Decline Of Vultures Research Articles

The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India

The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India

A Cross-Sectional Study to Assess the Knowledge of Pharmacy Students About Drug Pollution in Spain

The presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment is an issue of growing concern. The European Commission adopted the “European Union Strategic Approach to Pharmaceuticals in the Environment”, which focuses on actions to reduce the risk of pharmaceuticals in the environment, including how environmental aspects can become part of medical training programs. ObjectiveObtain data from pharmacy students about pharmaceutical pollution to provide information about the training needs that may help develop new actions related to the training and dissemination of this issue. MethodsA total of 1614 pharmacy students from 5 Schools of Pharmacy in Spain completed a self-administered questionnaire consisting of 24 questions: 13 about knowledge, 8 related to attitude, and 3 to opinion. ResultsAround 75% of students reported that they did not know “One Health” or “emerging pollutant” concepts and around 88% declared that they did not know that diclofenac caused a catastrophic vulture decline in Asia. The importance of this topic and their attitude to acquiring new knowledge was evaluated higher than 8 points out of 10, while received training during their studies was a score of 2.8 points out of 10. ConclusionThe knowledge about key concepts was relatively poor. In fact, they judged training about pharmaceuticals in the environment during their pharmacy studies was very scarce. However, students consider drug pollution to be a very important issue and have a very good attitude toward acquiring knowledge about it.

Blood lead levels in an endangered vulture decline following changes in hunting activity

Lead ammunition stands out as one of the most pervasive pollutants affecting wildlife. Its impact on bird populations have spurred efforts for the phase-out of leaded gunshot in several countries, although with varying scopes and applications. Ongoing and future policy changes require data to assess the effectiveness of adopted measures, particularly in the current context of biodiversity loss. Here, we assessed the long-term changes in blood lead (Pb) levels of Egyptian vultures from the Canary Islands, Spain, which have been severely affected by Pb poisoning over the past two decades. During this period, the reduction in hunting pressure and changes in legislation regarding firearms usage for small game hunting likely contributed to a decrease in environmental Pb availability. As anticipated, our results show a reduction in Pb levels, especially after the ban on wild rabbit hunting with shotgun since 2010. This effect was stronger in the preadult fraction of the vulture population. However, we still observed elevated blood Pb levels above the background and clinical thresholds in 5.6% and 1.5% of individuals, respectively. Our results highlight the positive impact of reducing the availability of Pb from ammunition sources on individual health. Nonetheless, the continued use of Pb gunshot remains an important source of poisoning, even lethal, mainly affecting adult individuals. This poses a particular concern for long-lived birds, compounding by potential chronic effects associated with Pb bioaccumulation. Our findings align with recent studies indicating insufficient reductions in Pb levels among European birds of prey, attributed to limited policy changes and their uneven implementation. We anticipated further reductions in Pb levels among Egyptian vultures with expanded restrictions on hunting practices, including a blanket ban on Pb shot usage across all small game species.

The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India

The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India

Смертность хищных птиц в Северо-Западном Раджастане, Индия (2017–2022 годы)

A major contributing factor in declining populations of vultures is believed to be the widespread use of drugs such as Diclofenac, once commonly-used as a livestock anti-inflammatory drug. Use of Diclofenac is now banned in India. However, during the last 3 years, vulture’s death cases are increasing not only in Rajasthan but also in other parts of India. From 2017–2022, a total of 791 vultures of 3 species i.e. Eurasian Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus), Cinereous Black Vulture (Aegypius monachus), and Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) and 231 Steppe Eagles (Aquila nipalensis) were found dead at Jorbeer dumping site. Jorbeer has been declared as conserved forest area, but dead livestock dumping site is not part of the protected area. The dramatic vulture decline observed across India leads to the emergence of a range of new ecological threats by influencing the numbers and distribution of other scavenging species. Increased feral dog populations have been reported all over in India, posing many associated disease risks, such as rabies, to humans and wildlife. India already has a very high incidence of rabies, and a severe shortage of quality rabies vaccine in rural areas could further aggravate the problem. Similarly, increased crow populations at carcass dumps in vicinity of settlements pose a risk of infections to poultry, domesticated birds, avian & humans. The situation has improved slightly after the ban on diclofenac (veterinary and human use) in India since 2015, but other drugs used to treat livestock continue to kill migratory raptors and vultures in northern India. The main drugs involved into this are Ketoprofen and Phenylbutazone. The existence of only a small proportion (<0.8%) of ungulate carcasses containing lethal levels of such drugs is sufficient to cause a rapid decline in vulture populations. Strategic planning is needed to protect migratory vultures and eagles from Russia, Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries. While the number of vultures is declining day by day, the death toll in Rajasthan is a major part of the world percentage.

