John Mallord RSPB

Question 1

SAVE

Answer 1

Saving asia’s vultures

Question 2

Vultures remove carcasses

Answer 2

and take away disease

Question 3

Vulture declines 1885-1996 97% decline

Answer 3

Uric gout, due to kidney failure. Pesticides, disease, chemical contanimation

Question 4

Non-steroidal anti-inflammitory drug used on cows

Answer 4

Diclofenac given to sick cows but they then die anyway

Question 5

Presence of viceral gout and disclofenac in blood

Answer 5

perfect relationship/association

Question 6

10-11% of carcasses had diclofenac trace

Answer 6

2006 vetenary bans in India

Question 7

Identification of vulture-safe antibiotics

Answer 7

meloxicanon and tolfenamic acid are safe

Question 8

Diclofenac and

Answer 8

5 othres have been found dangerous

Question 9

India

Answer 9

local formulation of meloxicanon that had wrong PH caused ‘jumping goat’ so they didn’t use it

Question 10

Diclofenac is still readily available

Answer 10

and poisoning is another threat caused by poachers

Question 11

Breeding centers are useful

Answer 11

but is better to ensure habitat is safe

Question 12

released birds

Answer 12

don’t mate and don’t migrate

Question 13

advocacy and education

Answer 13

are most effective

Question 14

Vulture conservation measures in Cambodia differ from those employed in the Indian subcontinent because the threats are different, especially in the absence of a significant threat from diclofenac. Conservation actions taken so far include monthly supplementary feeding at up to seven sites in the north and east of the country, nest protection and advocacy against inappropriate use of agricultural chemicals as poisons.

Answer 14

Soon after research had indicated the severity of the effects of diclofenac on vulture populations, the governments of India, Pakistan and Nepal commenced actions to prevent the contamination of vulture food supplies with the drug. India’s National Board for Wildlife recommended a ban on veterinary use on 17 March 2005. In May 2006, a directive from the Drug Controller General of India was circulated to relevant officials, requiring the withdrawal of manufacturing licences for veterinary formulations of diclofenac. This directive was further strengthened in 2008, when it was made an imprisonable offence to manufacture, retail or use diclofenac for veterinary purposes. Similar measures were introduced in Pakistan and Nepal at about the same time. Veterinary use of diclofenac was banned in Bangladesh in 2010.

Question 15

Poisoning causing the decline in South-East Asia’s largest vulture population

Loveridge et al., 2019

Answer 15

Cambodia supports populations of three Critically Endangered vulture species that are believed to have become isolated from the rest of the species’ global range. Until recently Cambodia’s vulture populations had remained stable. However a recent spike in the number of reports of the use of poisons in hunting practices suggests the need to re-evaluate the conservation situation in Cambodia. Population trend analysis showed that since 2010 populations of the White-rumped Vulture Gyps bengalensis and Red-headed Vulture Sarcogyps calvus have declined, while the Slender-billed Vulture Gyps tenuirostris may also have started to decline since 2013. These trends are supported by evidence of reduced nesting success. A survey of veterinary drug availability revealed that diclofenac, the non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug responsible for vulture declines in South Asia was not available for sale in any of the 74 pharmacies surveyed. However, a poisoned Slender-billed Vulture tested positive for carbofuran in toxicology tests. This provides the first evidence of a vulture mortality resulting from carbofuran in Cambodia. The findings suggest the urgent need to tackle use of carbamate pesticides in hunting. Proposed conservation actions are: a) prevention of poisoning through national bans on harmful carbamate pesticides and diclofenac and education campaigns to reduce demand and use; b) training of personnel in priority protected areas in detection and response to poisoning incidents; c) maintenance of a safe and reliable food source through vulture restaurants to ensure short-term survival, and d) protection and restoration of large areas of deciduous dipterocarp forests to enable long-term species recovery.

