Vulture are declining at a rate of about 97% over three generations (or 56 years).
Tomorrow is vulture awareness day, and I see that today, staff at the RSPB HQ in Sandy are having a vulture themed lunch!
‘Pass on the diclofenac’ should be the message and that message is getting through after years of effort.
I took the paper to the RSPB Board to get involved in vulture conservation so many years ago that it is a distant memory but thanks to the hard work of hundreds of conservationists from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the USA, the UK and many other places the science has been done and there is progress being made.
The RSPB website could do with a bit of an update on its vulture work as it is rather heavy on asks for money and rather light on what is happening now – most of the pages are over three years old. As I understand it, there have been some great leaps forward in the years since I left the RSPB but they are rather difficult to find on the RSPB website (which is quite a common problem with it).
This blog has helped to highlight the problems faced by vultures (see African vultures plummet 18 June 2015, More on vultures 15 October 2014, Video on vultures and diclofenac 7 May 2014, Vultures and diclofenac 20 March 2014) but I’m not really up to speed with what’s happening these days. The offer is open for anyone who can give us a good update on a Guest Blog.
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Some recent good news from India http://www.birdlife.org/asia/news/major-breakthrough-fight-save-asian-vultures-extinction
ITV News at Ten had a short feature on the flight of West African vultures one night last week – made the link with poaching though didn’t mention the earlier catastrophic declines on the Indian subcontinent.
As an RSPB supporter averting vulture exctinction is one of the things which I’m most glad to be paying my subs towards.
Averting vulture extinction, albatross survival, British oversees territories etc etc. Far less happy on UK based work!
There is up-to-date information on http://www.save-vultures.org
I think there is a pressing problem now due to diclofenac being licensed (and used) as a veterinary medicine in Spain, Portugal and Italy – beggars belief!
Ive heard Graham Bessant who runs the Gauntlet in Knutsford
Talk about this as part of their daily bird talks.
Me and my family went from knowing nothing about it so
Suddenly having a huge interest due to the way Graham spoke
About it so passionately. He talked about vultures with such
Love you couldn’t help but look at them in a whole new light
Also they have a vulture awareness day today https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=205245746382&tsid=0.1110152134206146&source=typeahead
I don’t have any connection to them, I just think they’re brilliant 🙂
So the RSPB have a vulture themed lunch (at who’s expense), but they can’t tell their 1.1 million members about Diclofenac being used in Spain? Somethings things not right somewhere.