Vultures of India

Why in news?

• Centre has released a five-year action plan to save vultures of India.

About vultures in India:

• There are nine recorded species of vultures in India — the Oriental white-backed, long-billed, slender-billed, Himalayan, red-headed, Egyptian, bearded, cinereous and the Eurasian Griffon.
• Of these 4 species - oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures and red-headed vultures, are considered critically-endangered now while The Egyptian vulture is listed as ‘endangered’ while the Himalayan, bearded and cinereous vultures are ‘near threatened’.
• Vulture numbers saw a steep slide — as much as 90 per cent in some species — in India since the 1990s in one of the most drastic declines in bird populations in the world.
• The crash in vulture populations came into limelight in the mid-90s, and in 2004 the cause of the crash was established as diclofenac — a veterinary nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and inflammatory diseases such as gout — in carcasses that vultures would feed off.

Conservation efforts:

• The MoEFCC released the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation 2006 with the DCGI banning the veterinary use of diclofenac in the same year and the decline of the vulture population being arrested by 2011.
• The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) also established the Vulture Conservation Breeding Programme, which has been successful and had three critically-endangered species bred in captivity for the first time. Eight centres have been established and, so far, 396 vultures of the three species have successfully fledged.
• The ministry has now also launched conservation plans for the red-headed and Egyptian vultures, with breeding programmes for both.

New Action Plan:

• Under the 2020-25 plan, the ministry will help states in establishing at least one ‘Vulture Safe Zone’ in each state for the conservation of the remnant population.
• It will have an estimated budget of Rs 207 crore include setting up five additional Vulture Conservation Breeding Centers – one each in Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
• It has proposal for establishing four rescue centers in different geographical areas such as Pinjore (Haryana) in north India, Bhopal in central India, Guwahati in north-east India and Hyderabad in south India. There are currently no dedicated rescue centers for treatment of vultures in the country.
• It will also work for conservation breeding programme of Red Headed Vulture and Egyptian Vulture.
• The plan also envisages to carry out coordinated nation-wide vulture count to get a more accurate estimate of the size of vulture population.
• A database will be created on emerging threats to vulture conservation including collision and electrocution.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Which of the following birds of India are critically endangered, as per IUCN red list?
1.Jerdons courser
2.Forest owlet
3.White bellied Heron
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a)1 only
(b)2 and 3 only
(c)1 and 3 only
(d)1,2 and 3 only

Answer to prelims question