Traditional belief systems and trade in vulture parts are leading to the eradication of vultures in Nigeria: an ethno-ornithological study of north-central Nigeria

The population of various species of vultures are declining rapidly across Africa, with noticeable declines in most areas including protected areas. This sudden decline of vultures in African countries, especially Nigeria, is quite alarming. One of the most common species of vultures, the Hooded Vulture, is now rarely encountered. This study was carried out to determine the role of traditional belief systems and trade in vulture parts on the rapid decline in vulture populations in Nigeria. The study was conducted in Plateau State in the North-Central region in Nigeria. Ethno-ornithological data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires; supported by interviews and field observations. A stratified-random sampling technique was employed for the data collection, which was conducted within 34 districts at 68 points where vultures were observed. The 204 respondents were all selected by chance encounter across the survey sites to determine their perceptions about vultures. The key finding of this research revealed massive trade in vulture parts for belief-base use, which might be responsible for the decline of vulture populations in the area. There is evidence of the consumption of vulture meat according to some of the respondents. Stiff competition with vultures for food by human and dogs was found to be another contributory factor towards vulture population decline within the study area. Many people believe that vultures are evil; hence, they are often persecuted on sight. There is an urgent need to create awareness about the importance of vultures in our environment. It is also vital to review laws on endangered species and implement them with the support of law enforcement agencies. Public awareness and sensitization of people using mass and social media campaigns should be conducted regularly on the importance of vultures and how to co-exist with them. Vulture restaurants or artificial feeding points should be created to aid population recovery.

Another Continental Vulture Crisis: Africa's Vultures Collapsing toward Extinction

Vultures provide critical ecosystem services, yet populations of many species have collapsed worldwide. We present the first estimates of a 30-year PanAfrican vulture decline, confirming that declines have occurred on a scale broadly comparable with those seen in Asia, where the ecological, economic, and human costs are already documented. Populations of eight species we assessed had declined by an average of 62%; seven had declined at a rate of 80% or more over three generations. Of these, at least six appear to qualify for uplisting to Critically Endangered. Africa’s vultures are facing a range of specific threats, the most significant of which are poisoning and trade in traditional medicines, which together accounted for 90% of reported deaths. We recommend that national governments urgently enact and enforce legislation to strictly regulate the sale and use of pesticides and poisons, to eliminate the illegal trade in vulture body parts, as food or medicine, and to minimize mortality caused by power lines and wind turbines.

The case for banning diclofenac and the vanishing vultures

Critically endangered vulture species like Gyps (Gyps bengalensis, G. indicus and G. tenuirostris, constituting 99 per cent of the total vulture population) are under persistent threat from non-steroidal diclofenac and its isomers, despite it being banned since 2006. Livestock drugs such as these continue to threaten the existence of vultures. Diclofenac is a generic drug available over-the-counter and is approved for human use in treating conditions like minor aches, pains and fevers. India is the third largest drug manufacturer in the world and produces diclofenac in bulk for human consumption. Regrettably, it is often diverted illegally for veterinary purposes, often having dire consequences. Vultures are vital avian raptor species, providing an important ecosystem cleaning service, renowned for their crucial scavenging abilities. However, when they feed on dead animal carcasses treated with diclofenac, the birds succumb to kidney failure and visceral gout as a result. That said, after the much needed diclofenac ban in 2006, rapid vulture decline has slowed down, providing some hope for these birds. There is still some way to go, however, as research shows the drug has still not been completely eradicated from the vultures’ food supply. Further efforts are thus still very much required to fully implement the ban. In addition to illegal diclofenac usage, drugs with similar properties (e.g. aceclofenac and ketoprofen) are gaining momentum in the marketplace. It is predominantly within developing nations that inadequate systems exist for regulating drug usage, making the very purpose of banning diclofenac often redundant. This paper argues that more scrupulous monitoring and cross-checking of veterinary drugs such as ketoprofen, aceclofenac and meloxicam is necessary, whilst also arguing that research should be encouraged to focus on toxicities of such drugs to non-target animals like scavengers. Stringent banning of toxic killer drugs as well as interim measures like captive breeding, provision of supplemental food at ‘vulture restaurants’ (areas where fresh and poison-free meat and/or carcasses are provided) and ‘vulture safe zones’ integrated with intensive conservation campaign efforts are imperative if Asian vultures are to be safe.

