Himalayan vulture bred in captivity for the first time in India

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Context:

Researchers have recorded the first instance of captive breeding of the Himalayan vulture (Gyps himalayensis) in India at the Assam State Zoo, Guwahati.

About the Himalayan vulture:

The Himalayan Griffon Vulture, Gyps himalayensis, is an Old World vulture in the family Accipitridae, which also includes eagles, kites, buzzards and hawks.
It is closely related to the European Griffon Vulture, G. fulvus.
This vulture is a typical vulture, with a bald white head, very broad wings, and short tail feathers.
It has a white neck ruff and yellow bill and the whitish body and wing coverts contrast with the dark flight feathers.
The Himalayan vulture is a common winter migrant to the Indian plains, and a resident of the high Himalayas.
Categorized as ‘Near Threatened’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.

Distribution Range:

The Himalayan vulture mostly lives in the Himalayas on the Tibetan plateau (India, Nepal and Bhutan, central China and Mongolia).
It is also found in the Central Asian mountains (from Kazakhstan and Afghanistan in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east).
Occasionally it migrates to northern India but migration usually only occurs altitudinally.

Species in India:

India is home to 9 species of Vulture namely the Oriental white-backed, Long-billed, Slender-billed, Himalayan, Red-headed, Egyptian, Bearded, Cinereous and the Eurasian Griffon.
Most of these 9 species face danger of extinction.
Bearded, Long-billed, Slender-billed, Oriental white-backed are protected in the Schedule-1 of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Rest are protected under ‘Schedule IV’.

Breeding of himalayan vultures:

The Himalayan vultures successfully bred at the zoo were rescued in 2011-2012 from different poisonings and accidents.
The conservation breeding of the Himalayan vulture at Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (VCBC) at Rani in Assam is the second such instance in the world, after France, where the species has been bred in captivity.

Vulture conservation centres in India:

Four VCBCs established by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) at:
- Pinjore in Haryana,
- Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh,
- Rani in Assam, and
- Rajabhatkhawa in West Bengal
These are involved in conservation breeding of the:
- White-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis),
- Slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostris), and
- The Indian vulture (Gyps indicus).
The unprecedented scale and speed of declines in vulture populations has left all the three resident Gyps vulture species categorised ‘Critically Endangered’.
The population has been augmented over the past few years, and so far, 39 White-rumped vultures from the VCBC in Haryana and West Bengal have been released in the wild with a transmitter, and they are being monitored.