To Vibhu Prakash, vultures are beautiful birds despite their awful dining habits. “The long-billed vulture, for instance, looks like a swan,” he says.
He spent four decades working to protect these avian scavengers, so perhaps his is an acquired appreciation.
Prakash studied vultures in Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan, in the late 1980s, research that turned out to be providential. When cattle died in large numbers at the beginning of summer, hundreds belonging to two species of vultures descended from the sky. “That was an unforgettable sight,” says the researcher.
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Among mammalian carnivores, the assertive individuals feed first while the meek wait their turn. Vultures, however, let the hungriest take precedence. They work fast to strip the carcasses clean, nature’s own disposal system.
Unable to get airborne after these feasts, the engorged scavengers perch on trees, digesting their meals. One such enormous tree favoured by vultures stood outside a building that Prakash and other researchers frequented. When they walked under it, the panicked birds threw up to lighten their weight and take off. Their habits may be revolting, but they clean every feather and bathe daily.
On his return to the park in 1996, the researcher found the vulture population had crashed. Dead birds lay everywhere, tangled in trees, on the ground, and in the nest. Those still alive sat listlessly with their snake-like necks hanging down before keeling over, lifeless. “It was a very disturbing sight,” recalls Prakash.
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What’s the cause?
By comparing that year’s population estimate with his earlier study, he showed the decline was a catastrophic 95% within a decade. Vulture numbers went into a free fall not only in the park but across the country as researchers struggled to find the cause. Was it pesticides, heavy metal poisoning, or infectious disease? It wasn’t until 2003 that an international team of scientists nailed the culprit, a new anti-inflammatory drug called diclofenac being used to treat cattle suffering from a range of ailments. When these ailing animals died, vultures stuffed themselves on their tainted flesh and developed gout, a condition caused by an inability to excrete uric acid because of kidney failure. The sick birds slowly lost their strength and succumbed within a fortnight.
While campaigning for a ban of the veterinary use of the drug, the Bombay Natural History Society also set up a conservation breeding programme headed by Prakash to boost vulture numbers. The team removed the first eggs of the season from captive vultures and incubated them artificially. The deprived parents laid another egg and took turns sitting on it in seven to eight-hour shifts.
“When they get stiff, they stand up and do vigorous wing and leg exercises,” says Prakash.
The 10-day-old chicks hatched in the incubator were swapped for the second egg. Typically, the parent birds would help their young hatch by delicately removing the eggshell. The miraculous appearance of the fluff balls startled them, and they cautiously extended their long necks to feel them with their beaks. Once they were satisfied the new occupants were chicks, the adults lost no time in raising them.
Fluffy chicks
Since vultures raise only one nestling a year, returning the second chick to the parents posed a risk to its survival. Instead, Prakash and his team raised these young ones together at the centre. Within three to four months, the 150-gram youngsters grow to five-kilogram birds.
“The chicks are so cute,” says the researcher. “Slender-billed vulture chicks, for example, are fluffy and snow white with a black neck and bald head.”
Prakash discovered their fixation on the colour red.
“If the keeper wears red, the chicks will go for it,” he says. “When we lay red towels, they get on it and it’s difficult to take it away.”
It stands to reason, since red is the colour of blood and meat.
Under the programme, 18 adult vultures have taken to the skies to fulfil their destiny as the maintainers of countryside hygiene. Many more will follow.
Janaki Lenin is not a conservationista but many creatures share her home for reasons she is yet to discover.