Abstract
There is increasing concern about the impact of veterinary drugs and livestock pathogens as factors damaging wildlife health, especially of threatened avian scavengers feeding upon medicated livestock carcasses. We conducted a comprehensive study of failed eggs and dead nestlings in bearded vultures (Gypaetus barbatus) to attempt to elucidate the proximate causes of breeding failure behind the recent decline in productivity in the Spanish Pyrenees. We found high concentrations of multiple veterinary drugs, primarily fluoroquinolones, in most failed eggs and nestlings, associated with multiple internal organ damage and livestock pathogens causing disease, especially septicaemia by swine pathogens and infectious bursal disease. The combined impact of drugs and disease as stochastic factors may result in potentially devastating effects exacerbating an already high risk of extinction and should be considered in current conservation programs for bearded vultures and other scavenger species, especially in regards to dangerous veterinary drugs and highly pathogenic poultry viruses.
Highlights
Environmental pollutants are increasingly documented as a driver of wildlife endangerment due to their roles in organ damage, hormonal disruption and alteration of the immune system [1,2]
We found multiple veterinary drugs, primarily fluoroquinolones, in most failed eggs and dead nestling bearded vultures from the Pyrenees
They showed multiple internal organ damage and pathogens potentially acquired from medicated livestock carrion, especially viruses often infecting poultry
Summary
Environmental pollutants are increasingly documented as a driver of wildlife endangerment due to their roles in organ damage, hormonal disruption and alteration of the immune system [1,2]. There is increasing concern about the impact of veterinary drugs and livestock pathogens as factors damaging wildlife health [4,5,6], and even causing declines approaching extinction [7]. These threats may be especially detrimental to wildlife as they increasingly concur and interact as a consequence of the elimination of livestock residues containing veterinary pharmaceuticals and resistant pathogens due to growing intensive livestock operations worldwide [6,8,9]. Antimicrobials and other drugs may negatively affect embryo and nestling health with potentially devastating consequences on breeding success and conservation of vultures and other threatened avian scavengers
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