Vultures Heading For The Fastest Extinction In History?
Eric Randolph
A friend of mine was giving a speech at Ramila Maidan during the recent anti-corruption protests in Delhi when he was distracted by the rare sight of a vulture circuling overhead. It was enough of a shock for him to pause his speech and direct the crowd's attention upwards. "Look," he told his audience. "The vultures are here to pick the bones of all the corrupt politicians that Anna Hazare wants to hang!" [Not a terribly Gandhian sentiment on the part of Mr Hazare, but that's another story].
Not so long ago, the sight of a vulture in India would not have prompted any interest at all. They were as typical to images of Indian wildlife as tigers, elephants and mosquitoes - enough so that they got a part in The Jungle Book (and in the Disney version, have the distinction of being modelled on The Beatles who may, or may not, have turned down the chance to voice the characters).
Today, they probably wouldn't make it through casting. Vultures are under serious threat in South Asia - in the past 15 years, their numbers have declined by an incredible 97%, an unprecedented decline in recorded bird history. Chris Bowden, of the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told me over email that there were an estimated 40 million vultures in India in the 1980s. Today, there are around 10,000 - and this has dramatic implications for the spread of diseases like rabies and anthrax.
It's all down to a drug being fed to cattle, which poisons the vultures when they eat the dead cows. You can read about it in my story for The National today:
Vultures are on the verge of extinction in India because a banned drug is still being used illegally to treat suffering cattle.
The endangered birds eat the remains of the drugged animals and suffer kidney failure and visceral gout, which is usually fatal.
The drug was banned five years ago, but pharmacies continue to sell it under the counter, a study has revealed.
More than 97 per cent of vultures have disappeared from India's skies in the past 15 years - the fastest decline ever recorded in a bird population anywhere in the world.
Only about 10,000 still exist in the wild, down from tens of millions in the 1980s.
The white-rumped vulture - once the most populous large bird of prey - is under particular threat, having declined by 99.9 per cent.
The cause of their demise is a drug called diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used by farmers and veterinarians to ease pain in cattle. It is particularly popular in India since for religious reasons, older, dying cattle are often not killed in India. The drug was banned by the governments of India, Pakistan and Nepal in 2006 - but a survey for the journal Oryx found that more than a third of the 250 Indian pharmacies investigated were still selling diclofenac in some form.
Reader Comments (1)
Such a sad story but a good example of how the chemicals we use have direct consequences on the environment even if it isn't immediately apparent. I've written more about the vulture disappearance on my environmental blog. You can check it out here: www.BlueGranola.com