Vultures going the way of the dodo

Asian vultures are in the world’s top ten of threatened birds and are even more at risk than the starving griffon vultures of the Pyrenees, highlighted in The Times today.

While the Pyrenean birds are being forced to search further and further afield for food because carcass dumps have been banned in Spain, the profusion of contaminated food in Asia is the vultures' undoing.

Three species are close to extinction in India, Pakistan and Nepal, their numbers having plummeted by more than 99 per cent. A new survey has just been completed with results to be published later this year. They are likely to show that at least one of those species, white-backed vultures, are now almost extinct.

The pain-killing livestock drug diclofenac is the major cause of the vultures' deaths. When the birds eat the flesh of cattle treated with the drug they develop gout and die. There were 40 million vultures from the three species affected 12 years ago. Now only a few thousand are left.

Chris Bowden, vulture expert at the RSPB, said: 'Asian vultures will go the way of the dodo if the Indian government particularly does not completely outlaw diclofenac. Its manufacture is banned but despite this, it is still widely available. There is a perfectly good alternative that treats livestock and is safe for vultures. But if farmers can still buy diclofenac they will. It must be removed from the shelves immediately if vultures in Asia are to have any future.'

The Times

The Asian vulture crisis