Pesticides: The most threat to the conservation of the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus)

Abstract

Within human-wildlife conflicts, the use of poisoned carcasses to control predators has worried the international scientific and conservation community, due to the serious consequences it has on natural populations and their ecosystems. In many countries it is illegal and there is evidence that it affects a large number of non-target species (Mateo-Tomás et al., 2012; Woodroffe et al., 2005). Among the species most susceptible to this practice are the vultures, because they are specialized scavengers being more susceptible to consuming poisoned carcasses (Márquez et al., 2012). This, altogether with other threats, is declining the natural populations of vultures in almost all the world (Buechley and Şekercioğlu, 2016; McClure et al., 2018; Ogada et al., 2016). There is a great deal of evidence of this threat and its effect on wildlife in Europe, Asia and Africa (Cano et al., 2016; Loveridge et al., 2018; Murn and Botha, 2017). However, there are no studies about vulture poisoning or their effect they may have on natural populations in South America.