Crisis for Vultures

By Jemima Parry-Jones MBE

During my life I have had some interesting requests for help, some have been tedious, some impossible and some fascinating, but somewhat out of the norm. In 1999 I was approached by a good friend of mine, a scientist in Glasgow who is known for his vulture work, he had been approached by the Parsis, a religious group of people with a large part of their following based in Mumbai, who had for 2000 years had their dead consumed by vultures. However the problem was that their dead were no longer being consumed by the vultures because apparently there were no vultures to do the task.

That year I had a number of trips to do, Japan, the Philippines and now India, and I am not a great one for travel! However off I went to Mumbai, that trip is a story in itself, and saw the problem, and without realising what the real problem was, because no one did at that stage, put forward a few suggestions as to what could be done.

In 2000 I was invited to a conference in Delhi on the now beginning to be recognised, staggering decline of the three species of Gyps vultures in SE Asia, and in particular in India, Nepal and Pakistan. This international conference with vulture experts and enthusiasts from around the world were told of the disastrous decline. It had been highlighted by Dr Vibhu Prakash from Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the Parsis had been right, there was a huge problem with vultures, but not just the population that had regularly visited the Towers of Silence, this was a range wide catastrophe.

After the conference two groups started serious research on what was happening to the birds and at the same time surveys were initiated to see what the real numbers were. Sadly as is so often the case, because the birds had been enormously  high in numbers and very common, no serious monitoring had been done before the decline. As the surveys came in the proportion of the decline became apparent and very worrying. 95% of the birds appeared to have gone, over time this increased to 99.9%. All three species, the Oriental White-backed Vulture, the Long-billed Vulture and the Slender Billed Vulture were all in very serious trouble

One group was researching a possible virus or infection to be responsible and the other group was looking into toxins and secondary poisoning as was the case with DDT and dieldrin in Europe and North America in the past.

The results were staggering, in 2003, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drug called Diclofenac was found to be the cause. It had been invented by Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) in 1973 an American company, for treating humans, had reached the end of its patent and had been licensed in SE Asia, Africa and South American for use as a veterinary drug. It was this drug that had killed vultures by the millions and is still killing them today in SE Asia.

An Action Plan was put forward by the International group, this consisted of monitoring the remaining birds, monitoring the use of Diclofenac, removing Diclofenac as a veterinary drug, finding a suitable replacement drug for cattle that was safe for vultures, and starting a captive breeding programme within the three main countries to keep a population of birds safe during the period of removing Diclofenac, and to then be able to repopulate their original ranges once they were Diclofenac free. The plan was five centres over the three main countries involved.

The centre at Pinjore, which had been the research centre for one of the groups working together on finding out the cause of the decline ( RSPB, ZSL, NBPT and Bombay Natural History Society) was rapidly turned into a breeding Centre and the surviving birds there were the start of the breeding programme. Over time two more Centres were built within India, one in Pakistan and one in Nepal. There are a total number of approximately 260 birds now in captivity, all three species have now been bred in the first Indian facility, and one in the second, the other facilities still have quite young birds, so there will be a wait for them to get to breeding age.

Our (ICBP) continuing involvement with the Centres has been in training of husbandry techniques with the vultures, design of the enclosures, training in incubation and rearing techniques, design of the incubator and brooder rooms and the providing through the National Birds of Prey Trust of some of the breeding aviaries and the incubators.

The Trust send out Brinsea Incubators and I am delighted to say that they have worked as well as expected. Simon Brough my Curator has been over twice to India and spent many hours on the phone at 4.00am helping to solve incubation and hatching queries. The team in India have done fantastically with their first attempts at artificial incubation last year, one member of the team came to an incubation course held at ICBP in November 2010, and the first eggs are already hatching in the incubators in Pinjore in January 2011.  Diclofenac has been banned from being made in the area and banned as a veterinary drug. The RSPB along with BNHS are monitoring dead cattle to research the amount of Diclofenac still being used. The RSPB needs to be congratulated for their incredible support of the project, without which there would not be a vulture conservation programme. ZLS has sent their vet Andrew Routh over who has been crucial to the welfare of the birds. BNHS needs to be congratulated in taking on what is a huge conservation programme.

In Nepal they are doing great things with Diclofenac free zones. Dr Ian Newton has accepted the Chair of a new group called SAVE - Save Asian Vultures from Extinction, which was launched in India and Nepal in February this year and we slowly but surely more forward to save the vultures from extinction.

I would guess that if I had a beef at all, it would be that although the States in India, some of them, have done fantastic work and generally helped the projects as much as they can, Indian Central Government still need to come up with more than they have managed so far, if they put a tiny percentage of what they put into Tiger conservation the vulture programme would be safe and guaranteed.

Come to think of it I have an even more serious beef, Novartis who invented the drug in the first place, and no doubt made a fortune with it, have not supported the programme in any serious form, which I think is disgraceful. Drug companies can’t be expected to test for every eventuality and this was a truly unusual one, however when a huge conservation issue like this comes to light, they should absolutely put up substantial funds to rectify their mistake, and accept their responsibility, because it is undoubtedly theirs.

For more detailed information go to www.vulturerescue.org. For more information on the International Centre for Birds of Prey go to www.icbp.org