Oriental white-backed, long-billed, and slender-billed vultures in South Asia have suffered one of the most rapid and widespread population declines of any bird species, declining by more than 97% over the last 10-15 years.
These declines were caused by the widespread veterinary use of the drug diclofenac for the treatment of sick domestic livestock throughout the Indian subcontinent. Diclofenac kills vultures that feed on the bodies of livestock that have been given the drug shortly before death.
To combat diclofenac's devastating effects on vulture populations, the Indian government announced, in March 2005, its intention to phase out the use of the drug. However, progress has been hampered by the lack of an alternative drug that is known to be safe for vultures yet effective for treating livestock.
In a new report published in the open access journal PLoS Biology, a team of scientists from South Africa, Namibia, India, and the UK concluded that such an alternative has now been found.
The team, led by Gerry Swan of the University of Pretoria, found that the drug meloxicam was safe to vultures at the likely range of levels they would be exposed to in the wild. Meloxicam, which is similar to diclofenac in its effectiveness for treating livestock, has recently become available for veterinary use in India and could easily be used in place of diclofenac.
"This research is an excellent example of international collaboration in response to an urgent conservation problem," Said Dr Debbie Pain, Head of International Research at the RSPB and a co-author of the paper.
Fellow-author Dr Rhys Green, Principal Research Biologist at the RSPB and a scientist at Cambridge University, said: "Dr Lindsay Oaks discovered that diclofenac is the cause of the vulture declines just two years ago, so having found a practical solution
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Contact: Paul Ocampo
press@plos.org
415-624-1224
Public Library of Science
30-Jan-2006