VULTURE CONSERVATION

Subject :  Environment

Context : Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change launched a Vulture Action Plan 2020-25 for the conservation of vultures in the country.

Concept :

• While the ministry has been carrying out a conservation project for vultures since 2006, the plan is to now extend the project to 2025 to not just halt the decline but to actively increase the vulture numbers in India.
• There are nine recorded species of vultures in India — the Oriental white-backed, long-billed, slender-billed, Himalayan, red-headed, Egyptian, bearded, cinereous and the Eurasian Griffon.

Background :

• The crash in vulture populations came into limelight in the mid-90s, and in 2004 the cause of the crash was established as diclofenac used to treat pain and inflammatory diseases such as gout — in carcasses that vultures would feed off.
• The MoEFCC released the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation 2006 with the DCGI banning the veterinary use of diclofenac in the same year and the decline of the vulture population being arrested by 2011.