Nimesulide Poisoning in White-Rumped Vulture Gyps Bengalensis in Gujarat, India

Abstract

Catastrophic population decline of White-rumped Vulture due to use of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), diclofenac throughout its distribution range is well documented. White-rumped Vulture was listed as Critically Endangered and only few thousands are remining. During 2019, there were two incidents of White-rumped Vulture death in Gujarat. In February 2019, two vultures were reported dead in Sanand, Gujarat and the death was suspected to be poisoning. Another two vultures were also reported to have died in Wild Ass Sanctuary, Dhrangadhra in October 2019. Tissues and gut contents of all four vultures were received for toxicological investigation and checked whether these vultures died due to NSAIDs. The tissues were analysed for thirteen NSAIDs. Of all the NSAIDs, nimesulide was detected in all the tissues analyzed in high concentration (17 - 1395 ng/g). Subsequently, these tissues were also screened for a set of mostly used toxic pesticides in India, and none of them was in toxic level. Visceral gout was also observed in all the four vultures during post-mortem. Elevated levels of nimesulide in tissues with clear symptoms of gout, indicated that the vultures died due to nimesulide poisoning. Although, other than diclofenac, many NSAIDs are toxic/suspected to be toxic to White-rumped Vultures, only nimesulide is reported with clear symptom of gout in wild dead White-rumped Vultures similar to diclofenac consistently in recent past. Considering the fact that nimesulide also acts similar to diclofenac leading to death in White-rumped Vulture, it seems that nimesulide is replacing diclofenac in case of White-rumped Vulture in Gujarat. Nimesulide is cause of concern in conservation of White-rumped Vultures. Hence, nimesulide should also be banned by the government for veterinary use in addition to diclofenac to conserve White-rumped Vulture in Indian subcontinent. Further, an effective system is recommended to be put in place to collect the tissues of dead Vultures for toxicological investigations, and eventual conservation of the critically endangered species.

Experimental safety testing shows that the NSAID tolfenamic acid is not toxic to Gyps vultures in India at concentrations likely to be encountered in cattle carcasses

“…Aceclofenac is a pro-drug of diclofenac and is rapidly metabolized into diclofenac in cattle, so will have the same disastrous effects on vultures (Galligan et al 2016). In addition, wild Gyps vultures have been recovered dead in Spain (G. fulvus) with co-occurrence of extensive visceral gout with tissue residues of flunixin (Zorilla et al 2014, Herrero-Villar et al 2020) and in India ( G. bengalensis) with residues of nimesulide (Cuthbert et al 2016; Nambirajan et al 2021), which we take to be strong evidence that these two drugs are also nephrotoxic to vultures.…”