The Persian Worry

“A sudden decline of the birds was noticed since 1995. Surveys in different parts of India carried out by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) proved that the vulture population, especially the Indian white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed ones had declined by more than 99.9 per cent.” – 12 Feb 2011

The Persians, in many ways, are quite different from the followers of other religions. What deserves special mention is that they do not bury or burn the body of their dead ones; it is against their religious ethics to pollute the air, water, earth or fire while performing ones last rites. Instead they have tall towers called “tower of silence” where they put up the bodies of the dead – to be eaten up scavenger birds like vultures. But there has been a nose dive decline in vulture population in the recent times which has made the performance of this ritual quite a difficult task for the Persians. The problem is of such paramount importance to them that they have now started captive breeding vultures in an attempt to solve this issue.

Vultures, because of their food habit, act as a natural cleanser of the environment. But with reduced number of vultures, disposing of dead body has become a problem. Also, they are a competitor to the feral dogs. But with less number of vultures, the population of feral dogs is rising rapidly leading to rise in incidence of rabies.

The chief suspect behind this mayhem is the Non – Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs), Diclofenac which compared to other NSAIDs is cheaper and hence widely used for treatment of livestock. Vultures which feed on dead bodies of livestock earlier treated with Diclofenac are believed to suffer from diseases like Kidney failure, Drooping Neck Syndrome and Avian Malaria. This Diclofenac is one of the major reasons for unknown deaths of vultures. Ofcourse, Diclofenac is banned. Ofcourse it is widely used; as said, it is cheaper than its safer counterparts.

Also, cutting of trees, specially the Ficus (peepal) tree and Shimalu trees, which are the favourite nesting sites of this bird, has also affected its population. The sadder story is that these trees are cut down mostly because vultures nest on them and the superstitious local people want to get rid of this ‘dirty” and “unlucky” bird. The irony is that because of people’s superstitions, not only the vultures but economically and ecologically valuable trees also suffer.

Irony does not end here. Earlier, people used to leave dead animals in open fields for vultures to eat them. But with decline in vulture population, to avoid foul smell, people now prefer to bury dead animals. Thus the remaining vulture population is left with scarcity of food, leading to their further decline!

But are vultures actually dirty birds? Because vultures live on carcasses, many of us regard it as a big, old, dirty bird. But we cannot be more wrong! If we notice, we will find that most vultures have almost no hair on their head. So though their head often gets smeared with blood etc. of the carcasses they eat, one or two dip in the nearby pond is enough to make their bald head as clean as ever. They are not just clean birds; these birds also keep our vicinity clean! But we human beings are always slow at understanding others help!

Innovative “vulture restaurants” are proposed to combat this food scarcity of vulture. These “restaurants” could be a part of a field near slaughter houses or some designated places where villagers may be asked to keep their dead animals instead of burying them. The first vulture restaurant was set up in South Africa in 1966. Maharashtra is to set up five vulture restaurant soon; one has already opened for its customers (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-25/nagpur/30662409_1_vulture-population-vulture-conservation-programme-vulture-species )

We can do so many things. Stop using dicofenac. Start captive breeding of vulture; it can be quite successful (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-29/flora-fauna/31887551_1_vulture-population-vibhu-prakash-diclofenac). Start disposing the dead bodies of livestock in the open. Stop cutting down the nesting trees of vultures. And those, on whom reasoning do not work, they may just care to remember that Jatayu, who once helped Rama in the rescue of Sita, was but the king of vulture. Can we have a bit more reverence for this divine bird please?