Ground Zero: The Vulture- Critical Veins

 Ground Zero: Critical Veins

The Vulture

 

The Graveyard

 

me & Gonzo the hooded vulture

To anyone who has read my blog previously will be aware that I am no stranger when it comes to birds of prey and vultures in particular. I have spoken up before for a call to arms with regards to their conservation but still this magnificent group of birds are facing a crisis which could soon be irreversible.  I have worked with vultures, among other birds of prey (BoP) for many years and had been fortunate to learn a lot about these animals, their ecology, behaviour and what an important role they have in their ecosystems, as well as being exposed to the turbulent problems facing these birds around the world.

There is still a negative stigma regarding the actual term 'vulture', they are depicted are harbingers of death due to their ecology and by how some media has chosen to depict them and they are often at the end of insults such as 'ugly' or 'evil' which I have heard many times myself. This unfavourable public opinion is one I coin as the 'Vulture Complex' an unfair opinion based on a lack of understanding  past visual bias, something all of us are guilty of in one way or another. Yet this is not a way of attacking people, humanity is inherently flawed but the ability to learn and adapt to the information around us is what makes us great as a species. In a wildlife conservation this bias is particularly prominent whereby animals deemed 'classically beautiful' or 'cute' such as the giant panda receive much more attention than those seen as the opposite, such as vultures, tuna and a multitude of invertebrates. Yet this very concept itself is being changed daily as peoples perceptions begin to change.

Old Scars

 

There are 23 species of vulture in total around the world, but 14 of these are considered threatened, endangered or at major risk of extinction. Vultures naturally inhabit every continent except Antarctica and Australia and are split into 2 groups that are not closely related, similarities and resemblances arising by convergent evolution. The New World vultures are found in the America's whilst Old World vultures inhabit Africa, Asia and Europe. Vultures are scavenger's and for the most part will feed on the carcasses of dead animals. A number of evolutionary advantages have helped vultures fill an ecological niche, from corrosive gastric acid to kill dangerous bacteria to bald heads and sometimes necks which allows them to feed without destroying feathers. This necrophagous niche may not appear very attractive but it makes them 'cleaners' of the natural world helping to stop the spread of violent and potentially dangerous diseases such as Anthrax and rabies whilst fulfilling a highly important function in the worlds ecosystems.

California condor

It is only recently that we began to notice a problem with the world vulture populations. The first high profile conservation case surrounding a vulture concerned the California condor. The California condor is the largest bird in North America with a wingspan of 9 1/2 feet. However, throughout the 20th century populations fell drastically leaving the bird highly endangered when it was realised that only 22 individuals remained in 1982. Drastic measures were taken and the last remaining condor were taken into captivity in 1987 leaving no wild condor from the years 1988 - 1991. However, intensive work carried out by a number of conservation organisations means that as of 2013, there are around 421 California condor in the world, 228 of which are free-flying in California, Arizona and Mexico.

Attention of conservationists was soon taken to Asia though as it came to light that a powerful anti-inflammatory drug called Diclofenac has virtually decimated vulture populations in India, Pakistan and Nepal. The problem began in the 1990's when Diclofenac was readily available and used to treat cattle for a multitude of problems including lameness and fever, and even in death the drug remained in the cattle's system. Cultural factors of the Hindu population (which makes up to 80% of the countries population) are favourable to vultures and by not eating cattle, seeing them as sacred animals, their bodies are left in the open, vultures welcome to feed on the carcass of the fallen livestock. However, one ingested it was found that the vultures would die in less than 24 hours from acute kidney failure. As the countries 80 million vultures decline accelerated research began to investigate the currently unknown cause until Diclofenac was identified. Simulation models formed in 2003 by researchers suggested if only 1% of India's carcasses were contaminated with the drug, the countries vulture populations would have been decimated but when the results of the study were documented it was revealed that up to 10% of carcasses were contaminated. 

The result of Diclofenac was the most rapid decline of a population in history, with Asian vultures falling 99% in a matter of 10-15 years. The species most affected by this drug was the white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) which declined 99.7% between 1993 and 2002. The Indian vulture (Gyps indicus) and the slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) fell 97.4% in the same time. Whilst other species such as the Himalayan vulture (Gyps himalayensis) were less affected due to its exclusivity to mountain habitats, away from human populations, and the Eurasian griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus) which only wintered in India. The fall of the Asian vultures though was no malicious act, but rather that of not understanding the affects of these drugs on other populations. Once the decline was highlighted governments were quick to respond, India taking Diclofenac off the market in March 2006, with Nepal following suite in August 2006 and Pakistan shortly after. Since then a replacement drug was developed called Meloxicam which affected the cattle in the same way as Diclofenac but without the components which make it toxic to vultures, leaving it safe to use.However, despite this advancement populations are still falling 20-40% in Asia each year as unauthorised parties still sell the drug. 

