1 June 2010 was the official start of Mahseer Conservancy’s 2010/2011 vulture programme.  The following report is a summary of the work undertaken during the July 2010 period.  This report is the second of a series of monthly reports will be made throughout the year.

1.      Monitoring of vulture colonies

Ringora Village

Elsa Legrand was joined by Irena Glatzle in July, allowing them to extend the hours that they spend monitoring at Ringora.  Their monitoring hours are now 5.30am – 8.30am, and 3.00pm – 6.00pm.

The birds are still head drooping, but it seems to have lessened with the onset of monsoons (from 40% in June to around 25% in July), and the cooler weather.  However, the colony is still under constant monitoring, and we are still prepared to act should another bird drop from the tree (this has not happened during July).  It is interesting to note that Irene has observed more birds head drooping in the mornings than Elsa has, possibly a result of the later monitoring hours that she keeps (Table 2 below).

The following tables are a summary of Elsa and Irene’s observations at the Ringora Vulture colony for July 2010:

Table 1:Overall results for July Ringora colony monitoring

Table 2: Morning results for July Ringora colony monitoring

Table 3: Evening results for July Ringora colony monitoring

Tumeria Village

A visit to Tumeria by Nicola Addison, Elsa Legrand, Irena Glatzle, Dewan Singh and Abdul Rehman on 12 July 2010 found three nests and eight birds.  The number of nests found in Tumeria Village is likely to be higher, but finding nests is difficult given the amount of foliage on the Sal trees during this time.

We still intend to carry out structured monitoring of the Tumeria colony, this will hopefully start in August as we have engaged more field assistants and therefore have more man-power.

Photo 1: Nest with juvenile in Tumeria Village

Photo 2: Indian White Back Vulture in Tumeria Village

2.      Ban of the ‘over the counter’ sale of Diclofenac

We are currently consulting with relevant experts on how best to proceed with our drive to ban over the counter sales of Diclofenac.

3.      Diclofenac Awareness Campaign

Diclofenac presence surveys

Lalit Negi has been covering areas close to Ramnagar town, conducting Diclofenac surveys, and distributing campaign posters and leaflets. In July, he covered the following villages:

• Tumeria Dam
• Dhela Village
• Savalde Village
• Ladhang Famto (Patthr Kuwa)
• Patram (Maldhan)

A summary of the survey results is as follows:

The interviewee that has confirmed their use of Diclofenac lives in Tumeria Village.  The Diclofenac was purchased from the local veterinary doctor.  This is alarming given the proximity of this village to a known vulture colony.  To address this, we will be increasing our awareness campaign in the area (see below).

Screenings of Vanishing Vultures and School Awareness

The arrival of more student volunteers (Sara Frey and Vincent Tondeur) saw the start of an awareness programme at local primary schools.  The first topic of this programme was Vulture Awareness.  Two schools were visited in July – DD Chhimwal School (19 and 31 July) and “Kim School” (23 and 29 July), both in Dhikuli.  The students at the schools were first taught about the different species of vulture, and then told about the problem of Diclofenac.  A second session was used to show “Vanishing Vultures”.

Photo 3: Students been shown the size of a Himalayan Griffon

4.      Training workshop for Field Assistants

On 31 July we held a training workshop, led by Sumantha Ghosh and Nicola Addison, for potential field assistants that may be involved in the Vulture Awareness Program. The attendees were:

• Anil Chaudhary (Corbett National Park Forest Guide)
• Prakash Dorby (Corbett National Park Forest Guide)
• Dharmpal Singh Negi (Corbett National Park Forest Guard)
• Lalit Negi (Vulture Program Field Assistant)
• Elsa Legrand (Ringora Village colony monitoring)
• Irene Glatzle (Ringora Village colony monitoring)

The workshop focused on the identification of the different vulture species, and then extensive discussion on Diclofenac, and the work that Mahseer Conservancy is doing to try and protect the vultures from this drug.  The workshop was dual purpose to 1) inform the participants about Diclofenac, and 2) to ensure that all members of the project team are aware of their roles.

5.      Overall July progress

Overall, progress through July was relatively slow due to the onset of monsoons slowing work or team members being unable to work due to illness or accident (Lalit Negi and Elsa Legrand).  We are hopeful that August will bring greater progress as we will now have more field staff working.

