Save the vulture!

Pakistan has something of a mixed record when it comes to the conservation and preservation of rare or threatened fauna. A success story is the snow leopard found in Gilgit-Baltistan and Chitral. A quarter century of work has seen the animal go from a tiny and threatened population to a healthy one with what seems to be a secure future. The snow leopard is beautiful viewed from any angle. Conversely the white backed vulture is never going to win a beauty parade and is now close to extinction. Vultures worldwide are carrion feeders, the avian Hoovers that clean up the carcasses of dead animals, primarily mammalian. They used to be widespread across the country but the population has been decimated, not by hunting, but by the use of industrial drugs used in the breeding of cattle whose bodies form their principal food.

The drop in numbers in a short period of time is both startling and alarming. They are down by 99 per cent since the late 1990s according to the Pakistan office of the WWF that is working to prevent the species from dying out. The main reason behind the catastrophic drop in numbers is a drug called Diclofenac that is anti-inflammatory that is given to cattle young and old and stays in the carcasses that the vultures scavenge on. The drug causes kidney failure in the birds and they die.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2017.

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