{"id":34277,"date":"2024-07-31T00:57:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T16:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=34277"},"modified":"2024-08-01T05:38:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T21:38:52","slug":"how-indias-vulture-apocalypse-led-to-the-deaths-of-half-a-million-people-lilia-sebouai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/how-indias-vulture-apocalypse-led-to-the-deaths-of-half-a-million-people-lilia-sebouai\/","title":{"rendered":"How India\u2019s vulture apocalypse led to the deaths of half a million people – Lilia Sebouai"},"content":{"rendered":"

The carrion-eating birds of prey provide a vital service for the environment \u2013 cleaning<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

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\"\"<\/span>Vultures prevent the spread of deadly diseases by purging the environment of harmful pathogens
\nthat accumulate on rotting carcasses CREDIT: Kang-Chun Ch (Larger image<\/a><\/span>)<\/span><\/p>\n

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With their bald heads and oily black feathers, vultures have long been reviled as symbols of death and gluttony.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the carrion-eating birds of prey provide a vital service for the environment \u2013 cleaning \u2013 and just how important they can be has been calculated by a team of economists.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sudden collapse of India\u2019s vulture population has led to more than half a million excess human deaths in the last five years, according to a peer-reviewed study<\/a><\/span> in the American Economic Review.<\/span><\/p>\n

A flock of vultures can pick a carcass clean in a matter of minutes, purging the environment of harmful bacteria and pathogens that accumulate on the rotting remains of livestock and preventing the spread of deadly diseases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even the excrement of some species of vulture can carry cleaning powers, with its high acidity helping to disinfect the ground surrounding the dead animal corpses.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the 1990s, vulture populations on the Indian subcontinent plummeted by a staggering 99 per cent \u2013 the fastest decline of a bird species in recorded history, according to the latest State of India\u2019s Birds report.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nFor years, scientists were baffled by the sudden extinction. It was only in 2004 that diclofenac \u2013 a cheap painkiller widely used to treat cattle that is deadly to vultures if they ingest it \u2013 was identified as the cause.<\/span><\/p>\n

The drug was then banned across South Asia in 2006, after it was discovered that even tiny traces of it could cause devastation to bird populations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt all just happened so fast,\u201d said Dr Anant Sudarshan, one of the study\u2019s co-authors and an economics professor at the University of Warwick.<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up in New Delhi, Dr Sudarshan remembered seeing large flocks of vultures lining river banks on his journey to school.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen these birds disappeared, suddenly there were all these dead carcasses lying around\u2026and were no longer delivering these scavenging services,\u201d Dr Sudarshan told The Telegraph. \u201cThat change was quite visible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The report estimates that the decline caused a four per cent rise in human deaths in districts where the birds once thrived, resulting in more than $69 billion (\u00a353 billion) per year in mortality damages \u2013 the economic costs associated with premature deaths.<\/span><\/p>\n

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After the vultures disappeared, the rotting carcasses of livestock animals oozed diseases and bacteria that polluted waterways and fuelled a rise in feral, and sometimes rabid, dogs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many deep connections between human beings and non-human species in terms of services and ways in which we depend on them,\u201d said Dr Sudarshan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIndia generates a lot of cattle and when those cattle die, those carcasses need to be scavenged. This is particularly true in India, because the cow is a holy animal. You don\u2019t have a lot of beef being eaten.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists have warned that governments in Europe and South Asia are still failing to sufficiently regulate veterinary drugs<\/a><\/span> to protect vultures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seven out of 11 of the vulture species found in Africa, responsible for cleaning up 70 per cent of the continent\u2019s carrion, are now on the verge of extinction. Diclofenac is also still in circulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfrica is much less densely populated than India. So the change is not as sudden, but it will get there,\u201d said Dr Sudarshan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Eyal Frank, an assistant professor at University of Chicago and one of the authors of the study, said that the report serves as a warning of \u201chow bad it can get when a component of the ecosystem collapses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t
Why we should all be worried about a vulture apocalypse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The birds are synonymous with death and gluttony \u2013 but their plummeting numbers could spell serious trouble for humans.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Click image for larger view<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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A catastrophic decline of vulture populations in Africa and Asia is causing alarm among researchers, who fear that a \u201ccascade\u201d effect\ncould lead to the spread of deadly old and new diseases, including plague, anthrax, and rabies<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

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The report highlights the large value of ecosystem services from so-called keystone species \u2013 those that help tie the ecosystem together \u2013 and recommends for policy makers to focus on them when targeting conservation and protection efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe think of these kinds of statements about human beings being kind of intertwined with nature as this kind of hippie concept, but it\u2019s [actually] quite mechanical and instrumental,\u201d said Dr Sudarshan, adding that he was optimistic that the message was beginning to getting through.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is happening in the background\u2026ecologists have pointed out that the planet is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction in history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Previous mass extinction events have been caused by climate change, meteors and even dinosaurs dying out. But the current one is caused by \u201chuman activity,\u201d the report said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are introducing a lot of toxins into the environment and introducing a lot of changes to habitats\u2026but we aren\u2019t broadening our risk assessment of things that directly harm us,\u201d said Dr Sudarshan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t broaden it beyond what directly harms human beings \u2026then we\u2019re going to risk seeing more and more of these [extinctions]…and it\u2019s not easy to reverse,\u201d he warned.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Lilia Sebouai – Source<\/span><\/a>
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\nRelated<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Why we should all love the vulture By <\/span><\/a>Matilda Battersby | BBC<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Vulture-killing drug still being sold in India: Researchers<\/span><\/a> | The Statesman<\/span><\/p>\n

This environmental disaster caused 99.9 percent of white-rumped vultures and 97 percent of long and slender-billed vultures to be wiped out – a staggering 40 million birds – pushing these birds to the brink of extinction.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The carrion-eating birds of prey provide a vital service for the environment \u2013 cleaning   Vultures prevent the spread of deadly diseases by purging the environment of harmful pathogens that accumulate on rotting carcasses CREDIT: Kang-Chun Ch (Larger image)   With their bald heads and oily black feathers, vultures have long been reviled as symbols […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[401,624,6,47,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animals-domesticated-and-free","category-education","category-environment","category-health","category-political-issues"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}