A summary of the action points from the June report, and the progress is as follows (progress discussed in italics):

• Continue monitoring the Ringora IWBV colony, and increase the hours of monitoring – we have two students now so can increase the amount of monitoring we can carry out. Comment: monitoring has been continued, and monitoring now occurs over a longer time period.
• Widen the area of our awareness campaign. Comment: Lalit Negi was involved in an accident early July, meaning that he was unable to progress work due to needing extensive recovery time. He did, however, make quite good progress in the short period he was working in July.
• Screenings of Vanishing Vulture: Tumeria Village

Dhela Village

Tera Village

Comment: these screenings did not happen due to monsoons and staffing pressures.  However, we are hopeful that these will happen in August.

• Identify schools which could be targeted for vulture awareness (in conjunction with Sara and Vincent’s school environmental awareness work?). Comment: Two local schools have been targeted as discussed in section 3.
• Arrange Pinjore trip for Nicola, Elsa, Sara, Lalit and Sumantha. Comment: To happen in August.
• Organise awareness meetings with the veterinary community. Comment: To happen in August.

6.      Plans for August

• Pinjore trip.
• Workshop with Forest Department staff, and other interested parties, to raise awareness on Diclofenac, and to get greater involvement from the Forest Department on the war on Diclofenac.
• Continue monitoring and awareness work.

7.      Project Vulture Core Team (July 2010)

• Sumantha Ghosh:  President of Mahseer Conservancy and local naturalist with many years experience in the Corbett area.
• Nicola Addison: Project Vulture field co-ordinator and ecologist with experience working with New Zealand birds of prey.
• Hem Bahuguna: Field Support, head of the safari team at Tiger Camp, qualified Park guide, and naturalist with many years experience in the Corbett Area.
• Lalit Negi: Field Assistant, extensive local knowledge and passion for IWBV.
• Elsa Legrand: Student at LEGTA Les Barnes (France), studying the Management and Protection of Nature.  She is monitoring the Ringora vulture colony as part of her course work.
• Irena Glatzle: Student from Germany studying ecology at university.  She is also monitoring the Ringora vulture colony as part of her course work (along with Elsa).

1 June 2010 was the official start of Mahseer Conservancy’s 2010/2011 vulture programme.  The following report is a summary of the work undertaken during the June 2010 period.  A series of monthly reports will be made throughout the year.

1.      Monitoring of vulture colonies

Ringora Village

Elsa Legrand has been monitoring the Ringora Vulture colony over the June period.  Over this time, from the 14 June 2010, it has been noticed that every evening, after the heat of the day, many of the vultures (around 40%) found in the colony are perched in trees with their heads drooped forwards and resting on their chests.  Given the length of time it has been occurring for, it’s not likely to be a result of Diclofenac poisoning (Diclofenac kills the birds within 2 or 3 days of consumption).  Experts from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and other vulture experts have advised that it is likely to be caused by heat stress, and dehydration.  We have been advised that eventually the birds will die from the stress this places on their bodies.

Photo 1: head drooping in the IWBV

The approach that we have adopted to address this problem is to continue monitoring as we have been doing for the past month, but also to increase our vigilance.  Morning and evening monitoring continues, and also staff are on site as time permits to monitor at other times of the day.  Some of the village students have been organised into a “Vulture Group” whereby they keep a close eye on the vultures, and immediately report any strange behaviour to members of Mahseer Conservancy, who initiate the correct procedures.

This procedure is as follows:

• Notification of all members when abnormal vulture behaviour occurs (Sumantha Ghosh, Nicola Addison, Hem Bahuguna, Lalit Negi);
• Sumantha Ghosh to notify Park Veterinary Doctor, and other park officials;
• All members to report to Ringora Village;
• “Emergency Response Kit” kept at Ringora Village – gloves, towel, water, transportation box etc.;
• Any fallen birds are to be captured if possible.  This is to be done by members who are experienced in the capture of wild birds (Hem Bahuguna)
• Any sick, captured birds to be transported to the Park’s veterinary clinic for treatment, and released when deemed to be healthy.

