12 February 2004
Diclofenac tops the food chain
The reason for the mysterious and drastic decline of vulture populations in India and Pakistan may have been uncovered. It seems that that Oriental white-backed vultures (Gyps bengalensis) have fallen victim to diclofenac, a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug present in the livestock carcasses that they scavenge upon. Over the past ten years, some G. bengalensis populations have plummeted by more than 95%, most of the deaths due to kidney failure and visceral gout. Many dead birds in the wild in Pakistan contain residues of diclofenac, and vultures in experimental colonies have been found to develop kidney failure and gout when fed the drug either directly or via carcasses of livestock treated with it. Diclofenac is widely used by veterinarians in the Indian subcontinent. And there may be more than simple conservation at stake — followers of India's Parsee faith traditionally rely on vultures to dispose of human corpses.
Diclofenac residues as the cause of vulture
population decline in Pakistan
J. LINDSAY OAKS, MARTIN GILBERT, MUNIR Z. VIRANI,
RICHARD T. WATSON, CAROL U. METEYER, BRUCE A. RIDEOUT, H. L. SHIVAPRASAD,
SHAKEEL AHMED, MUHAMMAD JAMSHED IQBAL CHAUDHRY, MUHAMMAD ARSHAD, SHAHID
MAHMOOD, AHMAD ALI & ALEEM AHMED KHAN
Nature 427, 630–633 (2004); doi:10.1038/nature02317
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Conservation biology: Fatal medicine for vultures
ROBERT RISEBROUGH
In an echo of events that unfolded earlier in the West, declines of vulture
populations in the Indian subcontinent are linked to an environmental
poison. Three species of these birds approach extinction.
Nature 427, 596–596 (2004); doi:10.1038/nature02365
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