Flying Into Uncertainty

An ambitious breeding-in-captivity project aims to save the endangered vulture by preventing it from feeding on carcasses rich in the killer diclofenac drug. It may be a classical case of too little too late.

PICTURE SPEAK

GROUNDED: In 10 years, two out of the three vulture species will be extinct

Belonging to three critically endangered species—white-rumped, slender-billed and long-billed brought from Assam, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh—these vultures have been nesting at their new-found home, the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (VCBC), as part of an ambitious project to revive the near-extinct species of scavengers. Vultures are the most important avian scavengers in the world, feeding on dead and rotting carcasses of animals. These birds serve as nature’s janitors, ridding our ecosystem of maggots and disease-carrying viruses.

"The odds against saving the vulture from extinction are great." VIBHU PRAKASH, BNHS PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST

Funded by the Britain-based Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species and run by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the Vulture Conservation Breeding Programme was one of two major recommendations of the vulture recovery plan formulated in 2004. The other was the complete ban on veterinary use of diclofenac. While the first VCBC was set up at Pinjore as an expansion of an existing vulture care centre in 2005, last year the Union Government withdrew the licences to manufacture veterinary diclofenac formulations and ordered their phase-out within three months. But all this in vain.

CAUSE FOR CONCERN

Diclofenac, a banned drug found in cattle carcass, the vultures’ food, is the main cause for the sharp drop in its population. 95 per cent of three species of the bird have vanished since 1992. Instead of the targeted 150 birds, the Pinjore breeding facility houses just 114, while Buxa has only 50. Two nestlings that hatched in captivity died due to a fluctuation in the thermal temperature. The Government takes about four months in issuing permits to capture the birds for breeding.

The world’s first major initiative at breeding vultures in captivity has been hit because state authorities take about four months in permitting BNHS experts to capture the birds. “The slow pace is a cause of worry. We desperately need more birds for a faster breeding programme,” says BNHS Director A.R. Rahmani. “The odds against saving the vulture from going extinct are mounting by the day,” says Vibhu Prakash, BNHS principal scientist in-charge of the project.

A recent BNHS monitoring study has revealed that 10 per cent of carcasses sampled across the country were found to be laced with the killer drug. While at least 95 per cent of vultures of three species have vanished in the past 15 years, 50 to 60 per cent of the survivors are dying every year. In normal populations, the adult mortality rate is 5 per cent. In the slow-breeding and long-living birds, this high mortality rate has made their extinction a looming reality. “This decline is totally unprecedented in the history of bird conservation,” adds Chris Bowden, director, vulture programme at the Britain-based Royal Society for Protection of Birds. Ironically, the 1980 BNHS study had reported one lakh vultures in and around Delhi alone.

Such fears are not exaggerated. According to BNHS experts, in 10 years from now, the slender-billed and white-backed species will be extinct. Latest estimates claim that there are only 200 pairs of slender-billed vultures left in their habitat in the north Gangetic plains. The common white-backed vulture has dwindled to 5,000 to 6,000 pairs, while only 10,000 to 12,000 pairs of the long-billed species remain. “It’s a serious situation,” says Rahmani.

BNHS’ centres at Pinjore and Buxa in West Bengal are still struggling to collect a critical mass of the juvenile birds for breeding in captivity. “With the alarming continuation of the declines of the few wild vultures that are left in the wild, it’s crucial to get adequate breeding stock into the centres before there are none left out there,” says Bowden.

At the heart of the South Asian Vulture Recovery Plan is an internationally-funded project to set up four breeding centres in India and one each in Pakistan and Nepal. Experts have formulated that if 600 pairs each of three endangered species of bred-in-captivity vultures are released in the next 15 years, it would form a self-sustaining population in the wild. For this, each centre needs 25 pairs of three species—at least 150 birds at each facility. Of these, 75 per cent will be collected as nestlings (juveniles) during first year of hatching. The remainder will be semi-adults or adults from the wild and sub-adults or adults. The rationale behind such proportionate sampling is that the nestlings adapt to captivity quickly and are easy to breed. Adult vultures, whose age is hard to determine, are not known to breed in captivity easily. They will be released as “guide birds” along with the bred-in-captivity stock because they know the tricks of survival in the wild. But even two years after the programme took off, the Pinjore facility has collected just 114 vultures, while Buxa houses only 50. It’s hard to locate and collect nestlings which hatch in March-April on tree-tops (white-backed) or on high cliffs (long-billed).

Hopes that had soared following hatching of two nestlings in January were short-lived as two birds died due to a fluctuation in the day and night temperature, which the thermo-regulation of the nestlings could not control. But experts at BNHS hope that 15 to 20 pairs may breed in the next season with a better chance of surviving. The Pinjore centre plans to release the first batch of 20 to 25 pairs of bred-in-captivity vultures in the wild by 2014.

But sustained funding is a concern. The Pinjore centre was set up with an initial grant of Rs 1 crore and has a monthly expense of Rs 30 lakh, half of which goes into feeding the vulture stock. “Government-funded conservation efforts are too tiger-centric,” rues Rahmani. However, the Central Zoo Authority has now identified four zoos for vulture breeding and is integrating them with BNHS’s efforts.

But, with the concerns over the high prevalence of the deadly diclofenac, an unabated decline in the vulture population and an agonisingly snail-paced collection of breeding stocks, the ambitious efforts to rescue the fast-vanishing vulture remain on a wing and a prayer.

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