Vultures

The Indian vulture or long-billed vulture (Gyps indicus) is a bird of prey native to the Indian subcontinent. It is a bird of prey that scavengers, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals. It is a medium sized vulture with small semi-bald head with little feathers, long bill and wide dark coloured wings. It breeds mainly on small cliffs and hilly crags in central and peninsular India.

By removing all carrion, vultures had helped decrease pollution, spread of diseases, and suppressed undesirable mammalian scavengers. The sudden collapse of the natural animal disposal system in India has had multiple consequences negatively impacting public health. Without vultures, a large number of animal carcasses were left to rot posing a serious risk to human health by providing a potential breeding ground for infectious germs and proliferation of pests such as rats.

 

Vulture Crisis

Nine species of vulture can be found living in India, but most are now in danger of extinction after a rapid and major population collapse in recent decades. With a loss of over 99% of all population of vultures, the Indian vulture crisis represents the sharpest decline of any animal in the given period.

In the 1990’s, a decrease in the number of vultures was noted by Vibhu Prakash of the Bombay Natural History Society, who had monitored vulture populations at Keoladeo National Park. Parsis in

Mumbai started to notice in the early 1990’s that there were fewer birds at the Tower of Silence in Mumbai.

They have been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2002, as the population has severally declined over the past few decades. Indian vultures die of kidney failure caused by diclofenac poisoning. Diclofenac was a common anti-inflammatory drug used in cattle which was passed on to the vultures when they scavenge the dead carcasses. This drug was banned in 2006 and the vulture numbers have started to steadily bounce back.