VULTURES - ENVIRONMENT
News: Kerala,
Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to begin the first synchronized vulture survey on
February 24
What's in the news?
● The
Kerala Forest and Wildlife department, along with its counterparts in Tamil
Nadu and Karnataka, is preparing to organize the first synchronized vulture
survey in select regions of the Western Ghats on February 24, 25 and 26.
Key takeaways:
● The
three States used to conduct separate surveys, which often resulted in
duplication of data as the surveys were conducted at different time periods.
Vultures in Wayanad Sanctuary:
● The
Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, contiguous to the tiger reserves of Nagarhole and
Bandipur of Karnataka and Mudumalai of Tamil Nadu, is the lone region where
vultures thrive in the State.
● The
sanctuary harbours nearly 120-150 White-rumped
vultures and less than 25 Red-headed
vultures.
● The
occasional sightings of Long-billed
vultures have also been reported in the sanctuary.
● The
reason for the survival of the Wayanad population is that they have never been
exposed to the drug.
Causes for decline in population:
● Vultures
faced a catastrophic population decline during the 2000s when the species was
exposed to the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac used as a painkiller for
cattle.
● The
use of some Non-Steroidal
Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) to treat cattle, such as diclofenac,
nimesulide, ketoprofen among others, has led to the crash in vulture
populations across India.
● South
Asia had about four crore White-rumped vultures until the end of the 1990s. But
the population has come down to fewer than 10,000.
Role of vultures in local ecosystem:
● As
scavengers, vultures help prevent the spread of many diseases and can remove toxins from entering the
environment by consuming carcasses of
dead cattle/wildlife before they decompose.
Go back to basics:
Vultures:
● India
has nine species of vultures in the
wild.
Threats:
● Poisoning
from diclofenac that is used as a
medicine for livestock.
● Loss
of Natural Habitats due to anthropogenic activities.
● Food
Dearth and Contaminated Food.
● Electrocution
by Power lines.
Conservation Efforts:
National level:
● The
Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched a Vulture Action Plan 2020-25 for the
conservation of vultures in the country.
● To
study the cause of deaths of vultures in India, a Vulture Care Centre (VCC) was
set up at Pinjore, Haryana in 2001.
● Later
in 2004, the VCC was upgraded to being the first Vulture Conservation and
Breeding Centre (VCBC) in India.
● At
present, there are nine Vulture
Conservation and Breeding Centres (VCBC) in India, of which three are
directly administered by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).
International:
SAVE (Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction):
● The
consortium of like-minded, regional and international organizations, created to
oversee and coordinate conservation, campaigning and fundraising activities to
help the plight of south Asia’s vultures.
● Objective: To
save three critically important species from extinction through a single
programme.