Future Hearts

 

The future of the vulture is far from secure. Already a repeat of the ecological disaster looms in both Africa and Europe. Despite, safe alternate drugs available on the market in 2013 Spain authorised the veterinary use of Diclofenac and it is currently available for use on domestic and commercial animals in Spain and Italy, 2 countries that together house 80% of Europe's entire vulture population, with 95% of this in Spain alone. Italy also exports the drug directly the Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, Serbia and Turkey, something which Antoni Margalida of the department of animal production, University of Lleida, Spain describes as 'the gap between scientific publications and their application.' with these EU countries not properly suited to such a decision ‘Current protocols to authorise this medicine don’t take into account the lethal effects on vultures’. European vultures already face threats of electrocution by power lines and severe lead poisoning and more recently death by wind turbines which claim the lives of many raptors across Europe. The introduction of Diclofenac leaves years of intense conservation and millions of euros hanging on a razor's edge. New studies place the issue now even beyond vultures as in 2012, 2 Steppe eagles were found at a cattle dump in India, their cause of death confirmed to be from Diclofenac, a development that could prove fatal for Spain's already fragile population of Spanish imperial eagles whose population size is already very small. Mark Taggart of the UK's Environmental Research Institute describes this development in a troubling way 'If diclofenac susceptibility goes beyond vultures and into eagles, this has a global relevance'. 

Eurasian black vulture

In Africa, the problem facing vultures is becoming the latest frontier of the conservation 'war' to be brought to a higher level of awareness as populations across the Continent are at risk of collapsing towards extinction. The continents 8 species have declined on average by 62% over the least 30 years, 6 of these considered to be critically endangered. They face a number of threats from power line electrocution to wind turbines, pesticides and poisonings and witch-doctors who ground down the brains of these creatures, believing them to hold magical powers. Vultures are naturally slow breeders and take years to mature, which causes a problem when conservation initiatives are implemented, yet without any form of help Darcy Ogada, assistant director of Africa programs for the Peregrine Fund, believes that vultures could be extinct in Africa in the next 50-100 years. In 2012 Ogada and a team of researchers examined the decline of vulture populations across Africa for the first time using data ranging back to 1961. They discovered that out of the 95 populations examined 89% were either nationally extinct or under severe decline. Their work also suggested that around 60% of deaths were from ingesting pesticide-laced carcasses. 

White-backed vulture

With pesticides poorly regulated and abused across a lot of Africa it is of no surprise that they are a leading cause of vulture death, with farmers using them on carcasses intended to kill larger predators such as lion and hyena, although illegal people are rarely prosecuted leaving a mountain of dead vultures, some instances leading to the death of over 900 vultures from 1 carcass. However, the rapid urbanisation of several African countries is responsible for displacing many vulture populations, leading to power line electrocutions and a lack of food as natural animal populations are forcibly removed from an area. This rapid surge into a modern era has also led to an ever increasing number of vultures to collide with wind turbines. These birds are also victims of the scourge of poaching. They are often killed, their body parts sold in the means of witchcraft, from their brains to their eyes although little is actually known about this trade due to its discrete and illegal nature, circling vultures also act as a beacon of iilegal activity to law enforcement so the illegal poachers poison carcasses so that the vultures cannot give away the position of their work. As if this did not make the vultures chances slim enough, Diclofenac is also in circulation, made by a South African pharmaceutical company who exports the drug to 15 other African countries. This leaves one important question to be answered, what would be the impact to ecosystems if vultures went extinct?

The Consequence

 

The consequence of vulture loss has become no more evident than in India and the rest of Asia where the sudden collapse of vultures has left the region with increasing side effects. The most straightforward consequence is that carcasses once eaten by these scavengers now rot in villages and fields contaminating water supplies in a number of rural areas. Secondly, the disappearance of vultures has allowed vermin and feral animals to rise exponentially in number, such as rats and dogs; these new scavengers though are not efficient at carrion removal as the vulture, whereas the birds acted as a 'dead-end' for pathogens, feral dogs and rats instead become carriers for the same pathogens. This growth has led India to house 18 million wild dogs, the largest population of carnivores in the world which leads into disturbing sanitary issues. Having become carriers wild dogs and rats become directly and indirectly responsible for thousands of human deaths every year through the transmission of infections such as rabies, anthrax and plague, of the annual 55'000 rabies death, 30'000 are from India.

However, more recently the consequence of vulture decline has become more economic and cultural. Treating the diseases caused by feral pests costs India 25 million dollars a year, costing each person 1500 rupees per person for treatment. On top of this pressure by outside organisations means that extermination of feral dogs is no longer legal practise, instead programmes of sterilisation and vaccination, of which the cost is enormous running into many problems along the way such as a lack of personnel and resources, yet it has proven the most effective method of dealing with the problem as its preventative nature means that the void left by the lack of feral dogs cannot be filled by another pest species such as monkeys and rats. Altogether researchers suggest that the decline of vultures has cost India 34 billion US dollars. Culturally Parsi beliefs hold vultures in high regard, as carriers of bodies between Earth and 'heaven' but deprived of their emissaries they have been forced to drop their ancient customs for reasons of hygiene. 

This snowball effect of problems is one that could now be mirrored in Africa where populations are becoming dismally low, the hope is to first regulate pesticides in an umber of African nations. In Europe pressure is still being mounted on the EU for an outright ban on Diclofenac  and in Asia populations have been bred in captivity with the first reintroductions now planned for as soon as 2016. Worldwide intense conservation work is being done by a number of organisations in order to save these ecologically vital species from extinction, but one fact still remains, saving the vulture is going to be a long battle with no immediate end in sight.

King vulture

Palm-nut vulture