Yesterday — September 5 — when zoos, aviaries, individuals and conservation organizations around the world were observing the first International Vulture Awareness Day through events and educational programmes on the ground and on the Net, conservationists in Punjab had an added reason to celebrate.

Unknown to many, there have been fresh sightings of the Indian White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis) in the Katlour wildlife sanctuary in Gurdaspur district over the past year, raising renewed hopes of saving these natural scavengers whose numbers have declined catastrophically in the past several years.

SS Bajwa, Honorary Wildlife Warden, Government of Punjab, one of the first to have spotted the vultures, estimates there are now around 300 of these birds in the sanctuary.

“There are two flocks of around 150 vultures each,” he told The Indian Express. “The flocks operate in a radius of roughly 100 km. I have been consistently bringing their presence to the notice of wildlife authorities. Around a year back, I even wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office, but there has been no response yet.”

The Indian White-rumped is listed as ‘critically endangered’ by the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature, the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network with a presence in over 160 countries. The White-rumped has broad wings and short tail feathers, and gets its name from the adult bird’s whitish back, rump and underwing coverts that contrast with its otherwise dark plumage.

Dr Vibhu Prakash of the 125-year-old Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) — the largest nature conservation research NGO in the Indian subcontinent — who heads the Vulture Care Centre in Pinjore, Haryana, said: “We have heard about some recent sightings of flocks of this bird in Punjab. This certainly is a very interesting phenomenon.”

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