The Vulture Conservation Working Group of South India (VCWG-SI) is gearing up to organise a synchronised survey of the critically endangered vulture population in south India.
An action plan for the first such survey was finalised at a recent workshop held at the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka.
The survey would begin by the first week of February with the support of the State Forest Departments, C.K. Vishnudas, conservation biologist and a member of the group, told The Hindu .
The group was constituted to coordinate the vulture conservation activities in south India with the support of the Forest Departments in the States concerned.
“Vultures are capable of travelling more than 100 km a day and thus monitoring the population is a difficult task. Counting birds on different dates may result in inaccurate numbers. So it was decided to organise a synchronised survey on a specific date across all south Indian States,” Mr. Vishnudas said.
In reserves
One of the remaining wild populations of vultures in India survives in the protected areas in and around the foothills of the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve (the Mysuru-Nilgiri-Wayanad-Sathyamangalam landscape), he added.
The Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala, Mudumalai Tiger Reserve and the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu, Bandipur Tiger Reserve and the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, Nagrhole, in Karnataka were the protected areas in this region with a remnant vulture population, C. Sasikumar, ornithologist, said.
Four species
Four species of vultures — White-rumped vulture Gyps bengalensis, Red-headed vulture Sarcogyps calvus, Indian vulture Gyps indicus and Egyptian vulture Neophron percnopterus — are reported from this area.
In recent times, Himalayan Griffon vultures (Gyps himalayensis) and a Cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus) were also found in the landscape as stragglers, he said.
‘The presence of ‘Diclofenac,’ a veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), that caused the massive death of vulture population in south Asia, has come down in many parts of south India. But several other drugs such as Aceclofenac, Carprofen, Flunixin, Ketoprofen, Nimesulide and Phenylbutazone that have been proven toxic to the vultures are still in use close to vulture habitats in many parts of south India,” D. Rajkumar, coordinator of the working group said.
Drugs yet to be banned
Though Ketoprofen was banned in districts with vulture habitats in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and other south Indian States were yet to take any action in this regard, Mr. Rajkumar said.
Meloxicam, another veterinary NSAID, was approved as safe to vultures, after clinical trials, he added.
