27/08/2021 - Environment

KEY POINTS

·        Vultures are slow breeders and so the survival of every individual is very crucial. With their excellent eyesight and strong sense of smell, vultures can detect the presence of dead animals from great distances.

·        Vultures have a highly acidic stomach that helps them digest rotting carcass and kill disease-causing bacteria.

·        Diclofenac, which relieves cattle of pain, is toxic to vultures even in small doses and causes kidney failure and death.

·        Vultures not only keep our environment free of carcasses but also help control disease outbreak

·        Removing vultures from the ecosystem leads to inefficient clearing of carcasses and contaminates water systems.

·        The vultures that consume such flesh prevents the carriers of disease.

Steps to increase numbers

·        To tackle this problem, India banned diclofenac for veterinary use in 2006. Five States are to get vulture breeding centres under the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation for 2020-2025, approved in October 2020.

·        There are no rescue centres for treating vultures as of now, so this too has been mooted under the Plan.

·        Vulture ‘restaurants’, which exist in some countries, are also a way of preserving the population.

·        In these ‘restaurants’, diclofenac-free carcasses of cattle are dumped in designated areas where vultures gather to feed.

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