Tomorrow, the first Saturday of September, is International Vulture Awareness Day (IVAD). The aim of the day is, as the name suggests, to raise awareness of the plight of vulture species across the world. The majority of these are in big trouble, in serious danger of extinction.
Regular readers of this blog will know that back at the end of July I wrote a blog here about the use of veterinary Diclofenac in Europe and how this puts Europe’s vultures in severe danger. The blog also mentioned how a partnership of European wildlife NGOs (Birdlife Europe & Central Asia, SPEA, SEO and the VCF) had come together to launch a campaign to get the use of this drug banned in Europe as well as giving you a link to their petition.
As it is International Vulture Awareness Day tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to update you on progress so far. The petition currently has 11,741 signatures, 3876 of these from the UK. If you are one of these signatories, thank you. If not, then I would ask you to please consider signing this petition to help protect these magnificent birds.
As Iván Ramírez, Head of Conservation at BirdLife Europe and Central Asia mentions, ‘Every single signature counts. We are very happy to see numbers increasing and how citizens, NGOs, governments and farmer, vet and other associations are joining. 2017 can be a crucial year for banning veterinary diclofenac; European governments and the EU are feeling the pressure already.’.
From my point of view it is all very simple. Veterinary Diclofenac has to be banned in the EU; we cannot allow our vultures to be wiped out as they were in the Indian Subcontinent, where 99% of the vulture population was killed by Diclofenac poisoning.
Please sign the petition and if you already have, please get as many of your friends, colleagues etc to sign it as well.
Happy International Vulture Awareness Day! Let’s use it to make people aware of the danger that Europe’s vultures are facing.
Vultures do a very good job, but are persecuted for many reasons by that most evil of creatures ‘Homo Sapiens’
Christopher – welcome! thank you for your comment.
The use of this drug is inexcusable and will eradicate a valuable and interesting family of birds in Europe unnecessarily.
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Andy – eh??