The white-rumped vulture hasn’t gotten
much respect in Bangladesh.
Its hunched slate-gray wings, bald head, and taste
for carrion have marked it as a symbol of doom.
But the raptor’s bad image
isn’t stopping conservationists
from trying to save it from extinction.
South Asian governments and conservationists
are spending millions of dollars to pull this
vulture and two other species back from the brink.
The plunge of South Asia’s vulture population
began in the 1990s.
The epidemic stretched across the subcontinent,
hitting three vulture species.
The white rumped vulture has declined by 99 percent.
In India the population went from 10 million
to around 6000
The other 2 species have followed similar trajectories.
In 2004, scientists in Pakistan found the culprit
by examining the carcasses of cattle.
Some species of vulture can’t metabolize diclofenac,
a painkiller that became widely
used in the 1990s to treat cattle.
When the birds feed on tainted carcasses,
uric acid crystallizes in their kidneys.
Kidney failure and death follow.
Vulture species that are able to metabolize the drug
haven’t suffered population collapse.
The disappearance of these vultures translates
into the loss of one of nature’s tidiest
ways to dispose of a dead body.
A crew of vultures can strip a dead cow to its bones
in less than an hour, removing a
source of stench and potential disease.
Governments in the region have responded
by banning the veterinary version of diclofenac.
In most places, however, veterinarians can still
use diclofenac’s most common alternatives,
which are also toxic to vultures.
The proliferation of problem drugs,
and the reluctance of governments to ban all of them,
puts a premium on finding more benign medications.
A variety of veterinary painkillers are currently
being studied for their effects on vultures,
but this process is time consuming,
and many drugs remain on the market that haven’t
been tested on vultures.
Meanwhile, bird numbers are so low that even a
small crack in the bans could prove catastrophic.
A 2004 study estimated that diclofenac contamination
of as few as one in 760 cow carcasses could
drive down vulture numbers
To prevent further declines, conservationists,
in collaboration with governments are trying
to create “vulture safe zones”
In Bangladesh in 2014,
the government designated two vulture zones –
a circle with a 100-kilometer radius centered
on a spot where imperiled vultures gather.
Inside these safe zones,
conservationists courted veterinarians
with educational material
warning of the perils of some drugs,
and free stockpiles of meloxicam,
a painkiller that’s safe for vultures.
Some evidence suggests
this strategy is having an impact -
surveys found nearly all pharmacies
in Bangladesh stopped selling diclofenac
by the end of 2015, down from 25% in 2014.
In November 2017, researchers in Nepal
released 17 white-rumped vultures
tagged with satellite tracking systems--
the first to be tracked this way.
If these birds, along with others released
in the coming year, survive until April 2020
without a drug-related fatality,
the region will be declared an official vulture safe zone.