: Couple Uses Unique Breeding Technique to Birth 780 Endangered Vultures #IndiaNEWS #Animal Welfare It is unlikely for us to care about bald, dangerous-looking birds of prey hovering in the sky. Children

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Couple Uses Unique Breeding Technique to Birth 780 Endangered Vultures #IndiaNEWS #Animal Welfare
It is unlikely for us to care about bald, dangerous-looking birds of prey hovering in the sky. Children are always given a stern warning about staying away from vultures for they can eat humans.  
So, when the population of vultures declined, humans did not bat an eyelid in the ’80s and ’90s. Their population steeply decreased by a whooping 97 per cent from 40 million vultures.  
The major cause was a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) called diclofenac, used to treat cattle. When vultures fed on  their carcasses, the drug entered their body which led to renal failure.
This loss had significant effects, from uneaten carcasses posing environmental threats to increased population of rats and feral dogs, which posed risk of disease for humans.
Dr Vibhu Prakash, deputy director and principal scientist at the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), was one of the first to notice the sharp decline and the cause behind it. He was posted as a researcher at the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan when 40 vultures died in 1997.
All the dead vultures with drooping necks had traces of chalky white deposits in their organs, according to the postmortem reports.
“The deposits were a sign of visceral gout. Once they feed on the drug, it leads to formation of uric acid which further leads to dehydration. A similar pattern was observed in Pakistan too around the same time. We studied preserved vulture tissues and found 76 per cent of them died because of the drug. Based on these two pieces of evidence, we predicted vultures would be doomed for extinction, if immediate action was not taken. So, we, at the BNHS, decided to set up a breeding centre,� Dr Vibhu tells The Better India.  
Dr Nikita and Dr Prakash
The BNHS signed an MoU with the Haryana government to set up Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre (JCBC) for vultures outside Bir Shikargah Wildlife Sanctuary in Pinjore in 2004.  
Breeding in a Safe Environment  
Colony aviary
Dr Vibhu and his team focussed on a three-pronged conservation strategy.  
In the first leg, a team of conservationists and researchers lobbied with the government to ban diclofenac.  
They also got scientific backing from Cambridge professor Rhys Green. According to his estimates, 0. 8 per cent of diclofenac in carcasses is enough to cause death in vultures. So, Dr Vibhu and his team took samples of vultures from over 2,000 locations and found an average of 11 per cent diclofenac in the carcasses.  
In 2006, they succeeded and the drug was banned. They found an alternative in Meloxicam. The team at Pinjore carried out a test with veterinarians and found the drug to be safe.

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