BirdLife Botswana in conjunction with other conservation organisations in Botswana celebrated the International Vulture Awareness Day (IVAD) on the 7^th September at the capital city Gaborone. The event started with a march from the venue Gaborone Secondary School Grounds passing in front of the City Council and Museum, past the State House, returning through the Main Mall back to the venue. The International Vulture Awareness Day has been commemorated before in Botswana by different organisation, independently. However, this year, Non-governmental conservation organisations (such as BirdLife Botswana, Cheetah Conservation Botswana, Kalahari Conservation Society, Kalahari Research and Conservation, Mokolodi Nature Reserve, Raptors Botswana), the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, and the Department of Environmental Affairs, chose to jointly commemorate this day and lift a red flag on issues surrounding our vulture populations in Botswana. The IVAD is commemorated each year internationally on the first Saturday of September and is aimed at publicising the conservation of vultures to a wider audience and to highlight the importance of vulture conservation. Recently, (June 2019) a massive total of 537 vultures and two tawny eagles were found dead in northeast Botswana adding up to a devastating statistics of poisoned vultures report.

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BirdLife Botswana statement on the recent vulture poisoning incident