Endangered vultures bred in India

June 30, 2010|Associated Press

MUMBAI, India — The long-billed vulture, one of the world’s most endangered birds, has been bred in captivity for the first time in India, scientists said yesterday.

The three chicks that hatched in February and March in a breeding center in northern India belong to one of three species of Asian vultures facing extinction. All of the birds had taken their first flight by Monday.

The World Conservation Union has listed the three Indian vulture species as critically endangered, the category applied to animals closest to extinction.

Tens of millions of vultures once played a key role in South Asia’s ecosystem, disposing of carcasses and keeping down populations of stray dogs and rats that also feed on carcasses and are likely to spread diseases among humans.

But millions of long-billed, slender-billed, and oriental white-backed vultures have died in South Asia over the past several years after eating cattle carcasses tainted with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory painkiller given to sick cows.

The total number of the three species of vultures is now below 60,000, according to Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which provides funds and technical expertise to the Indian breeding program.

Over the past six years, scientists in India have managed to successfully breed the other two varieties. But this is the first successful attempt for the long-billed vulture, the society said.

None of the birds bred in Indian captivity has been released into the wild yet, according to Grahame Madge, spokesman for the British bird society.