Rupi Mangat
2 November 2009
opinion
Nairobi — In the Holy scriptures of the Hindus, Jatayu the vulture tried to rescue Lord Ram's wife, Sita from the evil clutches of the demon Ravan.
Unfortunately for the valiant vulture, Ravan sliced off its wings and the bird bled to death but not before he had told Ram where Sita was and the lord was able to rescue her, setting the stage for celebrating India's biggest festival, the burning of Ravan's effigy during the festival of Dussehra.
Despite its noble deed, Jatayu and the rest of its ilk are vanishing so fast in India that scientists fear they are well on their way to extinction.
In the past two decades, vulture numbers have dropped by 99 per cent, causing major environmental problems in the country.
"In the early 1980s, vultures were a hazard in the aviation industry because they were frequently crashing into the aircraft. Now they are virtually extinct," comments Nikita Prakash, the technical assistant at the world's first vulture breeding conservation centre in Pinjore on the foothills of the Shivalik mountains, part of the lower range of the Himalayas.
Her husband, Dr Vibhu Prakash, working on his research on the birds in the 1980s, sounded the alarm on the rapidly vanishing vulture populations in India.
Today, he heads the vulture breeding conservation centre working with a team of volunteers and researchers, including his wife.
As a young researcher, Kenya's Dr Munir Virani, programme director for The Peregrine Fund for Africa and South Asia with research on raptors in jeopardy, was under Dr Prakash's mentorship.
Back in Kenya, Dr Virani applied his skills to vulture research and found the frightening scenario repeated in Kenya -- that of a rapidly diminishing vulture population previously undetected -- and like the Indian scenario, the cause is human-induced by way of chemicals.
In Kenya, it's the use of furadan, a highly lethal agro-chemical used as a poison to get rid of wildlife that "preys" on livestock, while in India farmers use diclofenac to increase the working life of cattle.
"Today, we have less than one per cent of the 1980 population remaining and it's a crisis that has been discussed in the Indian parliament. But unfortunately, vultures aren't as charismatic as the tigers, lions or elephants and so there's not much support coming for them," says Nikita. Today, vultures are only found in small pockets in the country where once there were flocks in their hundreds.
Vultures may not be pretty birds, but watching a pair of Himalayan Griffons rescued and brought to the centre, they are definitely handsome birds.
The chemical diclofenac is a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug used as a painkiller for cattle.
Despite its banning in 2008, veterinary doctors are still prescribing diclofenac formulated for human use because it has the same effect on cattle.
The drug prolongs the working life of the animals by reducing joint pain but the problem arises when the animal dies and vultures swoop in for a tragic feast.
"When the vultures feed on the carcasses, the drug affects the birds' kidneys and they die of visceral gout. What happens is that there is uric acid deposited on the organs such as the heart, liver and kidneys. It's a painful death for the birds," explains the researcher.
The fact that there are no more vulture flocks to feed on the carcasses of cows killed by these drugs, has created a health hazard.
In the past, a dead cow would have been a feast for the vultures, which would have cleaned the carcass to the bone in minutes.
The bone pickers then collect the fresh bones to sell to the food industry for the manufacture of food products such as gelatin used as a thickening agen.
With the absence of the vultures to provide this eco-service, carcasses of cows now litter the street, with the stench of rotting flesh hanging heavy in the air.
The bone pickers no longer find clean bones because most of the carcasses are infested with maggots.
In addition, the rotting carcasses pollute the soils and water and pose a health threat.
Related to the problem of rotting carcasses is the increasing number of feral dogs frequenting the city's dumpsites to feast on the dead cows.
And with a government minister's directive that no dog should be killed, studies now show that cases of rabies are on the rise in cities.
In the absence of vultures, it's ironic that the very farmers who feed diclofenac to their cattle, are at a loss when their livestock die and there are no vultures to quickly help dispose of them.
"It's a big problem for the farmers because they are incurring costs buying the chemicals to douse and burn the animals or to bury them."
Awareness Campaigns
The Bombay Natural History Society of which Dr Prakash is a deputy director and the Indian Veterinary Research Institute have come up with an alternative drug which is just as good a painkiller as the banned one without the negative consequences.
"Meloxilam came on the market in 2006. Initially it was expensive because few were manufacturing it. But now it's available everywhere bringing down the price," says Nikita. "What's needed is a strong public awareness campaign about the drugs and vultures.
One of the most bizarre revelations that have emerged from the vultures vanishing population is that few children born in India from 1990 onwards, have never seen a vulture.
I find that believable for during my one-month stay in the country, l only saw one vulture, an Egyptian vulture in the vast plains of Rajasthan near Jodhpur. Even more shocking is an incident of a vulture rescued by villagers who had no idea that vultures eat meat. They fed it on chapatis almost killing the bird. Saved in the nick of time, it was taken to the Pinjore sanctuary.
Some of the reported new threats to vultures are the glass-coated strings imported from China for the annual India kite flying festival.
Rivals try to bring down the opponents kites and the new innovated version of strings have become immensely popular as they cut through ordinary strings.
For any bird, this is a perilous time for birds in flight have had their wings torn or sliced off in midair.
A causality is at Pinjore with an amputated wing.
In the wild it would have died but at Pinjore it has a specially placed low perch and nest and a vulture hospital on site tends to birds in need of medical attention.
In 2005, a honey buzzard tried to get to the beehive in a nearby tree disturbing the bees with the result that an angry swarm buzzed right into the aviaries stinging the vultures.
"It was horrific. The vultures were shrieking in pain and three White-backed vultures died of anaphylactic shock. However we managed to save 10."
All's not doom and gloom though as a recent report in the Indian dailies writes of a sighting of 200 bearded vultures in the remote area of Lahaul Spiti in the Himalayas.
Once common in the high mountains of Kenya, the bearded vultures are now extinct in Kenya with the last sightings being in the 1980s.
Kenya unfortunately also holds the record for the largest number of vultures killed in one incident.
In 2004, 187 vultures died on the Athi-Kapiti plains adjoining the Nairobi National Park in 2004 after feasting on a dead animal that had been laced with furadan, still easily available over the counter.
Although it is supposed to be used as an agro-pesticide on crops by farmers, it has found other uses such as poisoning problem wildlife.
It's also used by fishermen to scoop an easy haul from the water by simple throwing the poison overboard.
The dead fish pop up to the surface for the fishermen to scoop.
A recent report by vulture researchers in Kenya reveals that at Bunyala Rice Scheme in western Kenya by the shores of Lake Victoria, thousands of birds are being poisoned every week.
Bird meat is a delicacy among the local Bunyala and they have found that the use of furadan is an easy "hunting" option to get birds for sell.
In small doses, furadan poses little danger to humans but long-term effects could be serious.
At this point there are five vulture breeding centers in the world - three in India, one in Pakistan and one in Nepal.
Vultures are integral for healthy environments feeding on carcasses that would otherwise rot and become breeding grounds for numerous diseases.
However to stop the vultures from vanishing forever, there is the need for both public awareness and the political will to see lethal chemicals like furadan and diclofenac taken off the shelves and a stop to their manufacturing.
In India, even though the issue of the diclofenac has been discussed in parliament and the Drug Controller General of India issuing a letter to all state drug controllers to stop issuing licenses and also to withdraw licenses to manufacture the diclofenac for veterinary uses, farmers are substituting it for furadan formulated for human use.
In Kenya, despite many calls to politicians, furadan is still on the market and used rampantly in the country.
The time to save the vultures is now before it joins the dodo on the extinction list.
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