Research published by the BirdLife Partnership in the journal Biology Letters has discovered a second veterinary drug causing lethal effects in Asian vultures, adding further pressure to already beleaguered vulture populations.
Photo: JC Eames
For every 1,000 White-rumped Vultures Gyps bengalensis occurring in southern Asia in the 1980s only one remains today because of the lethal effects of diclofenac - a drug used to treat livestock - on vultures. Alarmingly, researchers looking into safe alternatives have now identified that a second, livestock treatment in Asia - ketoprofen - is also lethal to the birds. Vultures feeding on the carcasses of recently-treated livestock suffer acute kidney failure within days of exposure.
Following this discovery, the RSPB, the Bombay Natural History Society and Bird Conservation Nepal - (BirdLife in the UK, India and Nepal) - are calling for tighter controls on the use of this second drug in veterinary use in southern Asia.
Richard Cuthbert of the RSPB said, "From millions of individuals in the 1980s, vultures have simply disappeared from large swathes of India, Pakistan and Nepal and at least three species have been brought to the brink of extinction. The rate of decline of these magnificent birds is staggering. For White-rumped Vultures, for every two birds alive last year, one will now be dead, and this is all because of the birds' inability to cope with these drugs in livestock carcasses, the birds' principal food source."
He added, "Everyone interested in conservation, quite rightly knows about the plight of India's tigers, but in the race towards extinction the vultures will get there far sooner!"
ASIAN VULTURES IN PERIL!
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