Planet Article

Vulture Crisis: an emerging topic of the year for Assam

One of the most critical issues in the emerging conservation trend is vulture crisis. The scientist and environmentalists apprehend that the vulture population of India has been declined by more than 97 per cent in the last few years. Today, India has only 11,000 white-backed vultures, 1000 slender-billed vultures and 44,000 long-billed vultures, which are declared as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. More over, they are listed as Schedule I species in the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which is applicable to the tiger and one-horned rhino also. Rapid urbanisation, destruction of habitat (primarily the loss of high-rise trees, where the vultures go for nesting) and many other modern day factors (like the rampant use of pesticides-DDT, hitting aeroplane, other moving objects in the sky, electric power lines and even poisoning of vultures in some cases) have caused the declination of vulture population. Among them a veterinary drug called Diclofenac was identified as a major cause of the break down of the vulture health. Some of the leading non-government organisations start campaigning for the captive breeding of vultures and also raise a huge financial support for the cause with the prior assistance of the concerned government department. However everyone not yet convince with the Diclofenac theory. Ajay Poharkar, a veterinarian in the Maharashtra Animal Husbandry Department and his co-authors argues that malaria parasite Plasmodium spp. LaC1 is also a major cause of vulture deaths. He committed that as a vulture requires around 500 grams of meat per day. In that case, there should be very little trace of Diclofenac in their bodies. He had also established his experience working with vultures at Gadchiroli, near Nagpur in Maharashtra, arguing that the Gadchiroli farmers are too poor to use Diclofenac on a mass scale in Current Science (Curr. Sci., 2009, 96, 553–558), the most reputed scientific journal of the country. Rather he and his associates found malarial parasites in blood-smear samples from the birds. The Hyderabad based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology and the veterinary college in Mumbai also agreed the same. Adding to that recently Farah Ishtiaq of Wildlife Institute of India has raised several questions about the viability of a specific malarial parasite and its pathogenicity in the vultures of Central India through the same journal Current Science (Curr. Sci., 2009, 97, 134–135). However the previous authors failed to understand a couple of unfeasible points towards the end of the correspondence and ended their respond as they want to  save the species rather than experiment upon. This must be the best avowal by a true conservationist. Perhaps, it is the most debatable topic throughout the region, as another school of conservationist had tag a question on that.

Apart from the long controversy Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) propagated the concept of captive breeding as the only viable option to save the creatures. Dr. V. Prakash of the captive programme also highlighted that considering the fast declination of vultures and also the availability of Diclofenac in the markets, the conservation breeding programme appears to be the only way of saving the species and with the permission from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (GoI) and supports from a number of international funding organizations like Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK), Zoological Society of London , Peregrine Fund (US), the reputed wildlife research organization today runs three vulture conservation breeding centres at Pinjore of Haryana, Rajabhatkhawa of West Bengal and Rani of Assam. Dr Anil Kumar Chhangani, a wildlife expert from Department of Zoology, JNV University, Jodhpur argued that the captive breeding will not be the only way to conserve vultures. Rather a countrywide rescue programme for the vultures should be encouraged. Similar views were expressed by Soumyadeep Datta, the prominent conservation activist of Assam that the matured vultures select their partners in the wild for breeding and the birds lay eggs in such a situation, which cannot be arranged in the captivity. Moreover, vultures are monogamous birds and they maintain the loyalty of conjugal lives till deaths. Only one egg is expected from a pair in one season. The caring mother continues its close bond with the baby till the chick attains maturity by five years.

© Dhritiman mukharje

The major sad back of the whole effort occur when the concerned villagers of upper Assam caught Dr. A.R.Rahmani, Director, BNHS in the first week of May 2009 for the indiscriminate lifting of chicks, as done by the BNHS people in different areas of upper Assam, from the nests would only disrupt the male-female ratio of the vultures. Adding to that the local villagers also suspect that the BNHS people had started capturing vulture chick and adults in Assam since 2005. In the long period, they must have captured nearly 100 adult and semi-adult vultures from the State and most of them were taken to the captive breeding centres of Haryana and West Bengal. However, Dr. Rahmani can’t satisfy the villagers when they asked him about the number of the

chicks and the viability of the captive programme. Just after a day of the Rahmani’s incident eighteen numbers of vulture had been killed intentionally by using pesticides in a street dog at Sibasagar district. This passed the most terrible message among the people of the state regarding the true motivation of our conservation workers.

The whole incident had been covered by print and electronic media which bestowed an ailing impression among the mass about the peoples truly working in the conservation field. It becomes a social issue as our social systems are closely related to the nature. Our people don’t have any specific information of vulture death in Assam for the action of Diclofenac, except the planed killing of Sibasagar district. Anyway, there may be some possibility of captive programme but the initiation should be with the awareness of local people because they are the true custodians of such precious species, especially outside the protected areas. As we had an interesting evidence of Assamese people concerned about the conservation of Vulture in long back 1858 by publishing extensive writeups in the Arunodoi (pp. 98-100) on the importance of the species.

On the other hand another captive programme for Pigmy Hog is also in progress in the state but there were no such hullabaloos occurred. Myself, I was also a part of the same programme where we had seen an enormous participation of communities around the Pigmy Hog habitats. As a conservation activist, we always believe in the people participation for initiate a long term effort. However, such project base works without realising the ground truth and the community concern will smash some of the true efforts too.

About the Author:
an Assam base conservation worker allied to Natures Beckon. Professionally he is engaged with the Assam chapter of  National Innovation Foundation based in the Technology Complex of IIT, Guwahati. He is focusing in the long term people participation in conservation of endangered species and critical ecosystems.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tags: Birds, Environment, nature, Vulture Crisis