Photo:Petra Karstedt/WikimediaResearch published by the BirdLife Partnership in the journal Biology Letters has discovered a second veterinary drug causing lethal effects in Asian vultures, adding further pressure to already beleaguered vulture populations.For every 1,000 White-rumped Vultures Gyps bengalensis occurring in southern Asia in the 1980s only one remains today because of the lethal effects of diclofenac - a drug used to treat livestock - on vultures. Alarmingly, researchers looking into safe alternatives have now identified that a second, livestock treatment in Asia - ketoprofen - is also lethal to the birds. Vultures feeding on the carcasses of recently-treated livestock suffer acute kidney failure within days of exposure.
Following this discovery, the RSPB, the Bombay Natural History Society and Bird Conservation Nepal - (BirdLife in the UK, India and Nepal) - are calling for tighter controls on the use of this second drug in veterinary use in southern Asia. The organisations are keen to see the promotion of drugs that are safe, and currently the only similar livestock treatment known to have no harmful effects on the continent's vultures is meloxicam. Meloxicam is no longer under patent and is currently manufactured by at least 20 companies in South Asia.
Richard Cuthbert of the RSPB said, "From millions of individuals in the 1980s, vultures have simply disappeared from large swathes of India, Pakistan and Nepal and at least three species have been brought to the brink of extinction. The rate of decline of these magnificent birds is staggering. For White-rumped Vultures, for every two birds alive last year, one will now be dead, and this is all because of the birds' inability to cope with these drugs in livestock carcasses, the birds' principal food source."
He added, "Everyone interested in conservation, quite rightly knows about the plight of India's tigers, but in the race towards extinction the vultures will get there far sooner!"
Dr Vibhu Prakash, Director of the Vulture Programme of the Bombay Natural History Society in India, added, "Only meloxicam has been established as a safe alternative for vultures, while at the same time being an effective drug for treating cattle. We would like to see other safe alternatives, but it should be the responsibility of the Indian pharmaceutical industry to test these to determine their safety to vultures."
The research, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, shows that ketoprofen is lethal to the birds in the dosages that would be administered to livestock to reduce pain and swelling of those animals suffering from rheumatism or arthritis. Worryingly, researchers have already recorded the drug in one in 200 carcasses in southern Asia, with 70 per cent of those occurring in potentially lethal concentrations.
The authors add that ketoprofen could already be contributing to further declines of the remaining vulture populations caused by diclofenac, and this is a trend likely to increase if ketoprofen replaces diclofenac. In addition to ketoprofen and diclofenac, other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs sold by veterinary pharmacies for treating livestock include meloxicam, phenylbutazone, analgin, nimesulide, flunixin and ibuprofen. Just three of these have been tested to determine their effects on vultures. Diclofenac and ketoprofen cause lethal kidney failure and only meloxicam is known to be safe.
The RSPB and the UK Government's Darwin Initiative have been the main funders of research to find safe alternative drugs and to measure levels of diclofenac contamination in the environment, as well as in partnership with the Indian and Nepalese governments supporting construction and running costs of the vulture breeding centres.
