India’s Vulture Population Has Plummeted from 40 Million to 60,000 - Poisoned by Drug Diclofenac
Three species of Gyps vulture are in danger of extinction - poisoned by the use of diclofenac in livestock. India, Nepal, and Pakistan have lost 95% of their vulture populations.
As recently as the early 1980’s, there were approximately 40 million vultures in India, comprised of nine species. Now there are only 60,000 of these important scavengers left. Captive breeding efforts are in progress, the last hope of saving these birds from extinction.
The alarming population decline was first observed In the late 1990’s by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), in a breeding colony of White-backed Vultures in Keoladeo National park, Bharatpur, Rajasthan.
By 2000, there were no breeding pairs left.
- » See also: On the Brink of Extinction: Call to Close Cruel and Inhumane Tiger Farms
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Scientific community rallies around vultures
In the meantime, the scientific community rallied around a Vulture Alert issued in 1998, and further studies were launched across additional raptor populations.
The findings of the BNHS, Royal Society for Protection of Birds-UK (RSPB) and Zoological Society of London (ZSL) found strong evidence that use of diclofenac (an anti-inflammatory drug) in livestock was poisoning the vultures.
In the course of treatment, if the cattle dies, and the vultures scavenge on these, it leads to the dehydration, visceral gout, and kidney failure in vultures within a few days. Experimentally it is established that even if less than 1% carcasses contains diclofenac, it can lead to such a drastic decline. The grim picture is that over 10% of the carcasses have prevalence of diclofenac.
Ban on use of diclofenac
Based on the overwhelming scientific evidence, BNHS launched a rigorous campaign against diclofenac in 2003, urging the Government of India to ban its use, in an urgent plea to save the remaining vultures from extinction.
In May 2006, the Indian Government ordered a “halt to the production and sale of the veterinary drug diclofenac within three months.”
An alternative drug, Meloxicam, was found to have no adverse reactions in vultures.
Captive breeding programs to save critically endangered vultures from extinction
Dr. Vibhu Prakash, the principal scientist for the vulture conservation breeding program at the Bombay Natural History Society recently told the Asia Sentinel:
By bringing some vultures into captivity, their lives can be saved and once they start breeding, they would augment the population. The vultures will be released back in the wild once we are sure that there is no diclofenac available in the system.
Vulture breeding centers are operating at Pinjore in Haryana, Rajabhatkhawa in West Bengal and Rani in Assam, supported by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK), the Zoological Society of London and the Peregrine Fund (US).
Captive breeding of vultures has been met with some opposition, partly because nestlings and sub-adults are to be collected from wild populations.
Vultures are extremely difficult to breed in captivity. They mate for life, and produce just one chick per year, after maturing at four years of age.
Recently, a Slender-billed Vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) made history as the first of its kind to be born in captivity. The chick was hatched at the breeding center at Rajabhatkhawa forest in West Bengal.
Critically endangered Gyps vultures
- White-backed/White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis)
- Slender-billed Vulture (Gyps tenuirostris)
- Indian Vulture/Long-billed Vulture (Gyps indicus)
The important role of vultures in the environment
Vultures feed exclusively on the carcasses of dead animals. This prevents the spread of diseases such as rabies and anthrax among wildlife, livestock - and humans.
And what about the vulture’s unusual appearance?
The distinctive head of the vulture is designed especially for eating carcasses; a fully feathered head would be difficult to keep clean from the blood and body fluids encountered in corpses.
Next: Is Decline in India’s Vulture Population Linked to Spread of Rabies in Humans?
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lipkee/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Diclofenac use is not the only reason for decline in vulture populations;drastic loss of habitat is the major cause;the tall sturdy and stately trees that vultures generally prefer to nest have become sparse in the rural landscape;their exclusive food like the carcasses of cattle,not only is poisoned,but its availability reduced;earlier a dead cattle in a village became the property of the village cobbler who skinned the animal for the skin and abandoned the rest of meat and bones, for the vulture;now a days the sick and dying cattle are sold to the slaughter houses.we seem to rely too much on captive rearing as a panacea for all evils;the overwhelming influence of the habitat on animal populations can best be seen in the populations of the street dog;slaughtered by the municipalities for over hundred years,no city has got rid of them;it is not only their high breeding rate but the availability of a good habitat with water,food and shelter that enabled its survival.
This article summarises the terrible vulture situation very well, and sends a clear message that diclofenac has been the main cause of vulture declines (sadly their numbers have surely diminished even further since the figures stated from 2007!). The most shocking figure for me is 99.9% decline of the formerly most abundant large raptor species in the world, the Oriental white-backed vulture.
The extensive scientific work demonstrating that diclofenac is the main cause of declines is not disputed even by the drug companies themselves (you can download papers from http://www.vulturerescue.org). Because remaining vulture populations are now fragmented, on a local scale, any loss of nesting trees can certainly be a problem (note that one of the species affected breeds on cliffs however) - but this should not be confused with the overall reason for declines. Other direct poisoning of carcasses to target dogs can also accidentally kill vultures and likewise needs to be stopped. Diclofenac does not kill the vultures immediately, so it is rare that a dead vulture is found near to the contaminated carcass - and this may be one reason why it has been slightly harder to convince some well meaning nature lovers that this really explains the declines right across South Asia.
When describing the habitat of vultures, it is important to remember that a safe food source is an essential component. It may not be a conventional image of a conservation initiative to go out and lobby local vets and farmers to take care not to use a certain veterinary drug, but this is actually what the vultures most need us all to do.
I agree with the previous comment that breeding programmes are held up rather too often as a solution to conservation problems, but in this case the rates of decline have been so extraordinarily fast that it would be irresponsible not do do it, and we risk losing these irreplacable creatures (which are such useful cleaners) forever.
Chris Bowden
Vulture Programme Manager
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Chris -
Thank you very much for your comment. The plight of these intelligent, majestic birds breaks my heart. I have not stopped thinking about them. I look forward to hearing success stories from the conservation program. Thanks to you and your team for stepping in to save these wonderful creatures.
- Rhishja
[...] 95% of the vulture populations in India, Nepal and Pakistan were lost due to poisoning by the drug Diclofenac, the idea of “vulture restaurants” have been catching [...]
[...] the vultures. This “vulture restauant” approach appears to be working in Nepal, where 95% of the vulture population was poisoned by livestock contaminated with diclofenac, and Pakistan has recently opened its first vulture [...]
[...] livestock with certain drugs - has had catastrophic effects on vulture populations. In India, the vulture population was decimated from 40 million to just 60,000, as a result of the use of diclofenac in livestock. This resulted in three species being classified [...]
[...] 40 million birds to just 60,000. Nepal and Pakistan also lost nearly 95% of their vultures. The vultures were the victims of widespread poisoning by the use of diclofenac in [...]
iam a resident of village talehan gram panchayat bindla tehsil karsog district mandi himachal pradesh. there are nearaobout 500-1000 vultures in the valley. but it is very miserable that there is a proposal for the installation of a cement plant by a french company namely lafarge india pvt. ltd. the whole houses of the vulture are situated in the area which is to be acquired by the company for the mining area. my question is that which is important - instllation of cement plant or environment ? i think the vulture is the main protector of the environment. they must be saved instead of installation of cement plant.
[...] to forest officials, bearded vultures were spared India’s massive diclofenac poisoning that killed over 97% of the country’s vultures because they inhabit higher elevations in regions where cattle have not been given the [...]