More than 100 vultures dead after eating poison in national park
Over 100 vultures died in Kruger National park, South Africa, after consuming a poisoned elephant carcass.
Poachers are suspected of using agricultural pesticides to kill the elephant for its parts.
An additional 83 vultures were rescued and are currently receiving treatment.
This incident marks one of the worst mass vulture poisonings in the park 's history, impacting endangered and critically endangered species.
Vultures' vital role in ecosystem cleanup makes them vulnerable to poisoning, highlighting the broader crisis of Poison use in wildlife poaching.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Terrifying moment two children cheat death after falling from bouncy castle blown 40 feet into the air during school fund-raiser
Terrifying footage captures the moment two children cheat death after falling from a bouncy castle blown 40 feet into the air by strong winds. The horror happened during a fund-raising day at a school in South Africa when an unexpected gust caused the apparently untethered inflatable to take flight. Witnesses at the Laerskool Protearif primary in Krugersdorp screamed in terror as the multi-coloured castle spiralled high into the sky. A shocked attendant watched helplessly as one of the children trapped on the inflatable was unable to hold on and plummeted to the ground below. Just moments later, a second youngster also lost their grip and plunged off the side of the castle. Quick-thinking parents at the event formed a human crash pad to break the pupils' fall, but despite their efforts, both children were still seriously injured. They were rushed to hospital where one was said to have a fractured skull and the other a broken arm. It is not known how many or if any other children were on board and managed to cling on inside the bouncy castle which landed about 50 feet from where it took off. The fund-raising event that nearly turned into a tragic disaster was held last Saturday on the school playing fields attended by over 1000 parents, pupils and friends. School headmaster Deon Lourens declined to comment but a statement on the school Facebook site confirmed two learners were rushed to the nearest A & E unit. It revealed that one child, thought to be the one with the broken arm, was released the same day, and the other with a fractured skull, was released three days later. The statement read that both children were receiving trauma counselling but added: 'It is with great gratitude that we are happy to share the very good news with you. 'The two children who sustained injuries during the fracture accident at the Protea festival on Saturday were discharged from hospital on 31/5 and 3/6 respectively. 'The necessary trauma-counselling was given to both children, as well as to their co-learners, who experienced the event and thank you all for standing together. 'We thank you very much for everyone's positive support, help and prayers' it said. An eye-witness with two pupils at the school, who asked not to be named for fear of getting her children into trouble, said: 'When they fell I thought they were dead. 'I was watching from a food stall with my girls when I heard screaming and turned around and just saw this blue, green and red thing shooting up to the heavens. 'Then there was a huge scream when first one child and then another fell out but of all the places they could have landed it was right over a group of parents below. 'They reached up their arms to try to catch the falling children and undoubtedly saved their lives or saved them from much worse injuries by cushioning them. 'It was not a very windy day but it seemed this huge gust just came from nowhere and it was said the bouncy castle had not been secured to the ground' she said. The school has 620 pupils aged 6 to 13 and last hit the headlines due to high winds when a tornado blew off its roof and destroyed its buildings in 2017. The 100mph tornado devastated a huge area of Johannesburg killing three people. A video of the incident was given to a local paper The Citizen by a concerned parent who said: 'I have looked at the video again and again and it appears untethered. 'While I saw that other inflatable structures were secured it did not look as if this jumping castle was tied to the ground in any way and went up about 3 storeys. 'I seriously hope lessons are learned for future school fundraisers' he said. It is unclear from the footage whether any ropes, tethers or anchoring mechanisms usually sold with the product were being used as they have to be by the law. Melissa Vere Russel of ABC Jumping Castles, not the company used, said: 'In high gusts a bouncy castle can act like a parachute and the wind can carry it away. 