CHIKKABALLAPUR, NANDI HILLS: The poisoning of animals in urban and forest areas is affecting not just vultures, but also tigers, said vulture expert Chris Bowden, programme manager, Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE). He said this is a reason for the decline in vulture population in the country. Addressing a session at the Hakki Habba, Bowden said veterinarians found a correlation between poisoning and the drop in population.
He said recently, when a postmortem was conducted on a vulture and a tiger carcasses, experts found that they died of the same poison, Butox. The two had consumed the carcass of cattle, covered with Butox to kill ticks. “Poisoning tigers and other wildlife is also leading to a decline in the vulture population,” he said.
There are 23 vulture species in the world, of which nine are found in India. Of this, four are in Karnataka. Three of these species -- long-billed vulture, white-rumped vulture and red-headed vulture -- are critically endangered.
The Egyptian Vultures found in Karnataka are declared endangereds.Bowden added that despite the ban on diclofenac, veterinarians in Ramanagara and Gujarat still inject cattle with aceclofenac, which converts to diclofenac and leads to the death of vultures, when they feed on them.