Bombay Natural History Society released a Report indicating Growth in Vulture Population

The research paper published by the scientists of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) presents a positive report about the change in the number of vultures, which resulted in a catastrophic decline in its number by more than 99 percent in past two decades. The study reveals that there has been a marginal rise in the population of Vultures between 2011 and 2012.

The population of vulture during early nineties saw a dramatic fall and by 2003, its population saw a record fall of 95 percent, which by 2008 reached to an alarming mark of more 99 percent. In 1980s there population ranged to about 4 crore but by 2011 there was a dramatic fall recorded in its population and it reached to a mark of about 1 lakh. The Study also issued a warning that the stabilization on the number of this bird is encouraged but this increase in number and stabilization is yet a weak figure.

Sudden fall in the number of vultures that flies in the high sky, was the use of diclofenac, the painkiller drug that is used for administering cattle. Actually, the digestive system of vultures is capable enough to digest disease causing pathogens that is found in the rotten meat, but it also lacks the critical enzyme, that can easily break-down the diclofenac. This diclofenac causes a sudden renal failure in vultures just after eating the remains of cattles, treated with diclofenac as drug.

In the year 2006, a ban was created on the use of diclofenac in the South-Asian region and this ban resulted in the fall in the number of deaths reported in case of these vultures.