What�s Wrong with Hating Vultures
by Enam Ul Haque
We hate vultures, and for a good reason, too. Vultures are carnivores, like us. Although, we at times fall sick after eating foul flesh, vultures dont. But thats not why we hate vultures.
We hate vultures for the way they get their meat. Vultures eat animals that are dead, long dead. To eat meat we kill animals. We wont eat animals unless those are slaughtered for us. But vultures do not kill for food. Thats the real difference between us and vultures. And thats the sole reason for our hatred. We hate their lazy way of savouring meat without slaying. Vultures non-violent meat-eating seems particularly pernicious because we go to such gory lengths for our meat.
However, the vulture and its offensive style of eating is becoming a phenomenon of the past. Over the past 40 years, nearly 40 million vultures have been killed in the subcontinent. Some cheap pain-killers for cattle have done the job well. The drugs kill vultures just like a bullet. Vultures die within two days of eating drug-treated cows. About 20 years ago, the Indians were first to notice that the vulture population had crashed. Scientists then began looking for the causes of the decline. In 2003, they identified the culprits _ pain-killers such as Diclofenac and Ketoprofen. As a result, the drugs have been banned in India, Pakistan and Nepal since 2006 and in Bangladesh since 2010. Meloxicam, an alternative veterinary medicine good for both cattle and vultures was then formulated. Yet, use of the banned drugs continues.
Bangladesh had three species of resident vulture: White-rumped Vulture, Slender-billed Vulture and King Vulture. In the bad old days, we had at least a 100,000 of the birds _ we have less than 300 today. This years IUCN survey shows that we have 250 White-rumped, 2 Slender-billed and no King vultures at all. The sky over Bangladesh is nearly vulture-free now. But thats not good news, scientists say. Absence of vultures raises several public health issues. Vulture is the only professional carrion eater outside of the tiger-territory. Only a vulture can tear through the tough hides of cattle carcasses and eat the flesh before it rots. Other carrion eaters like dogs, jackals and crows must wait till cadavers turn tender after days of rotting. But rotting is what pollutes our air and water.
Scientists say that the vulture is the only creature that can completely digest germs and spread no diseases after eating foul flesh. Amateur carrion eaters like dogs and jackals increase the risk of rabies and other zoonotic diseases in humans. The population of these dangerous amateurs has been rising even as the vultures decline. The public money spent on controlling feral dogs has been growing. Thus, it makes good economic and ecological sense to rehabilitate vultures than allay the ever-increasing public health risks. Now, who is ready to agree with the scientists and mollycoddle the hated vulture! Well, it appears that there are many.
Bangladesh has already formed a National Vulture Recovery Committee. The government has boldly declared two vulture safe zones in the southwest and northeast of the country. The IUCN here has been offering cattle carcass to the vultures during breeding season. Above all those, a regional steering committee has been working to coordinate the efforts of South Asian nations like Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. In the vulture breeding centres, hundreds of chicks are being raised for restocking this vulture-starved region in future. Most significantly, at the behest of the Royal Society for the Protection of Bird, an umbrella organisation named SAVE (Saving Asian Vulture from Extinction) has been formed to promote scientific studies and conservation efforts for the survival of vultures.
The scientific expos on the virtues of vultures and the clamor about public health are bad blows to our age-old vulture-revulsion. But hating vultures may not remain fashionable here for very long. Soon, we may even see I Love Vulture t-shirts in this city.
