Twenty years after hazardous veterinary drugs cleared India’s skies of its supreme scavengers, vultures are rebounding with more than 700 birds reproduced in captivity and phased wild-release programs turning safeguarded tiger reserves into their brand-new safe houses.
Led by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and state federal governments, the healing effort for the seriously threatened white-rumped, long-billed, and slender-billed vulture types has actually gotten in an important brand-new stage with speculative releases throughout Haryana, West Bengal, Maharashtra, and Assam, BNHS director Kishor Rithe stated.
Keeping an eye on through GPS and GSM transmitters has actually currently revealed motivating survival and dispersal patterns, with a long-billed vulture launched from Pench taking a trip 750 km to Nashik, Maharashtra, in 17 days.
Rithe, nevertheless, kept in mind that long-lasting success would depend upon the accessibility of safe food sources beyond secured locations, such as sanctuaries, national forests and preservation reserves.
“The breeding and release programme can succeed only when a safe environment is created for vultures beyond protected areas. Eliminating harmful NSAIDs and ensuring safe food sources remain critical for the recovery of these species,” he stated.
The BNHS initially recorded the sharp decrease in vulture populations throughout the Indian subcontinent in 1999, and subsequent research study developed that diclofenac, a veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), was accountable for mass death amongst the birds.
This finding triggered a restriction on the drug in 2006, followed by subsequent restrictions on other harmful variations like ketoprofen, aceclofenac, and nimesulide, Rithe stated.
To avoid overall termination, the BNHS and state forest departments, with the assistance of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), developed 4 Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centres at Pinjore (Haryana), Rajabhatkhawa (West Bengal), Rani (Assam), and Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh).
These centers presently house 740 vultures. The program has actually provided 80 birds and launched 110 vultures into the wild as part of reintroduction efforts.
The reintroduction efforts have actually currently revealed exceptional turning points, such as captive-bred white-rumped vultures launched in Haryana in 2020 have actually started reproducing naturally in the wild. 31 birds launched from West Bengal have actually distributed securely throughout India, Nepal, and Bhutan with absolutely no reported NSAID-linked deaths.
Maharashtra has actually become a significant centre for vulture reintroduction, with releases occurring in Pench, Tadoba-Andhari and Melghat Tiger Reserves.
Current preservation focus has actually moved greatly towards safe tiger reserves, such as Pench, Tadoba-Andhari, and Melghat, where big landscapes use plentiful natural carrion devoid of domestic livestock drugs.
As lots of as 20 vultures were moved to Maharashtra from Haryana in 2024 and another 34 birds in 2025 for phased release programs, while Assam started its very first soft-release of slender-billed vultures in the Kaziranga landscape this March.
Conservationists stated tiger reserves have actually ended up being perfect release websites since big safeguarded landscapes are mostly devoid of damaging veterinary drugs and supply plentiful healthy food sources and wild carrion of deer types like chital and sambar.
Citizen-science studies pointed out by BNHS have actually taped increasing vulture population patterns in a number of safeguarded locations and tiger reserves, suggesting that preservation procedures and enhanced environment security are starting to reverse years of decrease.
The program is being carried out with assistance from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Central Zoo Authority, state forest departments and a number of nationwide and global preservation organisations.