National
Endangered vultures to be captive-bred in Assam

New Delhi, Sept. 12 (PTI): Vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled alarmingly, will be bred in captivity at a facility coming up in Assam.

"The Assam government, with support from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), has set up the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre in Rani forest range near Guwahati," a top forest official of the state government said.

"The breeding process of vultures is tedious, with birds taking a long time to lay egg and hatch them," the official said.

The centre, which will become operational soon, will initially breed the slender-billed and water-backed species of vultures, he said.

Vibhu Prakash, principal scientist with BNHS, said: "We aim to captive breed at least 100 pairs of vultures in 15 years."

After hatching, the young birds will be hand-raised at the centre before being released in the wild.

Debojit Das, a BNHS official posted in Assam, said the whole work would be done in phases.

"The process is slow and hatching and raising will take time. We are collecting data and samples now," Das said.

The UK-based Royal Society for the Promotion of Birds (RSPB) has been supporting the establishment of vulture breeding centres in India and helping remove the killer veterinary drug diclofenac from the environment.

"In recognition of the urgency to the situation, we have stepped in to provide resources in time," said RSPB's vulture programme director Chris Bowden.

"We are confident that as the reality of the situation becomes more evident with time, support and ownership from within India will grow, but the few vultures that remain are declining so fast that we don't have time to wait for that support to come straight away," Bowden said.

The slender-billed vultures, extensively found in Assam, number less than 200 in the wild today.

According to the environment and forests ministry, the population of three species -- white-backed, slender-billed and long-billed -- in the wild has declined drastically in the past decade due to the use of diclofenec.

The manufacture of the controversial drug was banned by the Centre in 2006 but veterinary doctors are still using it.

Though deaths due to diclofenec have not been established yet in Assam, poisoning and malaria-related deaths are common.

"In some areas, many vultures have died after consuming poisoned carcasses," said Apurba Chakraborty of the Guwahati Veterinary College.

"The circumstantial evidences in more than 10 to 20 cases in Boku Saigaon and in the Kaziranga region have pointed poisoning," he said.

There are two vulture conservation centres in Pinjore in Haryana and Raja Baht Khawa in West Bengal.

National

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