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Poisoning greatest extinction risk facing vultures
Although India managed to counter a steep decline in its vulture population in mid -1990s, these efficient scavengers are in danger of disappearing in many parts of the world primarily due to the presence of toxins in the carrion they consume.
New York: Although India managed to counter a steep decline in its vulture population in mid -1990s, these efficient scavengers are in danger of disappearing in many parts of the world primarily due to the presence of toxins in the carrion they consume.
Poisoning is the greatest extinction risk facing vultures, and impacts 88 percent of threatened vulture species, the study said. Now, the center of the vulture crisis is in sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers noted.
In the mid-1990s India experienced a precipitous vulture decline, with more than 95 percent of vultures disappearing by the early 2000s.
"That was a massive collapse that led a lot of people to really focus more attention on vultures," said one of the researchers Evan Buechley from University of Utah in the US.
The cause was eventually traced to diclofenac, a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug that relieved pain in cattle, but proved highly toxic to vultures.
Hundreds of vultures would flock to each cattle carcass. And if the cow had recently been treated with diclofenac, hundreds of vultures would die.
Because of this highly gregarious feeding behaviour, less than one percent of cattle carcasses contaminated with diclofenac could account for the steep vulture decline.
