get to feed.

So the vultures need the hyenas
with their powerful jaws

to butcher the carcass and provide
access to the meat inside.

The problem then is

that the hyenas want to
eat it all themselves.

All the vultures
can do is watch.

Some vultures do build up the
courage to creep in closer

but hyenas will kill them,
given the opportunity.

But pestering is something
vultures are very good at.

Where vultures and hyenas gather,

black-backed jackals
are sure to follow.

Jackals are consummate thieves and
rely not on size and strength

but bravery and speed
to get past the hyenas.

If you want to eat at the carcass,
you've got to have guts.

The problem for the jackal, though,
is he's actually getting a little

too big for his boots...and someone
needs to show him who's boss.

Weighing in at ten kilograms, with a
wingspan of nearly three metres,

few jackals are foolish enough

to mess with the might of
a lappet-faced vulture.

Back at the nest in Kwenia,
and Simon and I

finally see what we've
been waiting for.

Oh, look, there's an adult.
Ah, look. Just landed, that's great.

This is the first time we've seen

one of the parent birds
visiting the nest.

That's a relief actually. It is.

When we put, you know, you
put the camera that close,

the last thing you want
to do is disturb them.

Well, it's getting hot,
isn't it? Look at the chick.

So happy to see Mum's back. Yeah.

CHICK CHIRPS

Is that the chick
begging, that noise?

That's definitely
a begging sound.

Carrying food in their crop, rather
than digesting it in their stomach,

means that this parent bird can

bring food back from the Serengeti,

over 100 miles away and still
keep it reasonably fresh.

There you go. See it regurgitate?

So that's why she's moving
her beak like that?

And the tongue is, literally,
pulling the food out of her throat.

Urgh, it's quite disgusting.
HE LAUGHS

It's weird cos it's very lovely,

adult feeding chick, but it's really
quite disgusting at the same time.

It's so funny seeing them
in the nest like this

and not scrapping over a rotten
piece of meat on the plains.

And they just suddenly look
like stunningly beautiful,

magnificent birds rather
than these, sort of, beggars

scrapping over a
carcass, don't they?

Anything that happens on this
nest over the next few days

is going to be very valuable.

We've never had an opportunity to

look at these things
that close before.

As we watched the nest
over the next few days,

it became clear to us that it was
only being visited by one adult.

Simon assumed it was the mother.

What had happened to the
father, we don't know.

But with only one parent,

the chick's chances
of survival are slim.

Finding a kilo of meat
a day for the chick

puts an enormous pressure
on the single mum.

It means travelling huge
distances in search of carrion.

The vultures are designed for this.

Ruppell's Vultures have a wingspan

of around two and a half metres,
which are shaped for gliding.

They also have specialised
haemoglobin in their blood.

It allows them to fly at
extremely high altitude.

They've been recorded
flying at 11,000 metres,

higher than Everest,
higher than any other bird.

There's now plenty of food
to be had on the plains.

There's also plenty of competition.

To find enough food for
herself and her chick,

the mother's going to have to
be assertive and aggressive.

But just how aggressive
do vultures actually get?

This camera is a very
cool bit of kit.

It's a specialist high-speed camera

and what it will allow me to
do is slow the action down

on the vultures.

And when I say slow it down,
I mean I can slow it down

up to 80 times with this thing. And
what that will allow me to do is

see, in incredible detail,
exactly what's going on

when all the vultures are arguing
and fighting over the carcass.

There's certainly no
shortage of scrapping

amongst the vultures on this kill,

so it's perfect for the high speed
camera. And straight away it starts

delivering, giving me a completely
new look at the vultures.

I'm starting to see just how
incredible vultures really are.

I'm beginning to see the
beauty in the grotesque.

The high-speed camera has revealed
another side of vultures to me.

They're actually more vicious
to each other than I thought.

But I can now see how perfectly
designed they are to be like this.

They're designed to fight,
they're designed to be tough.

So, it might seem nasty
and aggressive to us

but to them it's normal.

And ultimately many of these
birds are parents just trying to

find enough food to
feed their chicks.

And they're desperate, because the
food supply is about to run out.

The wildebeest migration doesn't
stay long in the southern Serengeti.

It soon moves off, following the
rains into the western corridor...

..where the wildebeest disperse.

The plains now lie empty...

..and for the mother vulture,
finding enough food for the chick

becomes increasingly difficult.

Back at the nest in Kwenia,
the sun beats down.

The midday temperature
here can reach into the 40s

and on the bare cliff edge,
there's no respite for the chick.

So, Mum creates a parasol
with her wings.

But as I watch her over the days,

I notice she seems to be spending
a lot of time shading the chick

and only bringing
food every other day.

Perhaps her duties are
becoming too stretched.

The chick's appetite
is now enormous.

It's growing fast,
some of its feathers

at over two centimetres a day.

Without enough food its bones
will fail to develop properly

and it will probably die.

