LONDON — Wild Asian vultures could become extinct in 10 years
unless officials stop the use of a livestock drug that has caused the birds to
decline faster than the dodo, British and Indian scientists said on Wednesday.
A new study shows the population of oriental white-backed
vultures has plunged 99.9 percent since 1992 while the numbers of two species,
the long-billed and slender-billed vultures, together have fallen by nearly 97
percent.
A wider ban of the veterinary drug diclofenac and more
captive breeding centers are the only way to save the birds found mainly in
India, the researchers said in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History
Society.
India banned manufacture of the veterinary form of the
anti-inflammatory in 2006, but a version formulated for humans is still used to
treat livestock, the researchers said. When the vultures feed on carcasses they
ingest the drug, which shuts down their kidneys and kills them within days.
"The ban on diclofenac production for veterinary use was an
excellent first step," Vibhu Prakash, a researcher at the Bombay Natural History
Society and colleagues wrote. However, this action is insufficient on its own to
save these species."
The birds are critical to the ecosystem and for human health
in India because they are the primary means of getting rid of animal carcasses
in the nation of some 1.12 billion people, added Andrew Cunningham, who worked
on the study.
Their demise is has led to a sharp increase in dead animals
around villages and towns, which has boosted the numbers of disease-carrying
rats and rabid stray dogs, he said.
"This is a direct consequence of the decline of the
vultures," Cunningham, a veterinarian at the Zoological Society of London, said
in a telephone interview.
The researchers counted vultures in northern and central
India between March and June last year. They surveyed the birds from vehicles
along more than 160 sections of road totaling 18,900 kilometers.
The study followed four previous counts and was the first
since 2003. The researchers warned that all three species could dwindle down to
a few hundred birds or less to the verge of extinction in fewer than 10 years.
The researchers believe the number of oriental white-backed
vultures in India could now be as low as 11,000 from tens of millions in the
1980s. Populations of the long-billed vultures have likely dropped to 45,000
while only an estimated 1,000 of the slender-billed species remain, they said.
The dodo was hunted to extinction barely 100 years after it was discovered in
the 16th century.
