The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and the vulture cell of the Vanchetna Kendra have raised doubts over the Forest Department’s claims that it has sent the carcasses of the two vultures recovered from the IIM-A campus here, to the Veterinary directorate at Ambawadi in Ahmedabad for diclofenac tests.

According to them, there are very few places where detection of diclofenac is done, one of them being Anand Agriculture University where the test is done on a temporary basis. The high performance tests for diclofenac are done at the Indian Veterinary Research Institutes (IVRI) in India and the UK.

Forest officials had earlier said that AAU would do the post-mortem of the vultures. AAU Veterinary College Principal J V Solanki, however, said no vulture carcasses from Ahmedabad have come for the tests.

Vibhu Prakash, Principal Scientist, BNHS, told Newsline: “The death of vultures is due to the deposition of chocky white uric acid which develops into visceral gout. The reasons can be plenty, and one of them is diclofenac.”

He added that verifying the cause of the deaths will require high performance liquid chromatography tests, which are done at IVRI or in the UK.

Kartik Shastri, Assistant Coordinator with the Vanchetna Kendra said: “In the past few months, six vultures under Schedule-I category have died. But the Forest Department has not been able to give the exact cause of the birds’ death.”

Deputy Conservator of Forest G Ramana Murthy, said: “We have sent the carcasses for tests at the Ambawadi Veterinary Directorate. We will get the report in a day. Recently, the cause of deaths of most vultures is not diclofenac, but some unknown disease.”