As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Monday, 14 April 2014

Two more vulture species decline in population drastically over the years

Saswati Mukherjee,TNN | Apr 11, 2014, 07.07 PM IST


BANGALORE: In a recent paper published in the Cambridge Journal - Bird Conservation International, researchers from BNHS-India and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), it has been stated that like the three Gyps species, even Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus and Red-headed Vulture Sarcogyps calvus had declined by nearly 80% and 91% respectively in the Indian subcontinent since the mid-1990s and are now globally threatened. Both species are likely to have showed similar physiological intolerance and exposure risk to diclofenac through a common ancestry and foraging niche with Gyps vultures. The paper examined the records of Red-headed and Egyptian Vultures obtained on road transects in and near protected areas between 1992 and 2011, particularly in northern India. This study comes as one of the strongest evidence that these two vulture species have also been affected by diclofenac.

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