ENVIRONMENT-NEPAL: Slowly, Vulture Numbers Picking Up

• by Mallika Aryal (kathmandu)
• Friday, January 22, 2010
• Inter Press Service

In the early 1990s, there was suddenly an alarming drop in the numbers of vultures.

'The population of jackals, dogs and rats increased and we would see the carcasses of dead animals lying by the riverbeds for days. It was alarming and was obvious to us that the vultures were gone,' recalls Chaudhary.

But it was not just in Nawalparasi where vultures were disappearing. Researchers said there was overall decrease in the vulture numbers all over South Asia. They said that the vultures were dying due to kidney failure and soon narrowed the cause to a popular anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, which is used in cattle by farmers in India, Nepal and Pakistan. Vultures were feeding on the carcasses of the animals that had been given this painkiller, and this was causing them to die.

Experts say that having four contaminated carcasses among 1,000 healthy ones can bring down the vulture population by more than 50 percent. The Oriental White-backed Vulture, the Slender-billed and Long-billed Vultures have died due to diclofenac, their populations falling by 95 percent in the mid-1990s.

The use of diclofenac has been catastrophic for the vulture population. For instance, in the 1980s there were 150,000 breeding pairs of White-rumped Vultures. Now researchers say that there are less than 1,000 pairs left and that they have only been able to monitor 250 breeding pairs.

'It is truly alarming, where have all the vultures gone?' says Hem Sagar Baral, ornithologist and chief technical advisor of Himalayan Nature.

In 2004, researchers met with government officials at a vulture summit in Nepal’s capital and signed the Kathmandu Declaration where the governments of India, Nepal and Pakistan committed to setting up breeding centres and most importantly, banning the use of diclofenac. An alternative anti-inflammatory drug, meloxicam, was introduced that was as effective as diclofenac and safe for vultures.

In Nepal, the ban was immediately put in place. Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN), a local non-government organisation, has been involved in monitoring work to ensure that the ban is effective and in advocacy educating farmers to use meloxicam.

In 2006, BCN started a restaurant for vultures in Nawalparasi -- safe feeding centres where vultures can come and feed on meat that is not contaminated. Two more, in Rupandehi and Dang in west Nepal were also recently added.

The restaurants buy old, dying cattle from farmers who are happy to get rid of them. They are then treated at the restaurants so that if diclofenac has been used on them, it wears out of their system. After they die, their carcasses are left out for the vultures to feed on.

Experts say that the ban has been so effective in Nepal that in places like the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserves in the east — where not a single nest was found during a 2001 survey — there was a re-emergence of 32 White-rumped Vulture nests last year.

Similarly, in Nawalparasi, locals have witnessed an increase in number of vultures and in the number of nests. There were only 17 nests when the restaurant opened but the number has gone up to 32 nests in three years, as the ban on meloxicam helped reduce the mortality rates of vultures.

'My generation will never see the same numbers of vultures my parents’ generation saw, and my children will not see the same numbers I have seen in my lifetime, but the fact that vultures have stopped dying is a positive sign,' says Baral. One of the reasons why the decreasing vulture population was not evident right away was because the scavengers are considered bad luck in predominantly Hindu Nepali society. If a vulture is found to be sitting on a rooftop of a house or seen circling on top, the community says the house has to be purified.

However, Chaudhary says that the thinking has changed since the vulture population started going down. 'Local communities now realise the importance of scavengers -- that they eat decaying dead animals, keep the surroundings clean, which is why the locals are so involved in the vulture restaurant.'

Villagers in Nawalparasi take care of the restaurant and make sure that the trees where vultures are nesting are protected. Recently, locals from nine districts came together and declared their areas diclofenac-free.

This success story is being followed by other countries. Pakistan recently set up a vulture restaurant in Sindh and number of restaurants are in the pipeline in India and even Cambodia.

'The most important reason why this project has been so successful is because all mechanisms have come together to work — the government through their policy to ban diclofenac, local organisations through the process of monitoring and technical support, and communities through their commitment to conservation and lobbying,' says Surya Paudel, veterinary officer at Bird Conservation Nepal.

But even for a hugely successful initiative, challenges remain.

Pharmaceutical companies in India across the border are found to be still producing diclofenac other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) such as nimesulide and ketoprofen, which are equally fatal to the vultures. 'We still see NSAID being sold in veterinary pharmacies because although some of these companies are raided, they are obviously not reaching all of them and it is extremely easy to bring these drugs to Nepal through the open India-Nepal border,' says Baral.

In addition, recent monitoring has found that the cattle owners are now using human diclofenac on their animals, which works as well as animal diclofenac and is equally fatal. 'Now this is very difficult to this monitor because human diclofenac is not banned, so the only way we deal with this problem is by educating farmers and cattle owners,' explains Paudel.

Experts say that there needs to be a complete ban on NSAID drugs, not just diclofenac, and that laws are needed in order to hold accountable those found felling trees where the vultures are nesting.

Most importantly, Baral says that the four vultures that are not on the list of endangered species are also in decline, and thus need to be listed so that conservation efforts can be taken before their numbers start decreasing rapidly.

That conservation of scavengers should not be an afterthought, he points out. 'There’s a lot of attention given to conservation of tigers and rhinos in this country, which is important. But it is now evident that protecting scavengers is also equally important, and so must also be prioritised with other conservation efforts.'

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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