Ramanagaram's endangered vultures still not out of the woods

The vulture population in the first-ever vulture sanctuary of India in Ramadevarabetta in Ramanagaram around 60 km from Bengaluru still faces a threat.

The sanctuary, with 25 hillocks, is spread across 346.41 hectares. The hills of Ramanagaram were declared a vulture sanctuary on January 30, 2012.

The forest department had planned to create a “vulture restaurant”, nine years ago, by placing carcasses on hillocks for the birds to feed like in Nepal and other countries, to revive the population. But this did not take off as there is no facility to check if carcasses are Diclofenac-free.

Experts and conservationists point out that vulture population across India can be revived only if the government completely bans the drug Diclofenac. Though veterinary Diclofenac was banned in 2006, some veterinarians still use human Diclofenac on animals.

Dr Vibhu Prakash, Head of National Level Vulture Conservation team, Bombay Natural History Society, said the Union government had restricted the dosage of human Diclofenac vials from 10-30 ml to 3 ml. But still, 15 ml is being administered on cattle.

Diclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and is used to treat mild to moderate pain. It is commonly found is pain relief medicines and is a popular human drug.

Prakash added that studies have now shown that veterinarians are administering Aceclofenac, which converts to Diclofenac when administered on animals. It has been scientifically found that the huge vulture population was wiped out because of visceral gout, which is caused by Diclofenac residue. 

There are just eight conservation vulture breeding cent-res in India, but none in
Karnataka. They are in Pin-jore (Haryana), Hydera-bad, Nandankanan Zoo (Odisha), Junagadh Zoo (Gujarat), Muta Zoo (Ranchi), West Bengal, Guwahati (Assam) and Bhopal.