Going, going...

The Indian vulture is facing near extinction, recording a 99.9 pc decline in population since 1992. This is the fastest rate of population decline among the 1,226 bird species that are threatened with extinction, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Sep 23, 2008, 01:32:18 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Indian vulture is facing near extinction, recording a 99.9 per cent decline in population since 1992. This is the fastest rate of population decline among the 1,226 bird species that are threatened with extinction.

A global survey by the Cambridge-based Birdlife International released on Monday said the total number of white-rumped vultures found in India, Pakistan and Nepal “is not more than 1,000 couples in India”.

Till 30 years ago, the vulture population in the sub-continent was estimated at several lakhs. Now, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) estimates that the number in India is not more than 11,000. “If it continues to decline at this rate, only around 6,000 vultures will be left and finally they may become extinct,” Ashad Rehmani, director of BNHS, said.

The report blamed the extensive use of the chemical, diclofenac, as medicine for cattle – the feed for the birds – for the rapid fall in the white-rumped vulture population. Rehmani said the chemical should be banned immediately to save the vultures.

Forensic tests conducted at Bharatpur Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the nesting places for the vultures, found that 85 per cent of the birds died because of kidney failure, confirming the presence of the chemical in their bodies.

Apart from the vultures, the State of the World’s Birds 2008 report says India has 43 other species of birds that are threatened with extinction. This figure has earned India the third rank among the top 10 countries with the highest number of globally threatened bird species.

The State of the World's Birds 2008 report also pointed out that 62 per cent of Asia’s migratory bird population is either on the decline or is facing extinction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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