PHOTO COURTESY: MUNIR VIRANI, THE PEREGRINE FUNDA mass killing of several species of vultures in the Indian subcontinent over the last two decades is largely blamed on the presence of a drug, diclofenac, in the cow carcasses the birds eat. The Indian government banned veterinary use of the painkiller in 2006, and a new study published today (October 13) in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B shows a decline in cow carcasses testing positive for diclofenac and an increase in the use of a vulture-safe alternative drug.
The results are “tremendous news,” Munir Virani, the Africa Programs Director of The Peregrine Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to conserving birds of prey, said in an e-mail to The Scientist. Still, “this does not mean vultures are not dying of diclofenac poisoning,” added Virani, who did not participate in the study. “It simply means that there is much less of it in the environment as shown by this paper and by other ongoing studies.”
Diclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) that farmers use to ease pain in their cattle. About a decade ago, Rhys Green, a conservation biologist at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the University of Cambridge, and others identified diclofenac as responsible for wiping out vulture populations across ...
