Why the World needs Vultures

Above: Hooded Vultures displaying an affectionate side to their nature, with a spot of mutual-preening.

© Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

This article highlights International Vulture Awareness Day (IVAD) celebrated on 5 September 2020, and explains the vital role these birds play in maintaining healthy ecosystems along with conservation efforts being undertaken to halt their tragic decline.

My introduction to vultures on a grand scale came when I first visited India in the late 1980s. As with most first-timers the trip was an assault on the senses: so many people; so many animals on the streets; so much noise; overpowering heady smells of all kinds wafting in the air; and so much rubbish. And from a birding perspective, so many vultures. They were everywhere: standing on rooves; perched in trees; hunched beside roadsides; and circling overhead in thermals thousands-strong. Then there were the Egyptian Vultures with their vital but rather unsavoury habits: they sat patiently like sentinels, waiting for people to ‘do their business’ and guzzle down the ‘human droppings’ as the locals so quaintly put it - in fields surrounding villages, beside roads, in fact almost anywhere.

At the time, no birding trip to India was complete without a visit to Delhi’s rubbish dump. Naïve I most certainly was but to this day this is still one of the most shocking and overwhelming experiences I have ever had – oblivious to the stench, there were vultures in their tens of thousands (or so I remember) picking over the latest deposits of rubbish. I don’t have pictures of my own from those days, but read this online story which includes a historical image of the dump and its vultures at their zenith. At the time of my first visit to India, the role that vultures were playing in society could not have been more obvious: they were nature’s cleaners and sanitisers. And all was well in the vulture world: as humans prospered, so did they.

Moving on a few years, in the 1990s I was a regular visitor to India’s neighbour Nepal where I spent time in the company of friend and Asian birder Dr Hem Sagar Baral. With each successive trip, I began to notice a decline in vulture numbers there. Hem and other conservationists had also noticed this worrying trend and scientists around the globe were working to uncover the problem, something that was affecting all the subcontinent’s resident vulture species.

At the start of the 21st century I returned to India and spent one memorable Christmas at the legendary (amongst vulture-enthusiasts) Bikaner Body Dump. It is exactly what it sounds like – a site where the casualties from the previous day – camels, horses, cattle, donkeys, you name it - were dumped early in the morning. It was an extraordinary place. Newly-arriving corpses were quickly and efficiently skinned by people, the hides being taken away for tanning. The remains were then squabbled over by several species of vultures, along with Black Kites and Steppe Eagles, with a supporting cast of feral dogs. When I visited there were two extended packs of the latter, each more than 100 strong I was told, that rivalled one another for the pickings. You can perhaps imagine the quarrelling that went on.

Above: A Black (Cinereous) Vulture patrolling the skies in anticipation above Bikaner Body Dump. © Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Back to the Bikaner vultures. The striking thing was that the individuals comprised mainly winter-visiting migrants that had travelled there from colder climes to the north, perhaps as far away as Kazakhstan. Black (Cinereous) and Eurasian Griffon vultures predominated with smaller numbers of Egyptians in attendance too. The sad thing was that elsewhere in India on that trip I hardly saw any vultures, and at Keoladeo (Bharatpur), where vulture decline is said to have been first noticed, they were conspicuous by their absence.

Above: Waiting for the hide-skinners to complete their grisly work, a Eurasian Griffon Vulture (left) and Black (Cinereous) Vulture (right) wait their turn. © Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Sadly, my anecdotal observations were reflected in hard facts. The last decade of the 20th Century saw a 90% decline in vulture numbers across the Indian subcontinent; included in that dire figure was a staggering 99.9% decline in numbers of White-backed Vultures and 97% of the region’s Slender-billed Vultures were also wiped out. An estimated 40 million birds were killed in the space of just 10 years, along with their breeding potential. It turned out that the culprit was a veterinary drug called Diclofenac. A non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), it was used widely on animals – primarily beasts of burden - to prolong their active working life rather than for their welfare. It turns out that Diclofenac is toxic to vultures even in small doses, causing kidney failure resulting in uric acid accumulating in their blood and crystallizing around their internal organs—the technical term is visceral gout. Among the key players in identify the drug as the culprit, and the subsequent fight to ban it, were the Peregrine Fund (a US-based non-profit), the RSPB, Birdlife International and last but not least the Bombay Natural History Society.