Implementing Ecopharmacovigilance in Practice: Challenges and Potential Opportunities

Ecopharmacovigilance (EPV) is a developing science and it is currently very unclear what it might mean in practice. We have performed a comparison between pharmacovigilance (PV) and EPV and have identified that there are similarities, but also some important differences that must be considered before any practical implementation of EPV. The biggest difference and greatest challenge concerns signal detection in the environment and the difficulty of identifying cause and effect. We reflect on the dramatic vulture decline in Asia, which was caused by the veterinary use of diclofenac, versus the relative difficulty in identifying the specific causes of intersex fish in European rivers. We explore what EPV might mean in practice and have identified that there are some practical measures that can be taken to assess environmental risks across product life cycle, particularly after launch of a new drug, to ensure that our risk assessments and scientific understanding of pharmaceuticals in the environment remain scientifically and ecologically relevant. These include:Tracking environmental risks after launch of the product, via literature monitoring for emerging data on exposure and effectsUsing Environmental Risk Management Plans (ERMPs) as a centralized resource to assess and manage the risks of a drug throughout its life cycleFurther research, testing or monitoring in the environment when a risk is identifiedKeeping a global EPV perspectiveIncreasing transparency and availability of environmental data for medicinal products.These measures will help to ensure that any significant environmental issues associated with pharmaceuticals in the environment (PIE) are identified in a timely way, and can be managed appropriately.

Ensuring applied ecology has impact

Ensuring applied ecology has impact E. J. Milner-Gulland*, Jos Barlow, Marc W. Cadotte, Philip E. Hulme, Gillian Kerby and Mark J. Whittingham Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, SL5 7PY, UK; Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto, Scarborough, ON, Canada; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Bio-Protection Research Centre, PO Box 84, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand; British Ecological Society, Charles Darwin House, 12 Roger Street, London WC1N 2JU, UK; and School of Biology, Ridley Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

Counting the cost of vulture decline—An appraisal of the human health and other benefits of vultures in India

Widespread use of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac to treat livestock has resulted in dramatic declines in the populations of vultures across India. This has become an issue of considerable concern as vultures are a keystone species and their decline has a range of socio-economic, as well as cultural and biodiversity impacts. In this paper, we review these impacts and estimate in detail the economic cost of one of them: the human health impacts of the vulture decline. Livestock carcasses provide the main food supply for vultures, and are also eaten by dogs. Dogs are the main source of rabies in humans in India, and their populations have increased substantially in parallel with the vulture decline. The potential human health impact of rabies associated with the vulture decline is found to be significant. This, and a wide range of other impacts suggest that significant resources should be put into (1) testing of pharmaceutical products to ensure that similar situations are not repeated, (2) helping vulture populations to recover through the use of alternative drugs to diclofenac that are of low toxicity to vultures, and (3) through conservation breeding programmes.

Validating the domestic fowl as a model to investigate the pathophysiology of diclofenac in Gyps vultures

Diclofenac has recently been identified as a cause of the widespread vulture decline on the Indian subcontinent. Although the clinical signs and pathology have been described, the pathophysiology of toxicity remains unexplained. In the following study we attempt to validate the domestic fowl as a model, to allow for the further characterisation of diclofenac's mechanism of toxicity. In a lethal dose study, diclofenac was shown to have an approximate intramuscular LD 50 of 9.8 mg/kg in 18-week old layers. Signs of toxicity in the affected birds were severe depression that persisted from 24 h post-dosing to death with corresponding increased plasma uric acid concentrations. Post-mortem examinations showed signs of gout with deposits of urates (tophi) in the kidneys, liver, heart and spleen. The pharmacokinetics after both the intramuscular and oral route showed that diclofenac had a short half-life of elimination of approximately 1 h, a volume of distribution of 0.09–0.24 l/kg and relative oral bioavailability of 50% compared to intramuscular administration. With the similarity in the clinical signs, necropsy findings, histopatological lesions and clinical pathological changes, the fowl may be used in further studies to characterise the mechanism of toxicity of diclofenac. However, due to the large difference in susceptibility of the fowl, it is not a suitable model to simulate the dose–response relationship of the vulture to the other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Severe decline of large birds in the Northern Sahel of West Africa: a long-term assessment

