After the crash: how can we rebuild South Asia's vulture population?

31 Aug 2017

Conservationists from India and Nepal have come together to plan a transboundary, sustainable answer to the question: how can you improve the outlook of a bird family that has already suffered a population crash of 99%?

By Khima Nand Balodi

Asian vultures have undergone a catastrophic decline in recent decades, with populations crashing by as much as 99%. In India and Nepal, four of nine vulture species are Critically Endangered, largely as a result of poisoning by a drug commonly used to treat livestock, diclofenac.  Since 2006, diclofenac has been banned in these  countries for veterinary use, but it is still being purchased on the black market, and vultures are still struggling to rebound in the wake of their population crash. The Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP)  - an inititive co-created by BirdLife in 1985 - has funded projects in both Nepal, in 2010 and 2013, and India, in 2016, to improve the outlook for these overlooked species. In March this year, a CLP Learning Exchange brought a project team member from both countries together to share their knowledge.

Khima Nand Balodi, who led a project to assess the population status and threats facing vultures in Uttarakhand, India in 2016, visited Bhupal Nepali, who has worked to strengthen Vulture Safe Zones in Nawalparasi, and to enhance community-based conservation in western Nepal. Here, Khima shares his Learning Exchange experiences.

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Nature needs government help to save species from the brink

Ben Barnett

Government action is desperately needed if dramatic declines of native wildlife species are to be reversed and some even saved from extinction, a group of some of the country’s leading conservationists has warned.

The new State of Nature report published today claims that more than half of UK species have suffered declines in recent years and more than one in ten species are under threat of extinction. 

Conservationists in Yorkshire have highlighted how species that rely on the region’s uplands and coastal areas for vital habitats are at particular risk.

Nationally, huge losses of bird species have been recorded over the past few decades, including seabirds such as puffins and kittiwakes and other birds found in-land such as curlews, lapwings and hen harriers that should be thriving in Yorkshire.

Nationally, 33 per cent fewer curlews and 26 per cent fewer lapwings were recorded between 1995 and 2014.

In Yorkshire, there have been no reports of breeding hen harriers for around a decade, according to the RSPB.

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