Question 16

Continuing mortality of vultures in India associated with illegal veterinary use of diclofenac and a potential threat from nimesulide
Cuthbert et al., 2015

Answer 16

he collapse of South Asia’s Gyps vulture popula- tions is attributable to the veterinary use of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac. Vultures died after feeding on carcasses of recently-medicated animals. The governments of India, Nepal and Pakistan banned the veterinary use of diclofenac in . We analysed results of  necropsies and  NSAID assays of liver and/or kidney for vultures of five species found dead in India between  and . Visceral gout and diclofenac were detected in vultures from nine states and three species: Gyps benga- lensis, Gyps indicus and Gyps himalayensis. Visceral gout was found in every vulture carcass in which a measurable level of diclofenac was detected. Meloxicam, an NSAID of low toxicity to vultures, was found in two vultures and ni- mesulide in five vultures. Nimesulide at elevated tissue concentrations was associated with visceral gout in four of these cases, always without diclofenac, suggesting that nime- sulide may have similar toxic effects to those of diclofenac. Residues of meloxicam on its own were never associated with visceral gout. The proportion of Gyps vultures found dead in the wild in India with measurable levels of diclofe- nac in their tissues showed a modest and non-significant decline since the ban on the veterinary use of diclofenac. The prevalence of visceral gout declined less, probably
because some cases of visceral gout from  onwards were associated with nimesulide rather than diclofenac. Veterinary use of nimesulide is a potential threat to the recovery of vulture populations.

Question 17

Partial recovery of Critically Endangered Gyps vulture populations in Nepal

Galligan et al., 2019

Answer 17

Populations of Critically Endangered White-rumped Gyps bengalensis and Slender-billed G. tenuirostris Vultures in Nepal declined rapidly during the 2000s, almost certainly because of the effects of the use in livestock of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, which is nephrotoxic to Gyps vultures. In 2006, veterinary use of diclofenac was banned in Nepal and this was followed by the gradual implementation, over most of the geographical range of the two vulture species in Nepal, of a Vulture Safe Zone (VSZ) programme to advocate vulture conserva- tion, raise awareness about diclofenac, provide vultures with NSAID-free food and encourage the veterinary use in livestock of a vulture-safe alternative NSAID (meloxicam). We report the results of long-term monitoring of vulture populations in Nepal before and after this programme was implemented, by means of road transects. Piecewise regression analysis of the count data indicated that a rapid decline of the White-rumped Vulture population from 2002 up to about 2013 gave way to a partial recovery between about 2013 and 2018. More limited data for the Slender-billed Vulture indicated that a rapid decline also gave way to partial recovery from about 2012 onwards. The rates at which populations were increasing in the 2010s exceeded the upper end of the range of increase rates expected in a closed population under optimal conditions. The possibility that immigration from India is contributing to the changes cannot be excluded. We present evidence from open and undercover pharmacy surveys that the VSZ programme had apparently become effective in reducing the availability of diclofenac in a large part of the range of these species in Nepal by about 2011. Hence, community-based advocacy and awareness- raising actions, and possibly also provisioning of safe food, may have made an important contri- bution to vulture conservation by augmenting the effects of changes in the regulation of toxic veterinary drugs.

Question 18

Diclofenac poisoning is widespread in declining vulture populations across the Indian subcontinent

Schultz et al., 2004

Answer 18

Recent declines in the populations of three species
of vultures in the Indian subcontinent are among the most rapid ever recorded in any bird species. Evi- dence from a previous study of one of these species, Gyps bengalensis, in the Punjab province of Pakistan, strongly implicates mortality caused by ingestion of residues of the veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac as the major cause of the decline. We show that a high proportion of Gyps bengalensis and G. indicus found dead or dying in a much larger area of India and Nepal also have residues of diclofenac and visceral gout, a post- mortem finding that is strongly associated with diclofenac contamination in both species. Hence, veterinary use of diclofenac is likely to have been the major cause of the rapid vulture population declines across the subcontinent.