Zoo officials hatch another plan for vulture breeding

Bahadurpura: The authorities of Nehru Zoological Park have decided to bring a few more specimen of vultures from Pinjure Vulture Breeding Centre, Haryana, and Sakkarbough Zoo, Junagadh, Gujarat, for breeding vultures at their facility.

The zoo had made concerted efforts to breed the vultures but failed to get the desired result. Now toensure the successful breeding of vultures, the zoo officials will bring fewmore specimen of vultures from the vulture centre in Haryana and zoo of Gujarat in lieu of Mouse Deer, a species which has shown a significant growth in the recent years in the zoo park itself.

"The exchange proposal made for the year 2018-19 is now in active persuasion, while another similar proposal to bring new breeding pairs from Gadchiroli Forest Circle, Maharashtra, has planned for the year 2019-20. To visit the Gadchiroli Forest Circle, a committee of experts has been constituted and the plan isprogressing accordingly," informed N Kshitija,Curator, Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad.

According to officials, to protect the species from the influence of harmful medicinal effects especially diclofenac found in the animals they used to eat as their regular feed, the Zoo authorities arrange the sheep directly from the market and only after rearing them in close supervision for 45 days, we serve their flesh to the vultures.

"Diclofenac medicine generally found in cattle especially the sheep, cows, buffaloes reared by the shepherds and farmers. The big birds often died due to the prevalence of diclofenac in their food such as sheep, cows, buffaloes etc. They used to eat the carcass of these animals whose bodies are induced with the medicine. This is purportedly believed to be a main reason behind extinction of vultures," said the officials.

As part of the efforts to increase their numbers it was found that the vultures laid eggs but unfortunately the eggs turned out infertile and hence the breeding failed again, even after all the efforts were put in place to make the breeding successful. The Vulture Breeding Centre was established on November10 2010 at Nehru Zoological Park with an aim to nurture the species under comprehensive and organised manner. The infrastructure was developed with the financial assistance from the Central Zoo Authority, New Delhi.

The vulture breeding centre at Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad presently has a stock of 11 vultures out of which 7 are males and 4 females. Vultures lay an egg once in a year and the nesting activity happens at different locations under the zoo park itself.