When rangers patrolling the Ol Kinyei Conservancy in Kenya found a dead hyena and nearly a dozen vultures splayed out on the ground on November 13, they knew right away what happened—they’d been poisoned. A few of the birds still showed signs of life, though they were weak.

Simon Nkoitoi, manager of the conservancy, a private wildlife conservation area within the Masai Mara National Reserve, immediately called Valerie Nasoita, a vulture liaison officer at the Peregrine Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting birds of prey.

“Please come save them,” he urged Nasoita.

Nasoita, who was raised in the Masai Mara, is part of a rapid-response network formed in 2016 by various conservation groups worried by the precarious state of Africa’s vulture population.

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