Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction

Three species of south Asia’s vultures are critically threatened with extinction in the near future. We have to act now to save these birds. The Oriental white-backed vulture was so abundant in India in the 1980s that it was probably the most common large bird of prey in the world. Only one in a thousand now survives, a 99.9% decline for this species. All three species – the Oriental white-backed, the long-billed and the slender-billed vulture have declined by more than 97% since the early 1990s. This shocking decline is because of a veterinary drug, diclofenac, which is toxic to any vulture that feeds on the carcass of recently treated cattle.

Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction from The RSPB on Vimeo.