A wild life conservation expert and Associate Professor at the University of Uyo, Edem Eniang, has blamed the gradual disappearance of vultures on the “unscrupulous politicians” who are in the habit of destroying them, especially their eggs for charm to achieve electoral successes.
Eniang, an expert in snakes who teaches in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Management of the university said on Saturday that the attitude of the politicians had depopulated the vultures and created a vacuum in the natural order of things.
He however did not give details of how the vultures are prepared for charm but expressed concern that with the approach of the 2019 general elections, the population of the vultures would have been further decimated by a greater percentage.
The professor maintained that though vultures were considered unclean in many cultures because they help to clean the environment by feeding on dead decaying materials that would have posed a lot of health hazards to man.
According to him they are “vacuum cleaners” and therefore immensely valuable in safeguarding and balancing the environment.
“In many local cultures, vulture are regarded as unclean, people also regarded it as a witch because of what they think it does, so nobody likes to associate with it generally.
“Yet the same people have a proverb in Ibibio which when translates literally means ‘it is only people that God has prospered that vultures will fall on their roof.’
“The implication of this proverb is that no vulture will go to a house of someone who cannot slaughter a big animal like goat or cattle during festive period.
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“So you see Mr. A doing a big function like wedding or marriage, you see will sooner or later see vultures gather on the tree or on the nearby roof waiting to scavenge on any piece, but Mr. B who does not slaughter anything will the vulture go there?.
“Indirectly our people are affirming that if you are not blessed by God, you cannot get the money to slaughter big animals for vultures to be attracted to your home except by stealing.”
The professor lamented however that those vultures were fast going into extinction today, arguing that there was something that was wrong in the natural order of things by God.
He said, “Today go to marriage ceremonies, it is rare to see any vulture, so people are not observant enough to see that something is wrong. Of course, they didn’t realise the value of vultures in our everyday life because they consider them unclean and as witches that bring ill-fortune.
“Whereas vultures help to clean our environment by feeding on dead decaying materials, they help from contacting diseases like cholera and so on. They are natural vacuum cleaners for dead decaying materials.”
He argued that when an animal is killed along the road, people don’t care to throw the bloated body away, it is the vultures that will do the job.
He added that they were valuable in the natural life cycle.
According to him, God created the vultures to help keep the environment “safe and balance.”
Eniang who also blamed the extermination of vultures on the activities of Fulani herdsmen who prepare poisonous substances for dangerous animals attacking their cattle.
He called for a stop in the killing of widelife in the country.
