Photo credit: Dr Jess Bodgener

WILDLIFE HEALTH: THE MISSING PIECE OF THE CONSERVATION PUZZLE

‍This December, our main fundraiser of the year, the Big Give Christmas Challenge, will focus on the vital need to put Wildlife Health at the heart of conservation.

Please look out for the campaign, which will run from 2^nd-9^th December 2025.

Thank you in advance for sharing, talking about it and giving!

Read more about why Wildlife Health is the Missing Piece of the Conservation Puzzle;

Read more about the development of new rapid diagnostic tests for canine distemper virus in wild carnivores.

Read more about the need for better treatment of cold-stunned sea turtles washing up on UK beaches.

‍NOBODY DOES IT BETTER

Vultures, and their unique role in maintaining ecosystem health, were misunderstood until it was almost too late. Scrawny necked, bald headed and equipped with a fearsome beak, the vulture may not be your traditional wildlife conservation poster boy, but looks can be deceptive.

Like other scavengers, these incredible birds often get a bad rap for being ‘unclean’ and yet the truth is quite the opposite. Natural scavengers play a vital role in keeping the environment clean, containing pathogens and recycling nutrients. In the case of vultures, they are nature’s most efficient clean-up merchants, working together to strip a cow or deer carcass to the bone in as little as twenty minutes. The speed and efficiency with which vultures are able to dispose of a carcass means deadly bacteria don’t have time to multiply and spread. Powerful stomach acid, with a pH which is up to 100 times more acidic than that of humans, combined with high body temperatures, allows vultures to ingest carrion infected by bacteria such as anthrax without any ill-effects. They are effectively a dead end for a whole host of dangerous pathogens, from TB, cholera and brucellosis to foot-and-mouth and rabies, which can knock out the rest of us - humans, livestock and other wildlife.

Catastrophic Decline

But this key ecosystem service, improving sanitation and significantly reducing the risk of disease, relies on large and stable vulture populations. On the Indian subcontinent, disaster struck in the1990s. The decade saw an unprecedented catastrophic decline in vulture numbers, from an estimated 40 million to just a few thousand. The number of white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) alone crashed by a staggering 99.9%, leaving just one in a thousand alive[1], and making it the most imperilled bird of prey in the world.

To try and understand the scale of overall vulture decline, you can think of it as representing 5,000 birds dying every day for 15 years [2].

Meanwhile, less efficient scavengers, like dogs and rats, were quick to fill the vacuum left by vultures.The feral dog population in particular exploded, with an increase of 5.5 million in India coinciding with tumbling vulture numbers. Dogs and rats ingest the rotting meat and can become carriers of any pathogens or parasites present –spreading disease to other species, including humans. What’s more, the increase in dog numbers is believed to be at least partially responsible for an increased incidence of rabies, which killed over 47 thousand people in India  between 1992 and 2006[3].

What had happened?

Getting to the bottom of what was behind the decimation of vulture numbers, not just in India but also in Pakistan and Nepal, proved challenging. Eventually, in 2004 an international team of scientists successfully identified the cause as the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac, which had become established as a cheap and popular way to treat pain and fever in cattle. While the drug was a godsend for cattle owners, tests revealed that it quickly caused renal failure and death in vultures, for whom cattle carcasses typically made up a significant proportion of their diet. Further investigation uncovered the fact that the drug had only been adopted for veterinary use locally in the early 1990s, after the original patent expired – making it possible to produce affordable generic versions for the local market. The link to the decline of vultures had been made.

Back from the Brink

Once diclofenac had been confirmed as the source of the problem, rapid action by range state governments to ban the veterinary use of the drug, and encourage the use of meloxicam as an alternative, as well as huge coordinated conservation efforts, including the establishment of a number of captive breeding centres, meant that the Indian subcontinent’s vultures were slowly pulled back from the brink of extinction. Nevertheless, they remain vulnerable, partly due to ongoing illegal use of diclofenac and the use of other NSAIDs which we now know are also toxic to vultures, but also to the fact that vultures do not breed rapidly. They don’t reach maturity until they are five, spend six weeks building a nest and lay only one egg a year. These incredibly animals are very far from out of the woods.

The need for on-going education

Despite concerted action by governments, the use of NSAIDs that are toxic to vultures is a continuing problem, and the need for on-going education of veterinary professionals on the importance of using safe alternatives is paramount. This is particularly true both because many of the current generation of veterinary and conservation professionals have never lived with naturally high vulture numbers and don’t always fully appreciate their importance to the environment, but also because the list of NSAIDs which are toxic to vultures continues to grow with new research. Most recently, aceclofenac, ketoprofen, nimesulide and flunixin have all been added. The need to promote meloxicam and tolfenamic acid as safe alternative NSAIDs remains key to protecting the health of vultures, other animal life and humans.

‍Operation Avian 2026

Reinforcing the message about the need to use these safe alternatives is one of the goals of our Operation Avian conference and workshops in India in January 2026. We will be working once again with local animal rescue charity, RAKSHA Jaipur, and the Apollo College of Veterinary Medicine in Jaipur, to improve the avian medicine knowledge and skills of local vets. While only a small proportion of the attendees are likely to encounter vultures themselves in their everyday work, it is a perfect opportunity to reinforce understanding of the vital need to keep up to date with the list of NSAIDs known to be vulture-toxic, and encourage people to spread the word about safe alternatives.

WVI has worked in India during the Uttarayan festival, which marks the end of winter, for well over a decade. The holiday typically features kite-flying games and contests. Despite effective local information campaigns, not everyone disposes of their kite string (often coated with powdered glass to better severe the string of an opponent’s kite) responsibly, or heeds advice to avoid flying kites at dawn or dusk. As a result, thousands of birds and other small animals are tragically killed and injured every year, asa result of becoming entangled in discarded kite string. Operation Avian, which combines an initial conference and practical workshops for vets, vet students and rehabilitators with hands-on clinical support at pop-up roadside treatment camps for birds injured by kite strings, has become an important opportunity to educate and empower local veterinary professionals. As such, it’s the perfect chance to incorporate a focus on the plight of the vulture and how their vital on-going recovery can be supported.

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[1] https://www.rspb.org.uk/join-and-donate/donate/appeals/asian-vultures/vulture-factfiles/

[2] https://www.animalfriendly.earth/11-forty-million-vultures/?fbclid=IwAR3rLEQv5zE87NKkcAEu3ifoSu10IRlKv-45aANhz_DzvQLLoevDEpd-LuM

[3]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23644288_Counting_the_costs_of_Vulture_decline_-_an_appraisal_of_human_health_and_other_benefits_of_Vultures_in_India

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