Photo 2: The children of Ringora Village who will be assisting us with monitoring the colony.

The following tables are a summary of Elsa’s observations at the Ringora Vulture colony for June 2010:

Table 1:Overall results for June Ringora colony monitoring

Table 2: Morning results for June Ringora colony monitoring

Table 3: Evening results for June Ringora colony monitoring

Tumeria Village

An initial visit to the vulture colony at Tumeria found 15 vultures near the village.  A subsequent visit, and advice from the local villagers, indicates that the vultures in the Tumeria Village colony are not showing signs of head drooping.  None of this (the number or the lack of head drooping) is confirmed.  This is something which we will be doing during July.

As we increase our number of field assistants, we will be looking at carrying out regular monitoring of this colony.  We will also be creating a “Vulture Group” with the local children as we have done for Ringora Village.

2.      Ban of the ‘over the counter’ sale of Diclofenac

We are currently consulting with relevant experts on how best to proceed with our drive to ban over the counter sales of Diclofenac.

3.      Diclofenac Awareness Campaign

Diclofenac presence surveys

Lalit Negi has been covering areas close to Ramnagar town, conducting Diclofenac surveys, and distributing campaign posters and leaflets. In June, he covered the following villages:

• Arjun Nala
• Tera Village
• Amdanda Khatta
• Hatidagar – Nandapur
• Berajhal

A summary of the survey results is as follows:

The interviewee that has confirmed their use of Diclofenac lives in Hatidagar – Nandapur Village.  The Diclofenac was purchased from the local veterinary doctor.  This is alarming given the proximity of this village to a known vulture feeding site.  To address this, we will be increasing our awareness campaign in the area, and will be meeting with relevant officials (park officials, veterinary community etc) to discuss the way to eradicating Diclofenac in the area.  This meeting is scheduled for 12 July 2010.

Photo 3: Lalit Negi carrying out a survey at Amdanda Khatta

Screenings of Vanishing Vultures

On 24 June 2010 we showed Vanishing Vultures in Ringora Village, followed by talks by local naturalists.  The movie was well received by the audience, which was mostly made up of village children.

We will be continuing to show Vanishing Vultures in as many villages as possible.

Map 1: Locations of awareness and monitoring work for June 2010

4.      Plans for July

• Continue monitoring the Ringora IWBV colony, and increase the hours of monitoring – we have two students now so can increase the amount of monitoring we can carry out.
• Widen the area of our awareness campaign.
• Screenings of Vanishing Vulture: Tumeria Village

Dhela Village

Tera Village

• Identify schools which could be targeted for vulture awareness (in conjunction with Sara and Vincent’s school environmental awareness work?).
• Arrange Pinjore trip for Nicola, Elsa, Sara, Lalit and Sumantha.
• Organise awareness meetings with the veterinary community.

5.      Project Vulture Core Team (June 2010)

• Sumantha Ghosh:  President of Mahseer Conservancy and local naturalist with many years experience in the Corbett area.
• Nicola Addison: Project Vulture field co-ordinator and ecologist with experience working with New Zealand birds of prey.
• Hem Bahuguna: Field Support, head of the safari team at Tiger Camp, qualified Park guide, and naturalist with many years experience in the Corbett Area.
• Lalit Negi: Field Assistant, extensive local knowledge and passion for IWBV.
• Elsa Legrand: Student at LEGTA Les Barnes (France), studying the Management and Protection of Nature.  She is monitoring the Ringora vulture colony as part of her course work.

Researchers of Corbett-based Mahseer Conservancy, who have been undertaking the annual vulture monitoring exercise in the region, report that every evening, after the heat of the day, as many as 90 per cent of the vultures in the colony can be found perched on trees with their heads drooped forward and resting on their chests.

“This worrying behaviour has been noticed over the past two weeks. Given the length of time it has been occurring for, it is unlikely to be a result of diclofenac poisoning, as diclofenac kills the birds within two or three days of consumption. Experts from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the England-based Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and other vulture experts have indicated that the abnormal behaviour is being caused by heat stress and dehydration. Eventually, the already rare birds will die from this stress on their bodies,” cautioned Sumantha Ghosh, founder of Mahseer Conservancy in an exclusive conversation with The Pioneer.

