Vulture conservation national symposium on Sept 29
The 2022 vulture census by Gujarat Ecological Education and Research (GEER) Foundation concluded that the vulture population in Gujarat rose by 155% between 2018 and 2022
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With an objective to highlight challenges before conservation of vultures and to discuss possible solutions, Bird Conservation Society, Gujarat (BCSG) will organise a national symposium on the subject in Ahmedabad on September 29.
The National Symposium on Vulture Conservation, 2024, will be inaugurated by Nityanand Srivastava, chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and chief wildlife warden of Gujarat. Wildlife Biologist Vibhu Prakash, who, under the aegis of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), headed the vulture conservation programme, will be the guest of honour, the organisers said.
Chris Bowden, advisor to Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE) consortium and UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) officer for globally threatened species; John Mollard, senior conservation scientist at the RSPB; and Ankit Bilash Joshi, vulture conservation programme manager at Bird Conservation Nepal, will be among international experts who will deliver talks at the event.
The symposium will also be addressed by Percy Avari, a Mumbai-based veterinarian, and Abhijit Pawde, principal scientist and in-charge of centre for wildlife at Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly.
“We have been seeing a perpetual decline in vulture population. Isolated efforts have been made to address the situation. But collaborative efforts to arrest the decline are lacking. There is no nodal agency for conservation of vultures,” BCSG president Bakul Trivedi said.
The 2022 vulture census by Gujarat Ecological Education and Research (GEER) Foundation concluded that the vulture population in Gujarat rose by 155% between 2018 and 2022. During this period, the vulture population jumped from mere 840 individuals to 2,143. The growth was propelled by Egyptian vultures. Population of Indian Vulture also increased from 285 to 362 and that of red-headed vultures from nine to 24. However, the census showed that the population of white-rumped vultures continued to decline.
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