00:00Zambia's Kafue National Park is one of the largest in Africa.
00:04It's home to many big cats, including leopards and lions.
00:07But big cat populations have long been under threat even on wildlife reserves.
00:11Part of the reason their numbers have been dwindling is because some are poached.
00:15However, others are poisoned by farmers,
00:17those who are attempting to preserve their own livestock that are sometimes eaten by these big cats.
00:22What's more, the poisoned meat also attracts carrion birds like these vultures,
00:26a species which is critically endangered.
00:28So now conservationists from the North Carolina Zoo have outfitted those very hooded vultures with trackers.
00:33They say will be an early warning system of a poisoning and help them track down the perpetrator.
00:38Here's Panthera's Cheetah Program Director, Dr. Kim Young-Overton, to explain.
00:43If there is poisoning events that are happening, then by using the vultures,
00:47we can really get a head start on where those poisoning events may be occurring.
00:54And so it's really good to have the vulture program in place, already in place within the park,
01:00to really help us understand and get ahead of the game if there are poisoning events.
01:05The program started in 2021, but is ongoing.
01:08And they say they hope it will both save the critically endangered hooded vulture
01:12and help them preserve a struggling ecosystem.
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