Given that there are only around ten birds left in the region, naturalists are trying hard to capture these birds when they fall on the ground so that they may be treated and saved.

Ghosh said, “As in humans, the sick vultures can be given rehydrating drips and kept in a controlled environment. Veterinarian Dr S Bhalla of Corbett Tiger Reserve has been helpful and has agreed to treat the birds in his safe hands. The only way to save vultures that have heat stress is to wait until they fall from the trees, capture them and quarantine them, with plenty of food and water easily accessible to them.”

According to Dr Vibhu Prakash, director of Pinjore-based Vulture Breeding Centre of BNHS, the birds will fall (from their perches) within a month and require entrapment for anti-stress treatment.

The Indian White-backed Vulture is an endangered species that has witnessed a 99 per cent decline in its population in the last decade.

Children of Ringora village helping for the conservation of vultures

Among their rare colonies is Ringora, an “encroached” village with around 25 families on either side of NH-121, about three km north of Ramnagar in Nainital district.
With the help of local village children, volunteers of the NGO have been trying to capture these birds. However, it is only a short span of about 5 minutes for which a vulture is on the ground before it hides away, and often it is too late by the time the volunteers reach the spot. Cognizant of the urgency to address the issue, Ghosh appealed through The Pioneer, “I request the State forest department and concerned citizens to help with providing bird trappers who can stay in the vicinity for immediate action. Otherwise, it will not be long before we lose the few endangered species that we have left in the State.”

In the last twenty years three species of Indian vulture have gone from being one of the most prolifically abundant raptors to top of the IUCN Critically Endangered list. The reason behind the current Indian Vulture disaster that befell those graceful giants of the sky is the same as for the cause of the declines in so many other species; humans. But is there something that stands out about the Indian Sub-continent vulture crisis from other animal wipe-outs, past and present, and is there a last hope for the vultures?

It is difficult for someone from a country where vultures have never been present to grasp the breath-taking rapidity and scale of this wipe-out. India in the mid 1980’s had an estimated 40 million of just Indian white-backed vultures (Gyps bengalensis). These birds were a part of the urban and country scenery as crow or seagulls in the UK. And then they were gone. Vanished. The figure for White-backed vultures is over 99.9% of the population killed, and the rest going the same way.

Nowadays the factors influencing the destruction of the world’s species are usually at the same time well-known and complex issues. In all too many cases the people and companies causing the destruction of wildlife are entirely conscious of what they are doing; the poachers who takes the last tiger out from a tiger reserve, the company which takes toxic waste out to sea and dumps it because the fine is tiny fraction of the cost of dealing with it responsibly. In these cases the catalysts stem from huge issues like global poverty and corporate greed.

Extinction of vultures in India was not something that anybody planned or wanted.

Diclofenac’s impact on vultures was totally unexpected. Perhaps the vulture disaster falls into the category of unforeseen, unintentional accidental exterminations of wildlife, except that in this case humans are already suffering the damage along with the vultures. Some figures for the costs both in terms of human health and economic costs to the Indian government are both astronomical and plausible.

Diclofenac was the silent invisible assassin of the vulture, a pain-killer for livestock introduced at the end of the 1980s. By the time is was discovered to be the cause of the vulture kill-off and the prompt and well adhered to ban for veterinary use implemented it was already too late for most the vultures.

With it completely gone from livestock there would hypothetically be no real obstacles in their way given enough time; the food availability is still there and many vultures will happily nest in villages so long as there are suitable trees.

However with veterinary Diclofenac banned, now human-use Diclofenac (which is the same product with the same effects on vultures) has been subverted to the livestock market. In almost every village in India there will be a small, non-descript drugstore and in perhaps a large percentage of these shops local dairy farmers, probably completely unaware of the ban or consequences will be buying Diclofenac for their cattle.

When talking to people they relate how they used to see so many vultures. They used to be a part of the scenery. Vultures were one of those few species who people thought could never go away, and had even adapted to benefit from humans and flourish around them. Meanwhile they were performing an invaluable cleaning service to us, in the least intrusive way possible. The biggest intrusion a vulture can ever have to a human is to poo on him, and this requires co-operation by the person to stand underneath the vulture and wait.

