Vulture restaurant set up in Jharkhand to conserve the species

Ranchi: A 'Vulture restaurant' has been set up in Jharkhand in a bid to conserve the fast dwindling population of the bird species due to rampant use of drugs in livestock.

The restaurant has been set up in Koderma district and will begin functioning once the protocol for goshalas (cow shelter) and municipalities for providing diclofenac-free animal carcasses is ready, a forest department official said.

Carcasses of livestock from the goshalas and municipalities will be served as food to the scavenger birds at the 'vulture restaurant', a demarcated feeding site.

The Koderma 'vulture restaurant' has been established on one hectare of land at Gumo under Tilaiya Nagar Parishad as it is considered to be a feeding site for the birds. There are plans to expand operations and open another such facility at Chandwara block, Koderma Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Suraj Kumar Singh told PTI.

Conservation of vultures is important as the bird species plays an important ecological role through its rapid consumption of animal carcasses.

"The vulture restaurant or Giddha Bhojanalaya has been established in Koderma and a protocol is being drafted for goshalas and municipalities for serving carcasses to the vultures. The carcasses will be brought from the goshalas and municipality areas but before that, they have to ensure that the carcass is free from diclofenac or other harmful elements. The restaurant will start once the protocol is ready," he said.

"The vulture restaurant is an effort to increase the dwindling population of the bird species in the state. Bamboo fencing has been done at the feeding site so that other animals like dogs or jackals do not enter and feed on the carcasses," Singh added.

Experts said that vultures were found in abundance in the past in Jharkhand. But the bird has almost disappeared from the state barring in some pockets of Koderma and Hazaribagh districts due to the prevalent use of the banned diclofenac, a common anti-inflammatory drug administered to livestock for treating symptoms of inflammation and fevers.

The birds are exposed to the drug when they consume carcasses of animals that were treated with the drug shortly before their death. The vultures die from kidney failure within days of exposure to diclofenac-contaminated tissues.

In Koderma vultures were not seen for almost two decades. They were sighted again in the region since 2019.

"A baseline survey conducted by the forest division in 2022 found that a total of 38 vultures had been counted in Koderma. In 2023, the population increased to 145. Four varieties of the birds are found here. They are Gyps Bengalensis, Gyps Indicus, Gyps Himalayensis and Egyptian Vulture (Neophron Percnopterus)," he said.

"We have also decided to establish a vulture interpretation and rescue centre and geo-tagging of the birds for proper monitoring in future," Singh said.

Vultures are protected under schedule (1) of the Wildlife Protection Act and the white-backed and long-billed varieties are two of the three rarest species. They are listed as 'critically endangered' and included in the Red Data List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an expert said.

Jharkhand coordinator of Indian Bird Conservation Network (IBCN), Satya Prakash told PTI that the population of vultures has increased in Jharkhand in the recent past. "Six varieties of the bird are found in the state and their current population would be between 450 and 500. Their population had remained static at 250-300 for many years," he said.

To provide a safe habitat to the winged scavengers, the Jharkhand forest department has already declared a 100-km radius from the centre of Hazaribag as safe zone. Hazaribag district is home to several rare varieties of vulture.

On Saturday, a pair of Egyptian vultures was spotted in the Hazaribag Wildlife Sanctuary. The Hazaribag Divisional Forest Officer (wildlife) Awanish Kumar Chaudhary claimed that these birds are residents of the region.

In 2014, the Jharkhand Forest Department set up its lone vulture conservation and breeding centre in the Muta area here. After a decade the Rs 41 lakh centre is lying defunct.

The first 'vulture restaurant' came up in 2015 at Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary in Raigad district of Maharashtra in response to videos of white-rumped vulture chicks starving to death in the western ghats. There are four other such restaurants at Gadhchiroli and one at Harsul in Nashik district, all in the same state.