Annually 100,000 people died in India due to the decline of Vultures
Once upon a time, large numbers of vultures were seen all over India. These special birds used to fly over garbage heaps and in search of dead animals.
Vultures have been seen getting into airplane engines at airports, posing a danger to pilots. But more than two decades ago, vultures started dying in India, including its subcontinent. This was due to the use of a drug to treat sick cows.
In the mid-1990s, there were 50 million vultures alone in India. Since then, the use of cheap non-steroidal painkiller Diclofenac has started again in the treatment of cattle.
In this, a large number of vultures gradually came to a kind of zero. The vultures die after becoming ill after eating the carcasses of animals treated with the drug.
In this incident, the Indian government banned the use of diclofenac in the treatment of cattle in 2006. As a result, the tendency of vultures to decrease in some areas is reduced.
The latest report from the State of India’s Birds shows that 91 to 98 percent of at least three species of vultures are exposed to the drug in the long term.
The use of diclofenac is not limited to the reduction of vultures. New research shows that the decrease in these birds, which feed on dead animals, leads to an increase in harmful bacteria and infections, causing the deaths of about 500,000 people in India in the last five years. A related research report has been published in the Journal of the American Economic Association.
Yale Frank, co-author of the study and assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, said,
“Vultures are considered nature’s cleaners.” Because they play an important role in removing various harmful elements and bacterial remains of dead animals from the environment. If there is no vulture, disease can spread.
Yale Frank also said, ‘The role of vultures in protecting human health highlights the need to protect wild animals. It’s not just cute and cuddly animals that need to be protected; Rather, all wild animals must be protected. All animals play a role in our ecosystem, which affects our lives.’
Yale Frank and another co-author of the study conducted a comparison of human mortality rates before and after vulture decline in various once vulture-rich districts of India. They also studied sales of rabies vaccines, the captive dog population, and the presence of pathogens in the provided water.
Researchers discovered that when the sales of anti-inflammatory and painkillers for treating livestock went up, the vulture population decreased, leading to a human mortality increase of over 4% in districts that were once populated by vultures.
The use of diclofenac is not limited to the reduction of vultures. New research shows that the decrease in these birds’ population leads to an increase in harmful bacteria and infections. This, in turn, causes the death of around 500,000 people in a span of 5 years.
The researchers also found that urban areas tended to have higher human mortality rates as vulture populations declined. The scene was filled with an abundance of majestic cattle. There was also a pile of dead animals.
According to researchers, between 2000 and 2005, the decline of vultures in India led to an extra 100,000 deaths annually. Premature deaths cause a financial loss of over 69 billion dollars annually.
Research shows that more and more people die every year due to the spread of diseases and harmful bacteria. If the vulture population had not decreased, it could have prevented disease spread and eliminated bacteria from the environment. For example, the decline of vultures increases the number of vicious dogs and the spread of rabies among humans.
At that time sales of rabies vaccine increased, but the supply was insufficient. Dogs do not play as much a role as vultures in removing the remains of dead animals. In this, bacteria and pathogens spread in drinking water supplied due to lack of proper sanitation.
In India, vultures mainly rely on wild animal carcasses in protected areas, instead of livestock, as per the State of India’s Birds report.
The continued decline of the vulture indicates an ongoing threat to this bird. It also raises concerns about the negative impact of vulture decline on human health.
Experts warn that drugs used to treat livestock are still a major threat to vultures. A decline in drug-free livestock carcasses and an increase in the number of feral dogs are compounding the problem.
