Wednesday, February 12, 2003
Chandigarh lab to find out why the vultures are dying
Asian News International London, February 12
Vultures are dying in South Asia in epidemic proportions and a new laboratory has been set up in India to identify a suspected virus that is killing them.
The Vulture Care Centre, financed by a grant from the UK's Darwin Initiative to scientists from the ZSL, the RSPB and the Bombay Natural History Society, was opened in Chandigarh on 7 February, according to New Scientist.
Investigation into the deaths so far have been impeded by two factors (a) collecting sick or dead birds is extremely difficult and (b) Indian law prevents the export of tissue samples for study in foreign labs. But the new centre may facilitate things now by finding the precise cause of deaths and formulating preventive steps to help affected birds recover.
But the challenge looks enormous, so much so that scientists fear they will have to try breeding at least one species in captivity to save it from extinction, even before they diagnose the killer infection.
The big, griffon vultures that used to be ubiquitous in India started dying in the 1990s. In 2000, New Scientist reported that 95 per cent of Indian vultures of the genus Gyps had disappeared.
Since then, the remaining population has halved, and the die-off has spread to Nepal and Pakistan.
It is feared that the disease could spread to griffon vultures across Eurasia and Africa. "The ecological impacts could be horrendous," says Deborah Pain at the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Griffon vultures were the main way in which dead animals were disposed off. But now, says Andrew Cunningham of the Zoological Society of London, "the superabundance of uneaten animal carcasses poses a direct health threat and has led to an explosion in the stray dog population," which spread the rabies.
The UK division of Synermed, a diagnostics company, has donated to the Chandigarh centre an automated blood analyser to help track the disease process, determine which organs it damages, and gauge the effect of treatments.
If the disease is identified and birds can be tested to ensure they are healthy, the centre will be converted into a captive breeding facility.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2002. Reproduction in any form is prohibited without prior permission