The vulture has shown itself to be an adaptable, useful and likeable creature to humans, and the case for preserving them at least in small numbers comes down to one main problem; removing human-use Diclofenac from the veterinary market. This at least presents a clear cut and definable target, and is helped by the facts that nobody makes fortunes selling it under-the-counter, or buys it to deliberately poison vultures, and lastly that there is clearly a large economic incentive for the return of vultures. With all the good work that went into banning and removing Diclofenac from the market and replacing it with an affordable alternative, Meloxicam, it would surely be tragic to let the last few wild vultures slip away now. The human population explosion that is currently taking more and more available habitat and the chemical toxins we are contaminated the earth, water, air, and biosphere become more numerous and complex in their affects the more species will struggle to survive. If a species as abundant and tolerant of humans as gyps vultures can be so devastated in a such a short time then we must consider this a warning shot to be heeded.

Hanuman and Ram

Ram Leelas are one of the most celebrated festivals in the Hindu religion. The format is for every town and village to hold their own Ram Leelas re-enacting the Ramayana – the story of Rama – over 10 consecutive days, telling each “chapter” of the story on the different days.

The general overview of the Ramayana is that after Rama, Lakshman and Sita are exiled into the forest Sita is kidnapped by the king of Lanka, Ravana. With the help of the monkey army led by Hanuman and also some vultures who have seen Ravana taking Sita, Rama and Lakshman begin their epic voyage to rescue Sita and for Rama to gain his rightful place as the king of Kosala.

The Ramayana is a very animalistic story – there are various animals that are important to not only the Indian culture and Hindu religion but also crucial to the survival of the Indian wildlife and nature. For example there is the vulture that, after being mortally wounded trying to rescue Sita from Ravana, the king of Lanka, which informs Rama and Lakshman that Sita has been kidnapped. Also Rama is cursed after Rama’s father kills a Sarus Crane (the tallest flying bird) at the beginning of the story – and it is due to this curse that eventually Rama’s step-mother gets Rama exiled for fourteen years and gives the story reason to happen. There is also the golden deer that Sita wants Rama to kill which then leads to Lakshman leaving Sita by their hut and eventually being enticed out of the magic circle and getting kidnapped by the demon-king of Lanka.

Vanishing Vultures being Screened

Even in the small villages the Ram Leelas are made to be as impressive as possible. There are hundreds of people attending in the small villages and even more in the bigger towns; each Ram Leela is full of singing, dancing, music and general festivities.  Throughout the evening there are pauses in proceedings in between acts. These are primarily for changing the costumes, the background and also giving the people a little rest to get some food etc. Normally these intervals last between 20-30mins. It is these intervals that give Mahseer Conservancy the perfect opportunity to raise awareness to the local people and farmers about the critical decline of the vulture population throughout the whole of India.

The Ram Leelas are also used to raise awareness by Mahseer Conservancy as there are hundreds of people all in one place looking at the stage – where, of course, there was, during the intervals, a projector screen placed in full view. The plan was for the “V-team” to go to the Ram Leelas and during the intervals to put on a short film promoting awareness as to why the vultures are dying out at such an alarming rate and also showing how they, the people, could prevent the extinction of a creature that is vital to the eco-system.

Sanjay appeals for vultures

After the film was shown there was a short speech made to emphasize the most important parts of the feature and also awareness leaflets were handed out en-masse to as many people as possible in the audience.

Distributing Pamphelets

Although it’s impossible to measure the success of the campaign using numbers and figures it is possible to show how much people cared about it; the Ramayana and therefore Ram Leelas are big Hindu festivals and no-one objected to the film depicting dead cows and even the skinning of the cow carcasses which is quite amazing as it showed that even the more religious Hindus were prepared to look at pictures of to them, sacred, cows dead and dying in the name of vulture conservation. Not to mention the amount of press coverage that the campaign got – making it on to both local and nation television, and also getting into the newspapers.

Simple Message for an Important Issue

Audience watching Vulture awareness programme

Hopefully, and with the help of this type of awareness rising, in the near future we will be able to see vultures circling in the sky once again.