Simon explains to me that
vultures breed slowly,

only having one chick at a time.

The chances of a chick surviving
to adulthood are only around 50%.

With only one parent to
feed and protect it,

this chick's chances
are much slimmer.

And it gets worse.

That evening, Simon explains why
the chick may only have one parent.

The day started by
me having a chat with

somebody out in the open plains
and I looked up and I saw

a whole kettle of vultures
just circling in the sky.

But my attention was drawn to a

few of them which were flying
in a funny, erratic manner.

And then some of them just simply
tumbled straight out of the air.

Fast glide and a flit and then
piling straight into the ground.

I drove over there to go and
find him, I couldn't see him

but on my way there, there
were carcasses under trees,

virtually everywhere you looked
there were dead animals,

like dead jackal and hyena.

People had poisoned with carbofuran,

which is a pesticide used in
the agricultural industries.

It is widely used here to kill
wildlife.

And it is important to understand
that where the actual place is

the poison's put,

the effect of the poison is that it
doesn't stay there, it moves.

So you get mini
explosions of deaths occurring.

What happened was that the
hyena ate the cow...

..went nine kilometres away, died.

These vultures came down to eat it

and within just a few minutes were
comatose and dying.

And within a few minutes of that
whatever landed on that dead

vulture is also dying.

Inside that pile of dead vultures was
one living vulture whose face

had been staring up at the sun
until its eyes were completely burnt,

and the corneas were burnt.

We managed to save that one
and release it later.

And it was catastrophic
for the vultures

cos we lost 187 vultures in just
one poisoning incident.

We've had a big decline in vulture
numbers in East Africa.

What effect is that then going to
have on everything else,

you know, the people
and the animals here?

Well, that's a good question
cos there's been a similar

thing has happened in India where
they've all died from diclofenac

poisoning and it's been banned
and we're expecting a recovery.

One of the great arguments that
they've had is saying that

human health is at risk
if all the vultures do go.

It's not entirely clear exactly what
kind of diseases people will get

if there's thousands of dead
and rotting animals

lying in the street that do not get
ingested by vultures.

But certainly it causes a huge
increase in domestic dogs.

And you can see really quite
a clear graph we're seeing

the numbers of incidents of rabies
amongst people

has shot up in the absence
of the vultures.

Other things,
such as just filthy water, you know,

disgusting amounts of pathogens just
pouring into the main streets.

Similar sort of thing obviously
can happen here.

There are many places, even large
conservancies in Kenya where

you will go and see a dead animal.

And it just doesn't get consumed
by anything other than bacteria

and maggots.

The next morning the mother leaves
the nest early. I assume

heading back to the Serengeti,

in search of any
remaining carcasses.

A female Verreaux's eagle
is on the prowl though.

Patrolling the cliffs
on the hunt for vultures.

It was a Verreaux's eagle that
knocked poor Gollum

out of the sky and broke his wing.

And an unguarded chick in the nest
would make the perfect

meal for this enormous bird.

With only one parent and an eagle
on the prowl, I don't think this

chick is going to survive
and I don't want to watch it die.

So I decide to leave.

I head north in search of other
vultures.

Poisoning is a serious problem.

If India's experience is anything
to go by, Africa's

problems are only just beginning.

India's vultures have
faced near extinction.

The cost to human
health has been staggering.

Vultures had consumed around

20 million tons of rotting meat
a year.

As they declined,
the feral dog population

which carries rabies, exploded.

This has resulted in over 50,000
extra human deaths from rabies.

It's thought the vulture decline has
cost India more than $34 billion.

Vultures are perhaps far more
important to us than we realise.

Here in Africa poisoning is
more sinister.

Poachers deliberately target

vultures for giving away their
positions to park rangers.

And cattle farmers indirectly
kill them when they lace carcasses

with carbofuran to poison lions
and hyenas.

To understand
the effect of poisoning,

Simon's studying how vultures move
and more crucially, where they feed.

been catching vultures and fixing
satellite transmitters to them,

in order to gather a greater
understanding of their movements.

So while Darcy watches the vultures,
Simon sets the trap.

Simon's spent his life working
with birds of prey

and catching vultures to him
is second nature.

We'll just reverse out, I think.

Here they come.

The aim is to snare a vulture
by the foot and then jump out

and grab if before it gets hurt.

The chances of it working are quite
slim and our chances

of catching the desired young
Ruppell's vulture are even slimmer.

Jackals are the last thing we need.

They'll scare off the vultures

and we risk catching one.

Not a situation either of us want to
be in.

It's a waiting game.

Got one. Go, go, go, go, Charlie.

Go, go, go, go, go, go.

Over his head, quick. I'm trying.

Over the head, over the head.
Over the head. Good. Got it.

Good, good, well done,
brilliant.

That's exactly what we want.

OK, we're going to carry it to the
shade underneath the tree.

