Take measures to save vultures: Delhi HC tells Centre

The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Centre to examine a petition raising concerns over the decline in vulture population allegedly on account of the use of certain veterinary drugs, and asked it take measures to save the birds that are an important link in the food chain.

The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Centre to examine a petition raising concerns over the decline in vulture population allegedly on account of the use of certain veterinary drugs, and asked it take measures to save the birds that are an important link in the food chain. A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi issued notice to the Centre, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the National Biodiversity Authority, the Indian Veterinary Research Institute as well as the Bombay Natural History Society on the public interest litigation by lawyer Gaurav Kumar Bansal and sought their response. “We direct respondents 1-3 (Centre) to examine the aspect raised by the petitioner in the petition and take whatever measures that are called for to save vultures which are an important link in the food chain and are essential for maintaining the environment. The response is filed in four weeks,” said the bench also comprising Justice Navin Chawla. The petitioner sought the protection and conservation of vultures and claimed that there are certain veterinary drugs on the market which are harmful and toxic to these birds and yet no serious efforts have been made by the authorities to date to ban them. “The major cause and perhaps the only cause of the population declines of Vultures in India is the veterinary use of the 'Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug' (NSAIDs) in livestock…Vultures are exposed to a toxic level of NSAIDS when they feed on carcasses of livestock which have died within a few days of treatment, and which contain residues of the said NSAIDs,” the petition said. The petitioner stated that vultures are a threatened species under the Biological Diversity Act and there is a need to not only ban the toxic drugs but also create an effective mechanism for the safety testing of new molecules before they are introduced for veterinary and human use. According to the Bombay Natural History Society, the population of Oriental White Backed vultures and Long-Billed Vultures had declined by more than 92 percent between 1991 and 1993 and also in 2000. As per one more study, by the year 2007, the population of vultures had declined by an astonishing 99.9 percent for Oriental White Backed Vulture and Long-Billed Vultures, the petition submitted. The petition also emphasized that losing vultures could be catastrophic to any ecosystem and that the birds are significant to Hindu as well as Zoroastrian religions.

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