Maharashtra, Corbett collaborate on vulture protection

The Maharashtra Forest Department and the Corbett Foundation have collaborated to raise awareness on the conservation of vultures in the state and help in the recovery of the scavengers that play an important role in maintaining the health of the ecosystem.

A poster in Marathi has been developed and published by The Corbett Foundation to help spread awareness about the conservation of vultures throughout the state.

The poster has been developed in consultation with Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE).

The poster will be circulated across Maharashtra through the forest department, animal husbandry department, NGOs, local communities and nature lovers.

The campaign highlights the problems faced by the vultures in India – one of the main threats being the toxicity of some of the veterinary use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) on vultures, such as diclofenac. It was in the 1990s that the studies done by BNHS highlighted the drastic decline of vulture populations across India due to diclofenac toxicity. Based on this research, veterinary use of diclofenac was banned in India in 2006. Despite this ban, human-use diclofenac was being used in veterinary treatments.

To prevent this misuse, in 2015, the Government of India banned the production of multidose vials of diclofenac in human medicine.

“Unless the veterinary use of NSAIDs are severely restricted and safe alternative drugs such as meloxicam and tolfenamic acid are not promoted, the sword of extinction would loom over these majestic and ecologically important birds”, said Kedar Gore, Director of the Corbett Foundation.

Maharashtra Forest Department has partnered with Ela Foundation and Sahyadri Nisarg Mitra in promoting vulture conservation in the state. “For the past several years, many in-situ conservation programmes such as protecting vulture habitats, promoting vulture restaurants, satellite tagging of vultures have been undertaken by the Maharashtra Forest Department. But these efforts need to be supported by ex-situ conservation measures such as establishing a conservation breeding centre for vultures in the state, which is also a part of the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation in India, 2020-2025 released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change”, said Sunil Limaye, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden, Maharashtra.

He further said that Konkan, Western Maharashtra and Vidarbha region still has the requisite habitat needed to act as a long-term breeding area for the white-rumped, Indian and Egyptian vultures that are resident in the state.