'A young Ruppell's vulture,
the perfect specimen.'

Oh, he's so strong, Simon.

Good, nice shady tree,
it won't get heat stress.

'The trick now is to get the
satellite transmitter on as fast

'as possible and let the bird go.

'Darcy and Simon know exactly
what they're doing

'though and work fast
so they don't stress the bird.'

Yeah, they're massively strong things

and really they can carry
a kilo of weight.

This thing is pretty much the same
weight as a cigarette packet

and really weighs less than
a quarter of what his lunch weighs.

And in time, when the battery is
finished it will simply

fall off its back and it will be
fine.

'Within a few minutes
the transmitter's secured to the

'vulture's back.

'It will now transmit a signal
giving its location

'every 15 minutes.'

OK, I'm just testing to see
it's got lots of flexibility.

It can go over its shoulders,
goes over its shoulders, OK.

It feels very heavy this bird and
very strong.

OK...put him on the ground...and
let him go.

That's OK. He's off.

Ha-ha, well done. Ha-ha.

Do you think we did all right,
Simon?

I think we did great.

As you can see he's flying around
and literally

within about 20 minutes he would have
completely forgotten his experience.

The amount of data we're going to get
out of this is incredibly valuable.

We'll be able to know where it goes,
where it breeds,

where it feeds, and really without
what we just did to it there's

no way we're ever going to be
able to prove it.

This really is the only way
of getting the data we need.

It's lovely to see him
circling over us now.

Looks quite relaxed now,
doesn't he?

Over the next few months the young
Ruppell's vulture travelled

huge distances covering almost
a quarter of Kenya.

Simon and Darcy learned that it was
feeding mainly in protected areas,

National Parks and reserves, which
are relatively safe from poisoning.

Behaviour like this could be
the key to its survival.

Satellite tracking also helps us

understand more about where
vultures congregate to feed.

And there's one place they seem to
favour above all others.

The Masai Mara.

It's July and the Serengeti rains
have come north into Kenya.

Following them, as always, are the
wildebeest.

But here they face their greatest
challenge.

Crossing the Mara River.

The combination of not being
particularly bright

and not particularly good swimmers
means that many never reach

the other side of the river.

Perishing instead in the murky
water.

Phew. This is just incredible.

The number of wildebeest coming over
the edge now is just,

it's just hundreds.

This is the moment every scavenger

and predator in the Masai Mara
has been waiting for.

And vultures have flown in from
all over East Africa.

One the one hand you've got this
panic and fear of all

the wildebeest piling in and then
on the other all the vultures

are just sitting amongst it really
quiet and calm, waiting to be fed.

There's now a surplus of food,

as the river swells with
the corpses of the wildebeest.

And as the waters rise in the rains,

they're carried away downriver
to the waiting vultures.

The bodies of up to 10,000
wildebeest have been recorded

floating down the river
in a single day.

And when they reach the shallows,
they pile up and rot.

This is what the vultures have been
waiting for. It's the most

important feeding event of their
year.

The hot sun and rotting corpses now
turn these shallows into a soup of

bacteria and it's up to the vultures
and Marabou storks to clean it up.

Vulture stomach acid is so powerful
that it can dissolve metal.

It's this adaptation that means
they can eat even the most putrid

meat and destroy dangerous diseases
such as rabies, cholera and anthrax.

Diseases which could otherwise

remain in the system and
proliferate.

But downriver the carcasses pile up
uneaten.

Left to rot in the sun. Leaching
bacteria and disease into the river.

The result of East Africa's vulture
decline is now starkly obvious.

Vultures have declined by 60% in the
Masai Mara in the last ten years.

Not good when they're
responsible for consuming

around 70% of the dead animals here.

Without them the meat will just rot,
diseases will increase,

as will scavengers such as jackals
and hyenas.

This will in turn throw
one of the world's most important

eco-systems out of balance.

To be honest, I'm really worried.

Deliberate poisoning of vultures
is now increasing,

not just in Kenya but all over
Africa.

Extinction is beginning to loom.

The problem is few really care.
People like Simon Thomsett

are tragically rare.

We might see vultures as dirty,
filthy and ugly...

but we need them.

The more I've got to know them,
the more impressed I've become.

The veneer of ugliness that
surrounds them

has been stripped away.

When I look at them now,
their character, their swagger,

their extraordinary
design...I see beauty.

MUSIC: "I Put A Spell On You"
Screamin' Jay Hawkins

# Oh, spell

# Oh, spell

# I put a spell on you

# Oh, spell

# Oh, spell

# Because you're mine

# Oh, spell

# Oh, spell

# Stop the things you do

# Oh, spell

# Oh, spell

# Watch out! I ain't lying

# You know I can't stand it

# Oh, spell

# No running around

# Oh, spell

# I can't stand

# Oh, spell

# I can't stand
no putting me down

# Oh, spell

# I put a spell on you

# Because...

# Spell. #