Fortunately, Diclofenac was identified just in the nick of time and, illegal stockpiles notwithstanding, a ban on the drug began in Indian subcontinent countries in 2006. Since then, vulture populations in the region seem to have halted their precipitous decline, and perhaps even increased in a few areas. This would never have come about were it not for the sterling efforts of conservationists and scientists both in the Indian subcontinent and around the globe. Banning Diclofenac is just the start thought and other projects include breeding programmes to boost numbers and educating people about the harmful effects of the drug and the benefits of vultures.

Dedication and a passion for conservation can make a difference at the local level and you would be hard pushed to find a better example than the work undertaken by Himalayan Nature, a non-profit conservation body (Registered Charity No. 818/056/57 with the Government of Nepal). Concerned with all aspects of wildlife and conservation in Nepal, their work includes conserving vultures. Their specific endeavours cover: conservation of critically endangered vultures in Koshi Tappu wildlife reserve, including the establishment of a Vulture Restaurant; strengthening the community-managed Vulture Restaurant in Sunsari District; and working towards establishing a Vulture Safe Zone across the whole of eastern Nepal. Fortunately for Asian vultures, the work of Himalayan Nature is replicated across the region and you can find out more information on the RSPB website.

Above: Once common and widespread across the continent of Africa, Hooded Vulture numbers have plummeted in recent decades. © Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

Above: Some of the lucky ones: Hooded Vultures at a feeding station in The Gambia. © Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

For the poor vultures, the problem is not just confined to Asia and it is also a cause for concern in Africa. According to Birdlife International, in just 30 years vulture numbers in West Africa have declined by 95% outside protected areas. Over the same period more than half of the vulture population in Kenya’s Masai Mara have gone. Hooded Vultures, traditionally widespread and commensal with people, have declined by 62% across Africa since the 1970s, and more significantly in some areas. The threats that African vulture species face include Diclofenac but are compounded by other problems: poachers poison game carcasses to kill vultures and prevent their activities being detected; livestock owners poison corpses to kill ‘predators’ and vultures fall victim. And to add to their woes, their body parts feature in ‘traditional medicines’. You can find out more about the plight of African vultures on the Birdlife International website.

Above: A Eurasian Griffon Vulture, still locally common in the Iberian Peninsula, but under threat nevertheless. © Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

The next battleground in the war to save vultures is Europe because Diclofenac continues to be available and licensed in certain EU Countries. It was first approved by the EU as a veterinary drug in 1993. Since then it has been implicated in vulture deaths, and even appears to have entered the human food chain, although that is said not to represent a threat. Despite an acknowledgement that the drug causes vulture deaths, there is no wholesale ban and individual EU member states can prevent or allow its use at their own discretion. Diclofenac is also used as a NSAID ingredient in medicines and creams for arthritic pain relief in people.

Above: The Palm-nut Vulture is an unusual and atypical member of the clan. As the name suggests, it feeds primarily on palm fruits and other plant material, although it will scavenge dead fish and other small animals in hard times. As a result of its diet, it appears not to be affected in the same way as other African vultures. © Paul Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd

All too often conservation of a species or group of species is portrayed by the uninformed as something esoteric and irrelevant to the lives of most people. And it is particularly hard to convince those who view the planet and our environment as a resource there to be exploited for gain, rather than something integral to our very survival as a species, and a treasure to be cherished and preserved. But in the case of vultures the argument is clear and unequivocal. Their role as nature’s ‘clean-up crew’ benefits all who live in the regions where they once thrived. Their survival and recovery are in everyone’s interests – that includes even the most hard-hearted and unenlightened members of the human race.