Is secretarybird dangerous?

In 1968 the species became protected under the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the secretarybird in 2016 as a vulnerable species, due to a recent rapid decline across its entire range. Although widespread, the species is thinly distributed across its range; its population has been estimated in 2016 to be anywhere between 6,700 and 67,000 individuals. Long term monitoring across South Africa between 1987 and 2013 has shown that populations have declined across the country, even in protected areas such as Kruger National Park due to bush encroachment, an increase in the tall vegetation cover, resulting in loss of open habitat that the species prefers. As a population, the secretarybird is mainly threatened by loss of habitat due to fragmentation by roads and development and overgrazing of grasslands by livestock. Some adaptation to altered areas has been recorded but the trend is for decline.