We look at how conservation efforts in India have been pivotal to the survival of these birds.
In the early 2000s, vulture populations in Asia began to crash for no apparent reason. It was eventually discovered that a drug veterinarians used to treat cattle was highly toxic to vultures and poisoning them when they fed on cattle carcasses. The governments of India, Pakistan, and Nepal all worked to ban the toxic drug and support vulture conservation programs.
Twenty years later this is a huge conservation success story. Several Asian vulture populations that had decreased by over 99% before the ban have made huge recoveries thanks to conservation breeding centers, the creation of vulture safe zones, and stricter drug regulations.
