Two vultures were in the desert eating a clown...

Waking up today, I could not have foreseen the immeasurable will of my Father to gather the scraggle of female home bodies, the almost sing-a-long day "road trip" or the sentimentality of the sun setting on a day of peek-a-boo window shopping in touristy spots along one of the largest dams, nestled between two mountain ranges. Hence a very pleasant day driving around with my folks in the Magaliesburgs and the Hartbeespoortdam.

Some noteworthy things came to my attention today; my Mother overpacks for everything (not that I didn't notice, but hearing my Father tease her about it, made me realize he had noticed also, and that she laughed meant that she was after all a good sport.. mmmm!!),  beware sticky tables in restaurants, especially if the waiter explains they were recently varnished ( really, like this morning?). 

I also discovered you get PURPLE snap peas (but you have to eat them fast or they mould?), that South Africa built an atomic bomb in secret and then detonated it in an abandoned mine shaft somewhere in the 80's (!!) and that the House of the Rising Sun was my Uncle Wallie's favourite LP, and potentially his only one, as he forced my Mum to listen to it whenever she came to visit in their youth.

Is he a fan of this too I wonder?

And lastly that one of the largest vulture colonies is nestled in this mountain range. Exciting stuff! Vultures aye? Seen lots of cartoon vultures and on 50/50 and other gruesome wild life programs. But my knowledge of vultures as a species was spotty at best: ugly, grey, sinister looking, big, necky birds? Eats the meats of the dead..birds of carnage right? Cool, bring on these bad ass mothers.

You might know me by my work?

First rule of looking at birds? Bring binoculars.

The only way to look at chicks.

Damn. Oh well. We'll just find them manually.
Luckily these birds tend to colonize in one spot, so spotting them was not too difficult. The fact that LARGE quantities of white bird poo covered the mountain in patches was also pretty much a tell-tale sign that they were indeed nesting up there.

'Follow the signs! You'll figure it out!

In the sky above us I counted 23 large birds gliding about. Excited I found out there were loads of them up there! What like thousands? Yes..No. To my dismay it turned out that these unpopular birds were in the numbers closer to the hundreds. The low hundreds. Ahem. Whatever, its not like they're cute or anything. Who cares? So what if they sometimes they eat the meat of poisoned animals (farmers lay out poison to curb pests like jackals) and end up dying by accident too..  Stupid bird, you should know better. Keep flying out of your territory to hunt and ending up electrocuting yourself on those electrical wires of factories? Esh, don't you have like bird radar? Come on.

We almost got the Angry birds contract. I guess we weren't angry enough?

Noting I hadn't heard before. But the worst was yet to come... the shocker: Bodies of these vultures were found at the bottom of the range as they were slaughtered by some of the indigenous folk. Turns out that because it is known that vultures fly high in the sky, they must see into the future. Obviously. So if you kill a vulture and consume part of it in some tribal medicine you will have better luck at predicting your lotto numbers. That's right you heard me. The LOTTERY. You will have a better chance of PICKING THE WINNING LOTTERY NUMBERS if you CATCH, MAIME and KILL this endangered bird.

 I don't know, this just seems so old school to me.

All of these things combined, made me feel pretty sick to my stomach and extremely shitty about the whole vulture situation. And shitty about people. Stupid people and ignorant people and superstitious people were really the cause of me loosing my purple peas breakfast. How could people still believe things like that in this day and age? Such ignorance and fear that rule so many people that it breaks the heart. And I know full well that it isn't an isolated experience. For years poachers have slaughtered rhino's and elephants for their horns and tusks - not only in the value of the ivory but the supposed medicinal value of "Rhino horn". Sharks get their fins chopped up for a healthy broth and a tiger's balls is considered an expensive delicacy to boost male fertility, in high end restaurants of Beijing and other parts of China.  Superstitious violence towards animals for the gain of a human desire/attributes/luck is not new nor should it be so surprising. 

Sorry but its true, you have a face only a mother could love. But I am trying to like you more.

And yet I can't shake the feeling of general wrongness of it all and to feel a sense of sadness for this  ugly bird that's dying out because some idiot thinks eating its heart will give him seven lucky numbers.

If this was a movie we would come back and haunt that schmuck.
Or give him totally wrong numbers and some sort of venereal disease for eating our insides. Your Welcome.

After coming home, I researched the vultures of the region (I know, I told you I felt sad), and am happy to report that there are in fact organizations out there keeping an eye on 'em vultures. They may not be the poster animal for the WWE but another conservation program all to itself called VULPRO is looking out for them. Nice people in khaki clothes and with tranquilizer guns and tracking devices. Phew, GOOD. And they check on them by going up in hot air balloons. Hallo! That's pretty cool. You go khaki rangers!! Admittedly, I am not the khaki wearing type, but I am one hell of a sharer and can tell a good story at a party like nobody's business. So don't worry vultures, I can't stop people from hurting you for incredibly stupid reasons, but I can tell as many people within earshot about it. 

Starting with today, on this blog. 

Word.

Here is a link to the Vulpro website: http://www.vulpro.com