: A second vulture-safe drug offers hope for the dwindling population of scavengers in India #IndiaNEWS A second vulture-safe alternative to the veterinary drug diclofenac could help South Asia’s great

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A second vulture-safe drug offers hope for the dwindling population of scavengers in India #IndiaNEWS
A second vulture-safe alternative to the veterinary drug diclofenac could help South Asia’s great avian scavengers.Scientists have been working to identify vulture-safe alternatives to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac ever since the discovery in 2003 that the drug was the principal cause of a catastrophic collapse in vulture populations across South Asia. The birds ingest the drug, which is used to treat pain and inflammation in livestock and humans when scavenging the carcasses of animals treated with it.Four species of South Asian vulture ­– white-rumped (or white-backed), slender-billed, Indian and red-headed – are now listed as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature after their numbers crashed in the 1990s. Estimated to number 4 crore in 1991-’92, the population of white-rumped vulture in India fell by 99.9% between 1992 and 2007, the fastest population crash ever recorded for any bird species.Following this discovery, in 2006 diclofenac was banned for use in livestock in India, Pakistan and Nepal, and in 2010 in Bangladesh. However, enforcement of the ban has been a persistent problem. In addition, other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs still legally in use have been shown to be similarly deadly to vultures.The first vulture-safe alternative to diclofenac, meloxicam, was identified in 2006.The finding that the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug tolfenamic acid is also...Read more

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