Long billed vulture
Credit: BNHS/Manan Singh
Mumbai: In what comes as a success story vis-a-vis vulture conservation, two individual Long billed vultures (Gyps indicus), which were born in the closed aviary in Pinjore of Haryana, later brought to Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) near Nagpur in Maharashtra in 2024 and released in the wild, have completed 15 months in the wild successfully and now settled in the forests of Madhya Pradesh.
The Mumbai-headquartered Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), working on conservation breeding of vultures in India for the last 25 years recorded this success story.
BNHS has established India's first conservation breeding centre at Pinjore in Haryana with the help from the Haryana Forest Department, Ministry of Environment and Forest and climate change (MoEF&CC) and the Royal Society of Protection for Birds (RSPB).
The two individual Jatayu were born on 27 January 2020 in the closed aviary of Pinjore of Haryana and reared by their parents.
They were brought to Pench Tiger Reserve of Maharashtra in January 2020 along with the 10 other Long billed Vultures for releasing them in the wild.
The BNHS and PTR administration trained the vultures for six months and released them on 10 August 2024.
“It has brought a big hope for vulture conservation in India,” said BNHS Director Kishor Rithe.
Manan Singh, a biologist working with BNHS had deployed his team to monitor the released birds in the last 15 months.
“These birds were named N 01 and N 24. Following their release in Pench, N24 demonstrated exceptional adaptability by locating and feeding on a tiger kill within Pench Maharashtra just 12 days after release. Since then, it has been observed feeding on both provisioned food and wild kills made by the carnivores in Pench Maharashtra (MH) and Pench Madhya Pradesh (MP) on numerous occasions”, said Manan Singh.
He further stated further that N24 flew into Pench Madhya Pradesh very early in its life in the wild and has since ventured into adjoining areas of Chhindwara and Balaghat districts, covering distances of up to 50 km, and currently resides in Pench Madhya Pradesh and frequently roosts at sites such as Alikatta and Khawasa”.
N24 has also been observed roosting with another captive-bred vulture, N01, on several nights.
"We are waiting for the day when N24 may form the pair with N01,” said Singh. It was sad to see that remaining birds could not survive but the survival of these two individuals in the last 15 months have shown that the captively bred and parent reared Vultures can survive in the wild, said Kishor Rithe, Director BNHS.
"This is not the only story, BNHS has released 31 birds in West Bengal, 25 in Pinjore Haryana along with the 20 birds in Maharashtra".
There are several birds who are surviving in the wild and learning to overcome the threats like transmission lines and scarcity of food, he stated further.