When HawkWatch International’s former International Programs Director, Dr. Evan Buechley, placed a GPS transmitter on an Egyptian Vulture in Ethiopia in 2013, he could have never expected the journey ahead. After tracking the bird, later named Tom Petty, for the last decade, the data gathered has played an important role in understanding one of the world’s most endangered raptors.
On December 1, 2013, Buechley, headed to a hot, arid dump site in northeastern Ethiopia to try to place the first transmitter on an Egyptian Vulture in the country. Egyptian Vultures are a globally Endangered species with populations declining due to threats like poisoning, habitat loss, and electrocution from energy infrastructure. However, in Turkey and Ethiopia, where Buechley focused his PhD research at the University of Utah, these birds had been understudied, their migratory paths and ecological needs largely unknown.
After successfully trapping the bird—a feat in itself as the species is highly intelligent—Buechley placed a 45-gram Microwave Telemetry GPS transmitter on the bird. And then he waited. Although Egyptian Vultures are long-distance migrants, not all Egyptian Vultures migrate. Some are resident birds.
Luckily for Buechley, the bird did migrate—in fact, very close to the area where he had been researching the species in Turkey the summer prior. Each year, the bird completed a loop migration—a fairly common migration pattern for raptors that migrate along the Red Sea Flyway—migrating north along the western coast of the Red Sea before crossing the Sinai Peninsula. In the fall, the bird completed the loop, following the eastern coast of the Red Sea.
Buechley marveled at the bird’s endurance. “Tom Petty traveled thousands of miles across some of the harshest terrain on Earth each year, navigating deserts, seas, and mountains,” he said. “It’s awe-inspiring to think about what these birds endure year after year.”
After completing his PhD at the University of Utah, Buechley began a postdoctoral fellowship at HawkWatch International, where he continued and expanded on his work on Old World Vultures and other critically endangered raptors around the globe. The Egyptian Vulture Buechley had tagged finally received its name when it was sponsored by HawkWatch International donor Julia Shaw.
“Tom Petty was my favorite musical artist growing up and he had just passed away when the vulture project started,” Julia shared. “I couldn’t think of a better way to memorialize him than to think of him “free falling” in the skies over Africa and Asia. What a legacy.”
At about the same time that Buechley was settling into his role at HawkWatch International, Tom Petty settled into a breeding territory near the border of Iran and Azerbaijan. The tracking data suggests that it bred every year after that, from 2016 to 2023. This, along with data from many other individuals, allowed Buechley to publish a paper identifying priority areas for conservation in breeding areas in the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
Tom Petty’s tracking data also allowed Buechley to publish a paper that documented the critical migratory corridors along the Red Sea Flyway. This highlighted the importance of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, located between Yemen and Djibouti, long believed to be one of the most important migratory bottlenecks in the world.
After collecting over a decade of data, Tom Petty’s transmitter stopped sharing “normal” location data for the bird in late 2023, with several days of stationary locations in Saudi Arabia, prompting concern. Saudi biologist Dr. Ricardo O. Ramalho, Head of Terrestrial Ecology and Conservation and Associate Director of Terrestrial Ecology at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, was contacted and went out in search of the bird in a remote and harsh part of the Arabian desert. Unfortunately, Dr. Ramalho could not locate signs of the bird or its transmitter, but Buechley remains optimistic.
“Tom Petty successfully carried a transmitter for 10 years and the unit is still transmitting data,” Buechely explained. “It’s possible that the transmitter fell off and this amazing bird is still alive and gracing the skies of three continents along its migratory journeys.”
Although Tom Petty’s story has come to an end, the work to conserve at-risk raptors around the world has not. Supporters like Julia Shaw continue to make it possible for HawkWatch International to track the movement of endangered raptors like the Black Harrier and the Secretarybird. “I really enjoyed following Tom Petty over the years and learning more about vultures and their important place in the food chain,” Julia shared. “The tracking technology and interactive maps supplemented with the updates from the HawkWatch scientists brought the world closer to home for me.”
If you’re interested in tracking an at-risk raptor as it journeys around the world, you can sponsor a transmitter today. Click here to learn more: https://hawkwatch.org/transmitters/
HawkWatch International is honored to have hosted the Vanishing Vultures program for several years. We would like to thank our partners for their support of this research, which took place over the course of Dr. Buechley’s PhD at the University of Utah, postdoctoral fellowship at HawkWatch International, and into his current position as the Vice President of International Programs at The Peregrine Fund. We are honored to have played a role in Tom Petty’s journey and the conservation of Old World Vultures.
This blog was written by Kirsten Elliott, HWI’s Development & Communications Director. You can learn more about Kirsten here.
All photos by Dr. Evan Buechley. Map by Dr. Megan Murgatroyd. This bird was handled for the purpose of scientific research under an authorized permit and in accordance with all local permitting requirements.
