Chester Zoo has long been renowned for its world-leading conservation initiatives and is committed to preventing the extinction of animals such as the hooded vulture.
Working with more than 3,000 species worldwide, including 140 international animal conservation breeding programmes, the zoo aims to help species on the brink of extinction survive.
Vultures like Alan and Claudia play a crucial role across different ecosystems, and their decline, driven by accidental and deliberate poisoning, unsustainable demand for vulture body parts, and other factors, is detrimental to disease control.
Bird Keeper Heather-Anne Pedley said: “In the wild, vultures help prevent zoonotic diseases – illnesses that can spread between species – because their stomach acid is so strong they can eat decaying meat that other animals would not be able to digest.