The endangered vultures were bred at BNHS’s centre in Pinjore, Haryana, as part of national conservation efforts; the birds will stay in pre-release aviaries for three months before entering their natural habitat
Vultures were released at the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve as part of the Jatayu Conservation Project on Sunday
In a boost to India’s vulture conservation campaign, the Forest Department of Maharashtra and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) took 20 endangered vultures from the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre in Pinjore, Haryana, and released them in two tiger reserves in Maharashtra. The vultures were placed in pre-release aviaries at the Pench Tiger Reserve and the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR). Both the tiger reserves have previously built aviaries to accommodate them.
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Ten long-billed vultures have been released in the pre-release aviary in Pench Tiger Reserve’s East Pench range, which has already been a home to vultures for many years. In TATR, Sudhir Mungantiwar, state cabinet minister for forests, cultural affairs and fisheries launched the Jatayu Conservation Project on January 21. The Jatayu Conservation Center is a major initiative of the TATR and BNHS, Mumbai, and it aims to re-establish the population of endangered vultures in the area. In the project’s first phase, 10 white-rumped vultures have been kept under the care of researchers in the pre-release aviary in Botezari area, Kolsa range, TATR.
The vultures will stay in the aviary for three months to acclimate and naturally meet wild vultures. They will then be released into their natural habitat. BNHS’s Vulture Conservation Breeding and Research Center at Pinjore, Haryana has been functioning since 2001. Between 1990 and 2006, the number of vultures in the country declined at a very rapid rate. It is estimated that there were 40 million vultures in India before their numbers started plummeting to an estimated 50,000 during the 1990s. Due to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) drug diclofenac used in domestic cattle, the carcasses of which were the main food source for the scavenges, vultures that were once commonly seen near human settlements have now disappeared.
Long-billed vultures, white-backed vultures and slender-billed vultures of the genus Gyps were included in the Critically Endangered list of IUCN. A Vulture Action Plan was published by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in 2006. It banned the veterinary use of the NSAID drug diclofenac, lethal to vultures. Further, to prevent their extinction and boost their population in India, Vulture Conservation Breeding Centers were established in Haryana, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal etc. where more than three affected vulture species were revived through a conservation breeding program. As the newborn vultures from the centres need to be released into their natural habitat, Mungantiwar decided to release them into the tiger reserves.
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