'All castles are manufactured with mechanisms to secure them to the ground and failing to anchor them properly could end in disaster and could be fatal'. The school's principal Deon Lourens declined to comment and his deputy Lauren van der Merwe said the matter had been referred to the Department of Education. A school spokesman added: 'There is a full and transparent investigation underway into what happened and it would inappropriate to comment until that is concluded'. Disasters on bouncy castles 'taking off' are not uncommon and a criminal trial into the death of 6 children killed in 2021 in Devonport, Tasmania, ended today. The fatalaties, including 3 serious injuries, happened at Hillcrest Primary School when a bouncy castle was blown 33 feet into the air and landed in a tree 160 feet away. The operator of Taz-Zorb who owned the inflatable Rosemary Ann Gamble was cleared of breaching work safety laws to the anger of parents by a magistrate. It ruled that the 'dust-devil' that hit the bouncy castle killing the children was 'due to an unprecedented weather system that was impossible to predict and avoid'. The victims 4 boys and 2 girls were all pupils aged between 11 and 12. Angry parents shouted at the bouncy castle owner after the verdict who sat quietly sobbing. An investigation by the Journal of Paediatric & Child Health in Australia after the tragedy collated incident from all around the world based on press reports. It found that between 2000 and 2022 that there had been 28 deaths and 484 children and people injured on airborne bouncy castles with a third in China. In 2018 two fairground workers were jailed for 3 years for the bouncy castle manslaughter on grounds of gross negligence after the death of Summer Grant, 7. The schoolgirl was on an inflatable that was blown away with her inside in Harlow, Essex, which cartwheeled 300 yards down a hill across a park and into a tree. In 2004 a 5-year-old boy died falling from a bouncy castle which was blown 20 feet up into the air and onto the pitch of a baseball stadium in Arizona by a gust. In 2006 two women aged 38 and 68 were killed at Riverside Park in Chester —le-Street, County Durham, falling out of an airborne inflatable but 30 survived. In 2024 the 2-year-old son of a Phoenix firefighter was killed when a bouncy castle at a house party in Casa Grand, Arizona, took off in high winds and he fell out. In the UK the Health & Safety Executive says inflatables by law must have at least six anchor points with high quality rope able to take high pressures at all points.
The Guardian
14 hours ago
- The Guardian
Foraged mushrooms, fatal doses and food binges: the week Erin Patterson told her story to triple murder trial
In Erin Patterson's telling, the moment she realised she could be blamed for harming her in-laws came before they even died. According to evidence Patterson gave at her triple-murder trial this week, she was in a Monash hospital room alone with her estranged husband, Simon, after their two children had left to buy food from a vending machine, when he asked her: 'Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?' It was 1 August 2003 – three days after Patterson served beef wellingtons to her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, and Heather's husband, Ian. Three of her guests died before the week was out, and Ian remained critically unwell. Patterson, 50, is charged with murdering Don, Gail and Heather, and attempting to murder Ian. She has pleaded not guilty. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'Did that comment by Simon cause you to reflect on what might have been in the meal?' Patterson's lawyer, Colin Mandy SC, asked her this week. 'It caused me to do a lot of thinking about a lot of things, yeah … it caused me to reflect a lot on what might have happened.' Patterson was discharged from hospital later that day. In her words to the court, she was starting to feel scared, responsible, frantic. Patterson said she realised dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer, and dried mushrooms that she foraged and then dried in the dehydrator, were in a container in her pantry. 'Can you explain to us what crossed your mind then and what you were thinking about?' Mandy asked her this week. Patterson replied: 'It got me thinking about all the times that I'd used [the dehydrator] … and how I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, 'what if they'd gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms? Maybe – maybe that had happened'. '[I felt] … scared. Responsible. Really worried because child protection were involved and Simon seemed to be of the mind that maybe this was intentional and I just – I just got really scared.' Erin Patterson hosts lunch for estranged husband Simon's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt and uncle Heather and Ian Wilkinson. Patterson serves beef wellington. All four lunch guests are admitted to hospital with gastro-like symptoms. Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson die in hospital. Don Patterson dies in hospital. Victoria police search Erin Patterson's home and interview her. Ian Wilkinson is discharged from hospital after weeks in intensive care. Police again search Erin Patterson's home, and she is arrested and interviewed. She is charged with three counts of murder relating to the deaths of Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson. Jury is sworn in. Murder trial begins. Jury hears that charges of attempting to murder her estranged husband Simon are dropped. Child protection was due to visit her Leongatha property on 2 August, the day after she was discharged. After she drove the children to school that morning, she dumped a Sunbeam food dehydrator at a local tip. It was later found by police with her fingerprints and traces of death cap mushrooms on it. 'Child protection were coming to my house that afternoon, and I was – I was scared of the conversation that might flow about the meal and the dehydrator, and I just was – I was scared … that they would blame me for it,' Patterson said. 