VULTURES AND PANDEMICS
1. Context
When most of us think of pandemic preparedness, images of vaccines, laboratories, and health workers in protective gear spring to mind. Rarely do we picture a bird, wings outstretched, circling high in the sky. Yet, one of South Asia’s guardians of public health is the vulture, nature’s most efficient waste manager.
2. India's Vultures
- For centuries, vultures have served as natural cleaners, disposing of carcasses and curbing the spread of dangerous pathogens such as anthrax, rabies, and Clostridium botulinum. Until the 1980s, it was common to see large gatherings of vultures at dumping grounds.
- India alone had a population exceeding 40 million, but since the 1990s their numbers have plummeted by over 95% because of the use of diclofenac.
- This crisis is not merely ecological—it is also a growing public health concern, showing how biodiversity loss can amplify the risk of future pandemics.
- India’s vultures form an essential part of the Central Asian Flyway (CAF), a major migratory route that links Central Asian breeding habitats to wintering sites across South Asia.
- This flyway, stretching across 30+ countries, is used by millions of migratory birds each year. As vultures and raptors traverse this corridor, they connect ecosystems—and the potential transmission of diseases—across international borders.
- Sites like landfills, carcass dumps, or temporary stopovers can easily become disease hotspots, making the CAF not just a biodiversity highway but also a corridor of public health importance.
- Strengthening conservation within this pathway provides a crucial chance to integrate ecological security with pandemic prevention.
- Yet, regional collaboration faces hurdles due to funding shortages and weak structural support. Vulture conservation programmes remain under-resourced, fragmented, and insufficiently tied into national One Health frameworks.
- Meanwhile, persistent threats such as poisoning from toxic veterinary drugs and electrocution from power lines continue to undermine recovery efforts
3. Vultures and Pandemics
- Vultures are directly linked to pandemic risks because of the ecological role they play in controlling disease spread. These birds are highly efficient scavengers that consume animal carcasses rapidly, leaving little opportunity for pathogens to multiply and spread in the environment.
- In their absence, dead animals remain exposed for longer periods, attracting stray dogs, rats, and other scavengers that are far more likely to transmit diseases to humans.
- For instance, with the decline of vultures in India due to the veterinary drug diclofenac, there was a noticeable rise in feral dog populations feeding on carcasses.
- This led to an increase in dog bites and rabies cases, showing how biodiversity loss can create new public health challenges.
- Moreover, vultures are part of the Central Asian Flyway, a major migratory corridor linking over 30 countries. Their movement, and that of other raptors, connects ecosystems across borders.
- If vultures decline, carcasses left unmanaged along this corridor can become hotspots for zoonotic spillovers—where pathogens jump from animals to humans. This is especially critical because many pandemics, including COVID-19, have zoonotic origins.
- Therefore, conserving vultures is not only about protecting a species but also about maintaining a natural barrier against disease outbreaks, highlighting the strong intersection between biodiversity conservation and global health security
- With the National Action Plan for Vulture Conservation (2016–2025) approaching its end, India now has the chance to integrate vulture protection into broader strategies for pandemic preparedness.
- By consuming animal carcasses, vultures reduce the risk of zoonotic spillover and thus act as an important line of defence for public health.
- As the earliest scavengers to reach dead animals, they can also serve a crucial role in monitoring and ensuring safe carcass disposal.
- However, their importance in this regard has seldom been formally acknowledged. Likewise, local communities that coexist with vultures remain an overlooked yet vital part of conservation efforts.
- Despite the modest funding required for vulture protection compared to the enormous expenses of managing disease outbreaks, financial frameworks have not yet recognised conservation as a form of pandemic prevention
4. India Protecting Vultures
- A post-2025 national roadmap for vulture conservation could be built around five core pillars. The first would involve nationwide satellite tracking to identify habitats, carcass disposal sites, and potential spillover hotspots.
- The second would establish a Decision Support System (DSS) that combines wildlife, livestock, and human health data for real-time risk monitoring in line with International Health Regulations.
- The third would focus on strengthening inter-agency cooperation through a One Health framework, linking environmental, veterinary, and public health institutions.
- The fourth would emphasize cross-border collaboration along the Central Asian Flyway (CAF), in line with the Convention on Migratory Species and regional preparedness for disease threats.
- Finally, the fifth would promote community involvement, particularly empowering women, youth, and local groups to act as frontline agents for surveillance and awareness.
- Together, these five pillars would safeguard a keystone species, enhance public health systems, and lower pandemic risks while aligning with the World Health Organization’s South-East Asia Regional Office Strategic Roadmap for Health Security (2023–27).
- In essence, by expanding on the current Vulture Action Plan and embedding it within a broader health security framework, India can move from species-specific recovery to a comprehensive resilience strategy.
- This would not only protect vultures but also mitigate zoonotic spillovers and strengthen India’s position as a global leader in biodiversity-driven health security
5. Way Forward
A new framework that brings together surveillance of human, animal, and environmental health, shortens the gap between detection and response, and promotes regional cooperation can help build systemic resilience. This approach is also economically prudent: the investment needed for vulture protection—through satellite tracking, safer veterinary practices, and reducing infrastructure-related risks—is minimal when compared to the massive economic and human costs of managing a disease outbreak.
Given that India hosts a significant portion of the vulture populations along the Central Asian Flyway—such as the Himalayan griffon, cinereous vulture, and Eurasian griffon—and has proven its ability to innovate, it is well placed to demonstrate how conserving biodiversity can function as a strategy for pandemic prevention. By expanding telemetry, putting a Decision Support System (DSS) into operation, and embedding vulture protection within national and regional One Health programmes, India could set an example for neighbouring countries and potentially for the wider world
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For Prelims: Central Asian Flyway (CAF), India’s National Action Plan for Vulture Conservation (2016-25)
For Mains: GS III - Environment and Ecology
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Previous Year Questions
1. Which of the following are the Objectives of 'National Nutrition Mission'? (UPSC 2017)
1. To Create Awareness relating to malnutrition among pregnant women and lactating mothers
2. To reduce the incidence of anaemia among young children, adolscent girls, and women
3. To promote the Consumption of millets, coarse cereals, and unpolished rice
4. To promote the consumption of poultry eggs
Select the correct answer using the code given below
A. 1 and 2 Only B.1, 2 and 3 C. 1, 2 and 4 D. 3 and 4
2. In a given year in India, official poverty lines are higher in some States than in others because (UPSC 2019)
A. Poverty rates vary from State to State
B. Price levels vary from State to State
C. Gross State Product varies from State to State
D. Quality of public distribution varies from State to State
3.Vultures which used to be very common in Indian countryside some years ago are rarely seen nowadays. This is attributed to (2012) (a) the destruction of their nesting sites by new invasive species (b) a drug used by cattle owners for treating their diseased cattle (c) scarcity of food available to them (d) a widespread, persistent and fatal disease among them.
Answers: 1-A, 2- B, 3-b
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Source: The Hindu
