Check vultures’ extinction — WWF urged

Stressing that something needed to be done urgently, Harsh Vardhan cited the example of Jaipur, where over 150 vultures were sighted during the first “birding fair” in 1996. None have been sighted for the past six months anywhere in a 100 km radius from Jaipur, he said and added that the bird was extinct here.

According to a senior scientist with Bombay Natural History Society, Vibhu Prakash, there was a decline of over 90 per cent in the numbers of Whitebacked Vulture by 1997. It has already become extinct in several ranges now, adds Harsh Vardhan.

Despite the fact that a rapid decline has been noticed in the numbers of Whitebacked and Longbilled Vultures for the past five years, so far only four post-mortems were conducted to ascertain the cause and even these were done in the last seven-eight months, he said.

According to reports of some wildlife lovers and naturalists, this was a problem of international dimensions. Harsh Vardhan said it started from the Far East and has been spreading westwards. It has come to India and spread up to Pakistan. Pakistan, incidentally, has responded by allowing foreign experts to take and test samples to identify and treat the disease or prevent its spread, he said. Experts had also come over from Africa, UK and US to study the problem.

On the basis of tests carried out on a small number of dead birds, these experts ascribe the phenomenon to disease. According to a report prepared by Dr Robert W Risebrough, Technical Consultant of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, “The preponderance of evidence indicates that a disease factor, presumed to be a virus, is responsible for the mortalities and population declines of the Whitebacked Vulture (Gyps bengalensis) and Longbilled Vulture (Gyps indicus) in India.”

Testing of birds in properly equipped laboratories was imperative not only for identification of the disease but also to find a cure or a vaccine for it. For this, collaborating with foreign experts and labs could not be objected to, said the general secretary of TWSI, Harsh Vardhan.

The Indian Government, however, insisted that there was a ban on allowing any living tissue to be taken abroad, he said. He said other ways were being found to preserve the threatened birds while trying to impress the urgency upon the government.

In a letter to Meeta Vyas, secretary general and chief executive officer of WWF-India, Harsh Vardhan drew attention to the fact that the Whitebacked Vulture was already extinct in some parts. He said the cause of the deaths had also been ascertained through combined efforts of some Indian, British and American experts.

“It would be crucial for your good offices to make the necessary dent on the situation so that the remaining population of the species does not meet the same fate. It will be appropriate to establish the kind of Centre as had been visualised by WWF-India,” he wrote.

The proposal for vulture feeding/breeding stations was made at the initiative of WWF-India. Financial assistance for the programme had been sought from the Union Government.