September 2016: SAVE partnership grows and welcomes new members

We are delighted to announce the expansion of the SAVE partnership to seventeen full Partners plus three SAVE Associates.

In recognition of the key role played by the following organisations, we welcome two South African Partners: the University of Pretoria and VulPro, as well as the Environmental Research Institute of Scotland, UK, all as Project Partners.

Prof Vinny Naidoo, now Director of the Biomedical Research Centre in the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Veterinary Science, has played a key role over more than a decade and you will probably know his name from many of the publications on the resources page. The University of Pretoria has been mainly linked to the NSAID testing and research work, and links to the second new partner: VulPro, which is headed by Kerri Wolter and has facilitated and indeed contributed directly to much of the NSAIDs work as well as working on capturing, tagging and handling techniques. Both VulPro and the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Veterinary Sciences have worked hand in hand on the testing and research work.

The third new partner has contributed very significant resources in terms of time, expertise and equipment through Dr Mark Taggart’s specialist work on detecting diclofenac and NSAIDs in extracts of animal tissues. The Environmental Research Institute is hosted within the University of Highlands & Islands in Scotland.

Finally, we are also delighted to add our first SAVE Associate from Bangladesh. This is Prokriti O Jibon Foundation led by its high profile Chairman, Muqeed Majumder Babu. The important work of the foundation mainly in proactively communicating SAVE endorsed messages has already played a major role and we hope that recognition as an Associate will further endorse and promote their work. You may well have seen some of their publicity work on the SAVE website, they have regularly aired vulture documentaries, Vulture Safe Zones and other news items on Bangladesh national TV, and note they have attended and publicised the outputs of the past two SAVE meetings.

By acknowledging and endorsing the important role these four organisations play, we hope it acknowledges and will further encourage their ongoing efforts and that they will continue to play their key respective roles in Asian vulture conservation,.