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The Egyptian vulture has always been closely linked to livestock breeding. It feeds on the livestock’s carcasses, it takes its face’s unique orange colour from their droppings, it uses their wool to prepare its nest, why, it even sometimes nests just above the livestock’s shed! Livestock breeders on their side are especially fond of Egyptian vultures because they announce the arrival of spring and good weather, they clean the countryside from the carcasses stopping the spreading of diseases, while back in the good old days, when numbers were much higher, the birds would indicate the location of animals they had lost. Nowadays, the Egyptian vulture and the livestock breeders have a common enemy: poison baits! Only in the period 2014-2015 the Greek Antipoison Dog Units have found 35 poisoned shepherd dogs and this of course is only a small sample of what really is going on in the countryside.
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