Phoenix is the name the RSPB have chosen for the White Backed Vulture nestling that survived—and is now three months old. It’s an apt nomenclature. Like the legendary bird that survived all odds, Phoenix is the outcome of long and difficult conservation practice which had the Haryana Government marking a trail through all of India, looking at vultures from other states, nests exposed to the deadly veterinary drug Diclofenac, kite festivals and wild bees. Started seven years ago, the Centre has had nestlings being born before, and then dying within the month or even the week. Because the vanishing vulture, for all the hardy image it conjures up, is a very difficult bird to conserve.
The politics of conservation
When a drug is cheap and easily available, it’s picked up easily—and it’s that much more difficult to phase out. A non steroidal, anti-inflammatory painkiller called Diclofenac, effective for both humans and animals, started becoming popular in the mid-1990’s. Within an estimated decade, the death-dealing drug, traces of which remained in animal carcasses, resulted in the extermination of 99.99 per cent of the scavenging Indian vulture, notably the slender billed vulture, the white backed vulture and the long billed vulture.
But vultures are not pretty birds. And till the last decade, they were still spotted in huge numbers in India. Result: the vulture conservation movement is one that is still gathering steam—and funding. But there is a door that letting in the light. Five years before the Government of India allocated Rs 1 crore (in 2006) to set up vulture conservation and breeding centres in Orissa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, the Pinjore centre was up and running, thanks to the BNHS which realised that something very serious was plaguing the bird once as common as the common crow.
Dr Vibhu Prakash from the BNHS, credited with being the first scientist in India to report Indian vultures were vanishing, approached the Haryana Government in 2001 to set up the breeding centre.
“When we first mooted the idea to officials, it was met with jeers. Some considered the bird to be ugly, badbudaar (stinky), and some even thought they were a bad omen and basically not worth the conservation effort. But within the year we realised that the vulture needed our help with massive flocks just vanishing,” says Dr R.D. Jakati, Chief Wildlife Warden, Haryana. He anticipated that working on the vulture issue would only pick up in the following years. “Our state has only 3.5 per cent of forest cover. We have no wildlife to write home about. I wrote to the government that working sincerely on the vulture issue would put Haryana on the world map,” he says. That’s exactly what happened. BNHS, RSPB and the Zoological Society of London came to Pinjore in Haryana for site selection and the project got rolling.
Following a conference in Budapest, which found that Diclofenac traces in animal carcasses was the deadly vulture killer in 2003, the Government in 2006 banned the manufacture of Diclofenac as a veterinary drug. It tested Meloxicam, another drug, as the safe substitute. But three years down the line, there’s a long way to go before the vulture can reclaim its kingdom in the sky. Diclofenac as a human drug, worth Rs 900 crore of business, and notably found as popular painkiller Voveran, has entered the veterinary market. Like in India, Birdlife International has found that unlicensed Diclofenac is being sold in Tanzania, another country that has banned the drug from veterinary use.
“The Government needs to market Meloxicam more aggressively. A halfhearted approach to vulture conservation will not work. The vulture is getting left out of conservation plans. All funds are going for the tiger,” says Dr Vibhu Prakash, principal scientist, BNHS, who looks after the Haryana centre, one in Assam (set up last year) and West Bengal (set up two years ago).
“Diclofenac for human use is a very popular. You get it in tablets, in gel form and as ampules. As long as it is easily available in the market for humans, it will be difficult to stop farmers for using it on cattle. There is also a need to reach out to other people who work with cattle, and not just cattle owners. We need to educate those who work with artificial insemination and milking also and constantly repeat this education,” says Dr Arun A Shah, a Bangalore-based vet with leading conservation NGO Wildlife SOS.
“There might be a ban, but on the ground, there isn’t much awareness on Diclofenac,” says Ravi Aggarwal from Toxicslink.
... contd.
