Vultures to go hi-tech

Several months after diclofenac was banned for veterinary use, vultures remain endangered since the drug, also used as a painkiller for humans, is being illegally diverted for use on animals, reported The Indian Express of January 2, 2007. Vultures suffer renal failure on ingesting diclofenac, seriously reducing their already dwindling numbers. Ornithologist Dr Vibhu Prakash, who has been monitoring the vulture population for over a decade, says, "We are trying to intervene to preserve the existing numbers, but it will make no sense if the ban is not implemented stringently.”

Conservationists received a New Year gift when an oriental white-backed vulture hatched on January 1, 2007 in Pinjore, Haryana. This is the first vulture born in captivity in India, and belongs to one of the three Indian species facing extinction, reported The Times of India of January 9, 2007. Another chick was born five days later, revealed Hindustan Times (January 15, 2007). "On the second day of hatching, we saw the parents give saliva to the baby. On the third day, we saw the baby move… Like humans they have varying personalities. Some are friendly, some nervous,” Prakash informed.

In another initiative as reported in Hindustan Times, January 3, 2007, by mid-January five wild white-backed vultures from Wyanad in Kerala were to have been fitted with a 30-gram solar battery operated radio transmitter with a tiny flexible antenna in a harness, piggyback style, to help conservationists release the last surviving scavengers in the wild. A French satellite system called Argos will pick up exact location signals that conservationists can download minutes later and plot on a map to track the range size, habitat and foraging problems of these vultures. During the three-year program "one can watch the bird flight and movements on computers,” revealed Asad Rahmani, director, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

The UK-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds will provide the backpack units which have been designed to cause the least discomfort. The harness either wears off or is removed by professionals for reuse. Since 2003, four migrant Himalayan Griffon and Eurasian Griffon vultures were tracked as they flew across India, Kazakhistan, China and Mongolia. Now it is the turn of Indian vultures to go hi-tech.