Natural Scavenger

In flight

Vultures are scavenging birds, feeding mostly the caracus of dead animals. Three species of asian vultures has fallen by 97 % in 12 years.

Why South Asia Vultures are on the Brink of Extinction?

In short, the reason is because the farmers in Katmandu, Nepal feed their cow’s diclofenac, a drug used to relieve fever and lameness. The scavenging vultures are one step up the food chain. Once the cow dies the scavenger eats the dead cow's carcass and becomes poisoned. The drug causes acute kidney failure in the vultures after dining on the animals treated with diclofenac. The American Chemical Association states that we should not be alarmed when chemicals show up in the cord blood of your newborns. But we'd like to ask you to decide for yourself: "Do chemicals in our blood matter?" In 15 years the population of the vultures in Nepal have gone from 50,000 nesting pairs to only 500 nesting pairs.
Vultures are natural scavengers in nature and remember, "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature." So how are conservationists in Nepal trying to remedy this problem? After all they need their vultures. They have opened a "restaurant" for the scavengers sixty miles outside of Katmandu. At least some of the vultures are being given a chance to eat chemical-free food. Sick and dying cows who have never been fed diclofenac are brought in and when they die, their carcasses are left for the vultures. While the use of diclofenic is prohibited in Nepal and India, the ban is widely ignored.(click here to learn more)