The current status of most West African birds is little known and may change quickly with increasing human population pressure and agriculture, road, tourism, hunting and mining developments. Following documented declines of raptors in Sudan and the Southern Sahel zones, I compared the number of birds counted along the same eight extensive transect counts in 1971–1973 (3,703 km) and 2004 (3,688 km) in arid steppes, acacia woodlands and desert mountains of northern Mali and Niger (Adrar des Iforhas, Aïr, Ténéré). The once widespread Ostrich Struthio camelus is now extinct west of Chad. No Arabian Ardeotis arabs and Nubian Bustards Neotis nuba were seen in 2004 (216 in 1970s) nor any Rüppell's Griffon Gyps rueppellii and Lappet-faced Vultures Torgos tracheliotus (114 and 96 respectively recorded in the 1970s). From Adrar to Ténéré, just one Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus was recorded in 2004 (vs 75 in 1970s), but it was still common in the oases of Kawar (27 vs 38). These data are exploratory and the current status of the species involved should be further documented. Nevertheless, they are a serious warning about the future of several taxa. Overhunting, aggravated by overgrazing and degradation of acacia woodlands are obvious causes of the collapse of Ostrich and bustards. The near-extinction of wild ungulates, intensified use of cattle, increased disturbance and poisoning of predators may have been critical in the dramatic decline of vultures. An effective hunting ban, updates on the status of threatened species, reintroduction of Ostrich, enforcement of existing nature reserves and design of a new one in northern Mali are among the most urgent steps to take if the large birds of the vast subdesert areas of West Africa are to be conserved.

Decline of Vultures in Asia

The random samples item “Vulture Culture” (3 Feb., p. [587][1]) presents the appearance of large numbers of Eurasian griffon vultures in Rajasthan, India, as good news, but this is far from the case. In India, populations of three species of vultures endemic to South Asia (oriental white-backed, long-billed, and slender-billed) have declined to less than 3% of what they were about a decade ago and the decline continues ([1][2]). The Eurasian griffons are mostly immature birds from Central Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia that return there to breed, probably attracted in larger numbers by plentiful supplies of livestock carcasses left uneaten now that the resident species have almost disappeared. There is now substantial published evidence that the cause of the Asian vulture decline is veterinary use of the drug diclofenac, which vultures take in when they feed on the carcass of a cow or water buffalo treated with the drug ([1][2]–[3][3]). Eurasian griffons are as susceptible to kidney failure caused by diclofenac as their Asian relatives ([4][4]), so it is likely that the source populations of this species that winter in India will also be affected. Such an effect will not be detected soon, however, because there is virtually no systematic monitoring of numbers of vultures breeding in these inaccessible areas. Numbers of immature Eurasian griffons wintering in India may continue to grow, but this will probably just indicate a growing drain on their source populations. A ban on the veterinary use of diclofenac, announced by the Indian prime minister in March 2005 ([5][5]), will therefore probably benefit Eurasian griffons as well as the resident species, but only if it can be implemented successfully. The Random Samples item also contained inaccuracies about recently published findings on the safety to vultures of meloxicam, an alternative to diclofenac that could help to save the vultures by speeding the removal of diclofenac from their food supply ([6][6]). The vultures used in the experiments were captive, but not captive-bred, and 72 birds (not 35) were treated, of which 66 were given meloxicam itself, rather than meat from treated cattle. 1. 1.[↵][7]1. R. E. Green 2. et al. , J. Appl. Ecol. (2004)41, 793. 2. 2.1. J. L. Oaks 2. et al. , Nature (2004)427, 630. 3. 3.[↵][8]1. S. Shultz 2. et al. , Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B (Suppl.) (2004)271, S458. DOI 10.1098/rsbl.2004.0223. 4. 4.[↵][9]1. G. E. Swan 2. et al. , Biol. Lett. (2006)doi:10.1098/rsbl.2005.0425 9. 5. 5.[↵][10]1. P. Bagla , Science (2005)307, 1851. 6. 6.[↵][11]1. G.E. Swan 2. et al. , PloS Biol. (2006)4 (no. 3), e66. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.311.5761.587a [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-3 [4]: #ref-4 [5]: #ref-5 [6]: #ref-6 [7]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [8]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3. in text [9]: #xref-ref-4-1 View reference 4. in text [10]: #xref-ref-5-1 View reference 5. in text [11]: #xref-ref-6-1 View reference 6. in text