'For making everyone sick, and I was scared they'd remove the children.' This, then, was Patterson's explanation for her lies, lies the jury was told about all the way back on 30 April, the second day of the trial. And here, also, was her explanation for the tragic and terrible accident, as described by Mandy that same day. The question for the jury now was how to consider it: material in the prosecution and defence opening arguments is not, after all, evidence, but what each side says the evidence shows. The prosecution must prove there was no accident: that Patterson intended to put death cap mushrooms in the beef wellingtons, and that she meant to kill or cause serious harm to her guests when she did so. Nanette Rogers SC, for the prosecution, asked Patterson why she did not tell anyone that she had come to the realisation that death cap mushrooms might have been in the meal, nor that she might have foraged them, given she says she realised that on 1 August 2023. In his evidence earlier in the trial, Simon denied that he had made the comment about the dehydrator to Patterson. Rogers asked Patterson about photos found on devices seized by police that showed sliced mushrooms on shelves of the dehydrator, which had in turn been placed on electronic scales. Dr Tom May, a mushroom expert, earlier told the trial those same photos appeared to show death caps. Rogers asked Patterson if she was weighing them in order to calculate the fatal dose for a human. In her opening statement, Rogers said the prosecution's case was that Patterson invited her guests for lunch 'on the pretence that she'd been diagnosed with cancer and needed advice about how to break it to the children'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Patterson agreed she never had cancer, but said evidence the court heard from Simon and Ian regarding her telling her lunch guests she had been diagnosed was incorrect. Rogers said in her opening that the prosecution also alleged Patterson did not consume death cap mushrooms at the lunch, and pretended she was suffering the same illness as her guests 'to cover that up', explaining 'why we say she was reluctant to receive medical treatment for death cap mushroom poisoning'. Patterson disputed this, but said she ate a significant amount of cake after the lunch – consistent with previous evidence of her having issues with binge eating going back to her 20s – and then vomited all the food from the meal 'back up again'. The prosecution also alleged Patterson did not feed the leftovers of the poisoned beef wellington to her children, which is why she was reluctant to have them medically assessed. Patterson denied she made two batches of wellingtons, saying the children just had the mushrooms and pastry removed from their servings. Rogers also said in her opening statement that the prosecution would not be suggesting a motive in the case, and that the jury may still be unclear at the end of the case why Patterson had done what she was accused of. 'What you will have to … focus your attention on, is whether you are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused committed the charges … not why she may have done so,' Rogers said. With Patterson in the box, however, Rogers started to focus on what Patterson really thought of her lunch guests. Her messages to Facebook friends, and to Simon, Gail and Don, had been referred to repeatedly throughout the case, but now the person who sent them could be asked what they meant. No, Patterson said to Rogers, the exchanges between her and her Facebook friends, which occurred at the same time as messages in a group chat with the Pattersons, did not demonstrate she was two-faced. 'You had two faces, a public face of appearing to have a good relationship with Don and Gail … and I suggest your private face was the one you showed in your Facebook message group,' Rogers said. 'Incorrect,' Patterson responded. She denied that the way she spoke about Don and Gail on Facebook, including 'this family I swear to fucking god', wanting 'nothing to do' with them, that she was 'sick of this shit' and 'fuck em', was how she truly felt. Patterson also disagreed that she never asked how any of the lunch guests were faring, despite knowing they were unwell. Rogers, staccato, rifled through them, suggesting Patterson had not shown concern about people she said she loved. Don was first, then Gail and Ian. 'And you never asked how Heather was going, and I assume you disagree?' Rogers asked. 'Correct,' Patterson responded. Her evidence will continue on Tuesday.
The Guardian
20 hours ago
- The Guardian
Australia mushroom trial live: cross-examination of Erin Patterson to continue on day 28 of her triple-murder trial
Update: Date: 2025-06-06T00:18:30.000Z Title: Good morning Content: Welcome to day 28 of Erin Patterson's triple murder trial. Patterson, who began testifying on Monday afternoon, will return to the witness box for a fifth day. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC will continue cross-examining Patterson. The trial, which is in its sixth week, will resume from 10.30am. The court will adjourn early today, at 1pm. Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha, in regional Victoria, on 29 July 2023. She is accused of murdering her in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, and her estranged husband's aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The attempted murder charge relates to Heather's husband, Ian. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The prosecution alleges Patterson deliberately poisoned her lunch guests with 'murderous intent' but her lawyers say the poisoning was a tragic accident.
