Saving Nigeria's vultures

What the report says

BBC News is featuring the plight of vultures in Nigeria in a 27-minute episode of The Documentary Podcast, released on 25 July 2026. The programme says vultures struggle to attract the public sympathy often given to more visually appealing wildlife, in part because they are commonly linked with death and feeding on carrion. BBC West Africa journalist Makuochi Okafor investigates the issue, with the episode billed as showing how one Nigerian community is helping reverse the decline.

According to the BBC programme description, about 70% of vulture species worldwide are now threatened with extinction, and Nigeria’s populations are also at risk. The article does not provide further detail on the community’s location, the species involved, or the specific measures being used, but frames the story as a conservation effort focused on an animal often overlooked in public campaigns.

The broader conservation context is that vultures play an important ecological role by consuming carcasses, which can help reduce waste and limit the spread of disease. Because their decline can affect ecosystems and public health, efforts to protect them matter beyond preserving a single group of birds.

The episode comes from The Fifth Floor strand of the BBC World Service, presented by Faranak Amidi and produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. The same programme also previews BBC reporting on controversy around a Vietnamese film about Nam Phuong, the last empress of the Nguyen Dynasty, and on a vigilante raid at a private party in Russia.