Catastrophic collapse of Indian white-backed Gyps bengalensis and long-billed Gyps indicus vulture populations

Prakash, Vibhu; Pain, Deborah J.; Cunningham, Andrew A.; Donald, Paul F.; Prakash, Nikita; Verma, AK; Gargi, Raut; Sivakumar, S.; Rahmani, Asad R.

doi:10.1016/s0006-3207(02)00164-7

Cited by 262 publications

(215 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In this paper, we set out to answer several of them: (i) when did diclofenac enter the veterinary market and become widely used in the region, ( compared with the timing of the decrease in the OWBV population in India. We estimated the year that declines began in India by backwards extrapolation of the observed decline rates from counts of OWBV nesting at Keoladeo National Park [27,28] and from nationwide road transects of this species [7]. Rates of decline were estimated using log-linear Poisson regression models for both the road transect and Keoladeo data, using previously published methods [7,29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian scavengers and the threat from veterinary pharmaceuticals

Cuthbert

Taggart

Prakash

et al. 2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Veterinary use of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac on domesticated ungulates caused populations of resident Gyps vultures in the Indian sub-continent to collapse. The birds died when they fed on carrion from treated animals. Veterinary diclofenac was banned in 2006 and meloxicam was advocated as a ‘vulture-safe’ alternative. We examine the effectiveness of the 2006 ban, whether meloxicam has replaced diclofenac, and the impact of these changes on vultures. Drug residue data from liver samples collected from ungulate carcasses in India since 2004 demonstrate that the prevalence of diclofenac in carcasses in 2009 was half of that before the ban and meloxicam prevalence increased by 44%. The expected vulture death rate from diclofenac per meal in 2009 was one-third of that before the ban. Surveys at veterinary clinics show that diclofenac use in India began in 1994, coinciding with the onset of rapid Gyps declines ascertained from measured rates of declines. Our study shows that one pharmaceutical product has had a devastating impact on Asia's vultures. Large-scale research and survey were needed to detect, diagnose and quantify the problem and measure the response to remedial actions. Given these difficulties, other effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment may remain undetected.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian scavengers and the threat from veterinary pharmaceuticals

Cuthbert

Taggart

Prakash

et al. 2014

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Scavenging birds live on carrions, help disposing dead bodies, re-reroute energy flows to higher food webs, help in nutrient cycling, and help control undesirable facultative mammalian / avian scavengers, and limit the spread of diseases [33,34,35]. It is said that a pack of vulture, an obligate scavenger, would clean up a full-grown buffalo in an hour's time leaving the skeletons, cleaned up of all meat/soft remnants, for drying and collection for trade/industry.…”

Section: Birds In Energy Transfersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecosystem Services of Birds: A Review of Market and Non-market Values

Mahendiran¹,

Pa²

2018

Entomol Ornithol Herpetol

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“…Approximately four decades ago, two vulture species, namely, the Indian white-backed (G. bengalensis) and long-billed (G. indicus) vultures, were abundant which are now on the verge of extinction [5,15]. It was observed the number of the park's white-backed in Rajasthan's Keoladeo National Park reduced from a peak number of 1,800 in 1985-86 to only 86 in 1998-99 while long-bills declined from 816-25 [22]. Long-billed vulture population was similarly reduced about 97 % between 1985 and 1999 in Keoladeo National Park [23].…”

Section: The Status Of Vulture Populations In Some Asian Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such factors are already covered in a recently published review article by Paital et al [29]. The authors made a perspective that hunting [31], pollution [30,[32][33][34], food scarcity and cannibalism [24,33,34], ingestion of contaminated food and food poisoning [35][36][37][38][39][40][41], multiple physiological disorders including nutritional problems [14,42], lack of proper nesting and resting places [8], genotoxic factors [43,44], problems related to breeding [24,45], electrocution and air traffic [38,46,47] epidemic and endemic diseases [38,[48][49][50][51], pathological susceptibility [22,41,48,[52][53][54] etc. may be contributing factors for vulture mortality.…”

Section: Other Reasons For Vulture Mortalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of Cyclonic Storm as Natural Disaster and other Factors on Vulture Mortality in India

Paital¹

2016

J Geogr Nat Disast

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Post mortem analyses in vultures across India and its neighboring countries traced diclofenac and its derivative compounds in their carcasses. Therefore, it is inferred that biomagnification of diclofenac from the consumed infected domestic animal carcasses contributes mortality by causing renal failure and hepatic damages in vultures. However, reports also indicate that both extrinsic environmental and intrinsic cellular causes might also be contributing factors. It offers a debate to confirm whether only diclofenac is the primary cause of vulture mortality versus their susceptibility to microbial pathogens, diseases or physiological conditions, such as oxidative stress due to diclofenac biomagnification. It is observed that natural disasters such as heavy cyclonic storm which affect arboreal life may be one of the major causes of the death of vultures in some parts of India. Therefore, extrinsic insults such as heavy cyclonic storms are believed to be also contributing factor to affect arboreal life including vultures in some other parts of the world. A perspective is made on the above facts as a cause of catastrophic mortality of vultures in India.

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Catastrophic collapse of Indian white-backed Gyps bengalensis and long-billed Gyps indicus vulture populations

Cited by 262 publications

References 6 publications

Avian scavengers and the threat from veterinary pharmaceuticals

Avian scavengers and the threat from veterinary pharmaceuticals

Ecosystem Services of Birds: A Review of Market and Non-market Values

Role of Cyclonic Storm as Natural Disaster and other Factors on Vulture Mortality in India

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