{"id":129179,"date":"2021-08-27T19:29:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T13:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=129179"},"modified":"2021-08-28T17:34:24","modified_gmt":"2021-08-28T12:04:24","slug":"the-clean-up-crew-we-need-on-vulture-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-clean-up-crew-we-need-on-vulture-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"The clean-up crew we need (On vulture conservation)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GEP8TSMO8.1&amp;imageview=0\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">The Hindu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: Importance of vultures for an ecosystem<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis<\/strong>: Vultures play a very important role in an ecosystem by acting as its scavengers. However, their declining population has increased various concerns. Let&#8217;s have a brief look into it.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>India lost more than 95% of its vulture population through the 1990s and by the mid-2000s. Today, the country requires urgent conservation efforts to save vultures from becoming extinct<\/p>\n<h5><strong>About vultures<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Vultures belong to the Accipitridae family, whose members include eagles, hawks and kites<\/li>\n<li>They are relatively social birds with an average lifespan of 10-30 years in the wild,\u00a0nest on tall trees or rocky cliffs<\/li>\n<li>Vultures are slow breeders and so the survival of every individual is very crucial<\/li>\n<li>They have excellent eyesight and strong sense of smell, and hence can detect the presence of dead animals from great distances<\/li>\n<li>Vultures don\u2019t have a voice box, and so they cannot sing. They communicate via grunts and hisses<\/li>\n<li>Unlike other raptors, vultures have weak legs and claws (talons)<\/li>\n<li>They do not carry food; instead, they regurgitate food and feed their young ones<\/li>\n<li>Vultures have a highly acidic stomach that helps them digest a rotting carcass and kill disease-causing bacteria<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Reason behind decline<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Use of drug Diclofenac<\/strong>&#8211;\u00a0Diclofenac, which relieves cattle of pain, is toxic to vultures even in small doses and causes kidney failure and death<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hunting<\/strong>&#8211; Myths about the medicinal healing powers of vultures\u2019 body parts has led to the hunting of vultures.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Quarrying and blasting<\/strong>&#8211; of stones where vultures nest have also caused their decline<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Impact of the decline<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Inefficient clearing of carcasses<\/strong>&#8211; Removing vultures from the ecosystem leads to inefficient clearing of carcasses and contaminates water systems<\/li>\n<li><strong>Giving rise to disease-causing pathogens<\/strong>&#8211; If dead animals are left to rot for long durations, it may give rise to disease-causing pathogens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>Steps taken<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>India banned diclofenac for veterinary use in 2006.<\/li>\n<li>Five States are to get vulture breeding centers under the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation for 2020-2025.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vulture \u2018restaurants\u2019,<\/strong> which exist in some countries, which provides diclofenac-free carcasses of cattle to feed the vultures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #f7f2f2;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><strong>Must Read<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/vulture-conservation-in-india-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vulture conservation in India<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The Hindu Relevance: Importance of vultures for an ecosystem Synopsis: Vultures play a very important role in an ecosystem by acting as its scavengers. However, their declining population has increased various concerns. Let&#8217;s have a brief look into it. Context India lost more than 95% of its vulture population through the 1990s and by&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-clean-up-crew-we-need-on-vulture-conservation\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The clean-up crew we need (On vulture conservation)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1355,8927,9378],"class_list":["post-129179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-biodiversity","tag-biodiversity-conservation","tag-vulture-conservation","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":4,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700504651},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}