HC to find a solution to vultures suffering from food poisoning Premium

Madras High Court petition seeks vulture conservation due to mass deaths from cattle drugs, aiming to prevent extinction.

The carrion-eating vultures are generally considered a sign of death; but the dreaded birds themselves are facing mass deaths and near extinction, ironically owing to the food they eat. A wildlife enthusiast has approached the Madras High Court to save the majestic creatures from food poisoning and efforts are under way in the court to find solutions.

In a public interest litigation petition before the first Division Bench of the High Court, the litigant, K. Surya Kumar of Vandalur in Chennai, said the vultures are considered natural scavengers of the forests, for they predominantly consume wildlife and livestock carcass. This prevents the entry of toxins in the environment. SP. Chockalingam, counsel for the petitioner, said the vulture population in the country was about nine crore in the 1980s, but it had plummeted to around 19,000 at present. The situation was no different in Tamil Nadu, he said.

Of the nine species of vultures that could be found worldwide, four of them — Gyps bengalensis (white-rumped vulture), Gyps indicus (long-billed vultures), Sarcogyps calvus (Asian king vulture), and Neophron percnopterus (Egyptian vulture) — could be sighted in the Nilgiris, Coimbatore, Erode, and Dharmapuri districts, he said. Pegging the present population at somewhere between 100 to 120 in Tamil Nadu, counsel said the decline was owing to the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat the cattle. Vultures die when these drugs get into their bodies through cattle carrion, counsel added.

Mr. Chockalingam said diclofenac, aceclofenac, ketoprofen, carprofen, nimuslide, and flunixin were the harmful NSAIDs and accused the Centre of taking a long time to ban them for animal use in areas inhabited by vultures. “If they ban the drugs piecemeal over a long period of time, there won’t be any vultures left,” he said.

Mr. Kumar also insisted on issuing a direction to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) as well as the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden (PCCF & CWC) in Tamil Nadu to create enough vulture conservation centres in all the four districts.

In a counter-affidavit to the petition, the MoEFCC told the court that vultures had been listed in Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and accorded the highest degree of protection. A notification issued by the Ministry in 2011 had named Gyps indicus and Gyps bengalensis as being on the verge of extinction in Tamil Nadu.

Stating that it had come up with an Action Plan for Vulture Conservation in India (2020-25), the Ministry said the objective was to prevent poisoning of cattle carcasses, encourage conservation breeding programmes, and establish a vulture safe zone network by creating at least one vulture safe zone in each State. “The Action Plan envisaged one centre each in Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. It is informed that no such proposal has been received by the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) from any of these States. The proposals from the individual States will be considered by the CZA as and when the proposals are received,” the MoEFCC said.