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From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 23, Dated 09 June 2012 |
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Saving India’s diminishing Vulture population
By Munir Virani
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Photo: Munir Virani, The Peregrine Fund |
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There are 23 species of vultures that occur globally. Four species of vultures in India are classified as critically endangered and one is listed as endangered. Without conservation intervention, their chances of going extinct are very high. By feeding on dead animals, vultures provide vital ecosystem services such as ensuring that a carcass decomposes at a rapid rate thus preventing the spread of possible disease causing organisms. In the absence of vultures, numbers of feral dogs and rats increase rapidly resulting in the potential spread of diseases such as rabies. Vultures also help recycle nutrients.
In 2003, The Peregrine Fund and its partners working in Pakistan discovered that the catastrophic collapse of critically endangered vultures was caused primarily as a result of them feeding on livestock contaminated with the pain-killing veterinary drug diclofenac-sodium. In 2006, great advocacy work done by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and the Researchers of the Royal Society for the Conservation of Birds (RSPB) in India resulted in the government banning the manufacture and sale of veterinary diclofenac. Pakistan and Nepal immediately followed suit. Since 2006, population of the cliff nesting long-billed vulture have begun to stabilise. This does not necessarily mean that they are on the recovery path. It only means that the rate of population crash that occurred during the time veterinary diclofenac was readily available has substantially reduced. Because vultures are slow reproducing and have a long lifecycle, it will take at least 10 years before it can be established if they are recovering. But since diclofenac-sodium is still readily available for humans, the drug will continue to be a threat. For tree-nesting vultures, lopping of trees during the winter months by pastoralists is a growing threat. Wind turbines also kill many birds. Modern technology, however, is addressing effective eco-friendly ways to avoid and mitigate these threats. There are already successful vulture-breeding centres established in India by the BNHS and the RSPB. Getting people to appreciate vultures and the role they play in our ecosystem is not easy, especially in India, where the well-being of livestock means survival.
Munir Virani is Africa Program Director of the Peregrine Fund. In 2000, Virani was sent to South Asia by The Peregrine Fund to evaluate the magnitude of declines of populations of Gyps vultures in the region.
Author picture by Raghu Sharma
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