Mumbai: Long-billed vultures a step closer to be re-wilded

In a boost to the lsquoJatayursquo vulture conservation initiative in India the state forest department and Bombay Natural History Society BNHS has attached GPS tags to 10 endangered Longbilled vultures brought from the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre in Haryana and kept in the prerelease aviary at the Pench Tiger Reserve of MaharashtraThey were brought on the day of inaugration of Ram Temple The vultures were released in the soft release ie prerelease aviaries in the Pench Tiger Reserve and Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in MaharashtraTen Longbilled vultures were released in the prerelease aviary set up in East Pench range of Pench Tiger Reserve On January 21 a Jatayu Conservation Project was launched in Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve by Sudhir Mungantiwar Minister for forests cultural affairs and fisheries The Jatayu Conservation Center has been set up as a major initiative of TadobaAndhari Tiger Reserve and BNHS with aim of reestablishing a population of the endangered Jatayu in the areaThe Longbilled vulture with GPS tag at the Pench Tiger ReserveIn the first phase 10 Whiterumped Vultures from this center were kept under the care of the researchers in the prerelease aviary created in the Botezari area of Kolsa range of TadobaAndhari tiger reserve These vultures were kept in the aviary for about five months to acclimatize with the local condition and to allow them to naturally meet the wild vultures and then released into their natural habitatBetween 1990 and 2006 the number of vultures in the country declined at a very rapid rate Due to the NSAID drug Diclofenac used in domestic cattle the vultures that were commonly seen near human settlements have now disappeared Since carcasses of dead cattle are the main food of vultures the number of vultures that depend on these domestic animals has declined rapidlyMainly Longbilled vulture Whitebacked vultures and Slenderbilled vultures of the genus Gyps were included in the Critically Endangered list of IUCN A Vulture Action Plan was published by the Union Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change in 2006 for the conservation of these vultures and it also banned the veterinary use of NSAID drug Diclofenac which causes the death of these vulturesVulture Conservation Breeding Centers were established to revive these vultures Recently Minister Mungantiwar decided to release vultures into their natural habitat highlighting the significance of ldquoJatayurdquo from the RamayanaIn Pench Tiger Reserve 10 Longbilled vultures were released under the guidance of Dr Prabhu Nath Shukla The release was carried out by Vivek Rajurkar Manan Singh Mahadev Dr Sujith Kolangath and others The BNHS team led by Kishor Rithe and Dr Shukla completed the tagging operation with assistance from various experts and staffRithe thanked the governments of Haryana and Maharashtra the Central Zoo Authority and the Ministry of Environment Forests and Climate Change for their support in vulture conservation10No of vultures tagged