Indian Vulture(Gyps indicus)
The Indian vulture is medium-sized and bulky. Its body and covert feathers are pale, its flight feathers are darker. Its wings are broad and its tail feathers are short. Its head and neck are almost bald, and its bill is rather long. It is 81–103 cm long and has a wing span of 1.96–2.38 m. Females are smaller than males. It weighs 5.5–6.3 kg. It is smaller and less heavily built than the Griffon Vulture. It is distinguished from that species by its less buff body and wing coverts.
Habitat
It is found in cities, towns and villages near cultivated areas, and in open and wooded areas. Gyps indicus indicus has much the same habits as other rock-loving Griffons, while Gyps indicus tenuirostris behaves very much like Gyps bengalensis. It leaves its roost in the morning when the sun has warmed the air enough to create thermal currents, and then spends much of the day soaring, descending to find food.
Diet
Like other vultures, it is a scavenger, feeding mostly from carcasses on carrion, which it finds by soaring over savannah and around human habitation.
Breeding
it nests either on crags, or on trees. When on crags the colonies are usually small, but may be larger – sometimes up to twenty pairs. When in trees it nests in loose colonies, one nest per tree, usually high up. and showing a preference for mango trees when available. Nests built on rocks are small, two to three feet across and six inches deep, but on trees they are more solid structures, 30 inches wide by fifteen to twenty inches deep, sometimes even larger. In either case the site is used for many years. The nests are made of sticks, lined with green leaves, and with pieces of skin, rags and other rubbish. One egg is laid, oval, white, sometimes lightly spotted and blotched with reddish brown. Eggs are laid from mid-November to early March. Both sexes incubate and attend the young. Incubation takes about 50 days. Only about 50% of occupied nests produce young in any year.
Population
According to the iUCN Red List, they are classed as Critically Endangered(CR). A population estimate of 45,000 individuals has been extrapolated from 2007 survey results, and it was recorded that there was 337 individuals along 18,000 km of road transects. This very roughly equates to 30,000 mature individuals. Survey results indicate that declines throughout the Indian Subcontinent probably began in the 1990s and were extremely rapid, resulting in an overall population decline of greater than 97% over a 10-15 year period.
Threats
By mid-2000, vultures were being found dead and dying in Pakistan and throughout India, and major declines and local extirpations were being reported. The anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, used to treat domestic livestock, has been identified as the cause of mortality, with renal failure resulting in visceral gout in the vast majority of examined vultures. Vultures are exposed to diclofenac and other NSAIDs through scavenging on the carcasses of largely cattle and buffalo that have been treated with the drugs prior to death and left for scavengers to consume (as is tradition in Hindu cultures). Vultures are unable to process diclofenac and other vulture-toxic NSAIDs that then cause renal failure and death. Modelling has shown that to cause the observed rate of decline in the species just one in 760 livestock carcasses need contain diclofenac residues, and sampling livestock carcasses in India between 2004 and 2005 showed that 10% were contaminated with diclofenac. Despite awareness programmes to educate locals about the association between diclofenac and vulture mortality, a survey in Nepal indicated that the vast majority of people still do not link diclofenac use to a decline in vulture populations, potentially leading to a slower uptake of meloxicam (a safe alternative). Recent bans of diclofenac in the region still have not eradicated its use in veterinary treatments, as it is still found in the carcasses of livestock and vultures. This may be because the drug continues to be produced for human consumption, which is then sold on for veterinary purposes; though this is not so much of a problem in Nepal and Pakistan. A second veterinary drug in use in India and particularly Bangladesh, ketoprofen, has also been identified to be lethal to the species, and measurements of residue levels in ungulate carcasses in India indicates that concentrations are sufficient to cause vulture mortalities. The availability of other NSAIDs, such as ketoprofen, is increasing and concern has been raised about the toxicity of nimesulide and flunixin as well as aceclofenac which is metabolised into diclofencac, and so is in effect as toxic to vultures as diclofenac. Other likely contributory factors are changes in human consumption and processing of dead livestock (which have occurred in response to the collapse in vulture numbers), and poison and pesticide use, but these are probably of minor significance.
Conservation
Conservation Actions Underway
CITES Appendix II. It has been reported from many protected areas across its range. The Indian government has now passed a bill banning the manufacture of the veterinary drug diclofenac that has caused the rapid population decline across the Indian subcontinent; their aim was to phase out its use by late 2005, although its sale has not been banned and it is likely to remain in widespread use for several years. Similar laws banning import and manufacture of diclofenac are now in place in Nepal and Pakistan. A letter from the Drug Controller General of India in 2008 warned more than 70 drugs firms not to sell the veterinary form of diclofenac, and to mark human diclofenac containers 'not for veterinary use. In October 2010, the government of Bangladesh banned the production of diclofenac for use in cattle, and the distribution and sale of the drug were due to be outlawed there during the first half of 2011. However, human diclofenac continues to be sold for veterinary use, and as such the Government of India banned the manufacture of all diclofenac products in vial sizes larger than 3 ml in 2015, which is predicted to make the drug too expensive and too complicated to use on large-bodied animals and thereby stop its misuse in livestock. Efforts to replace diclofenac with a suitable alternative are ongoing; drug companies have now developed meloxicam, an alternative to diclofenac, which has been tested on vultures with no ill-effects. Outreach activities have promoted this as the only vulture-safe alternative to diclofenac.
The Report of the International South Asian Vulture Recovery Plan Workshop in 2004 gave a comprehensive list of recommendations including establishing a minimum of three captive breeding centres each capable of holding 25 pairs. Captive breeding efforts are ongoing and during 2008-2009 there were 71 individuals in captivity at two captive breeding centres in India. In 2009, captive birds laid eggs, raising hopes that they will successfully breed in captivity in the near future. By November 2011 there were 83 individuals in captivity at two centres, 11 of these were juveniles that had successfully fledged; and by 2015 the Indian breeding centres were fledging 60 juveniles per year of all three resident vultures species combined. SAVE (Saving Asia's Vultures from Extinction) has developed the concept of Vulture Safe Zones; areas (with a minimum of 100 km radius, equating to 30,000 km2) around important vulture breeding colonies, where education and advocacy efforts are focused on eliminating the use of diclofenac and other vulture-toxic drugs. Conservation activities include: meeting key groups (e.g. pharmacists, veterinarians and livestock owners); engaging government officials (e.g. drug control, livestock services and forest departments) at tehsil, district and state levels; engaging with the public (e.g. festival programmes, media coverage and signage); diclofenac-free district declaration; community-run formal or informal Vulture Safe Feeding Sites (i.e., vulture restaurants); vulture-related income generation for villages at nesting or feeding sites; diclofenac-meloxicam exchanges; husbandry and veterinary training camps; and national and international ecotourism to feeding sites and conservation breeding sites. There are currently 12 provisional Vulture Safe Zones being established in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These areas will provide a safe environment into which birds bred in captivity can be released. Diversionary feeding has been shown to reduce (but not eliminate) vulture mortality from diclofenac poisoning, and uncertainty over the movements of Asian vultures makes the effectiveness of measures such as these uncertain. Satellite tagging has been employed on Asian Gyps vultures to improve understanding of their movements and range use so as to aid the development of conservation strategies for the genus.
An action plan for vulture conservation in India was written in 2006, but has not been updated. In 2012 the governments of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh adopted a number of priority actions for the conservation of vultures, proposed by SAVE. These include banning large multi-dose vials of human diclofenac, testing other NSAIDs for toxicity to vultures and expanding the Vulture Safe Zones initiative. A multi-species action plan for African-Eurasian Vultures is under development and is due to be considered by CMS at COP12 in October 2017.
Conservation Actions Proposed
Identify the location and number of remaining individuals. Measure the frequency of diclofenac treated carcasses available to vultures. Support the ban on the veterinary use of diclofenac, and attempt to implement a ban on other vulture-toxic NSAIDs. Support species management or restoration, as needed. Monitor remaining populations. Support captive breeding efforts at a number of separate centres. Manage genetic stock in the captive-bred population. Promote the immediate adoption of meloxicam as an alternative to diclofenac. Test other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to identify additional safe alternative drugs to diclofenac and also other toxic ones. Three drugs, aceclofenac, ketoprofen and nimesulide, are thought to be toxic to vultures, and approximately another 10 drugs need to be tested. Fully implement restrictions in the size of diclofenac vials sold for human use to make them less practical to use for veterinary purposes and take action against companies that fail to comply with the diclofenac ban. Attempt to estimate the potential value, in terms of ecosystem services, provided by wild vultures. Protect nesting areas. These and multiple other Conservation Actions were proposed as part of SAVE (2014) and SAVE (2015) for all Asian vultures. Maintain and promote Vulture Safe Zones, including trans-boundary efforts. Within VSZs, promote livestock management training and provide free veterinary camps.