Authorities investigating the discovery of 14 dead vultures in a feeding zone that’s meant to be safe for the scavenging birds have found that they died from eating poisoned bait left for other wildlife.
- The discovery of 14 dead vultures in an area of Bangladesh considered safe for the scavenging birds has highlighted the persistent threats to the birds despite ongoing measures to protect them.
- The vultures are thought to have died after feeding on a goat carcass laced with poison, which local residents had left out for feral dogs and jackals that had killed their livestock.
- Vulture populations across South Asia were decimated in the 1990s by the widespread use of the cattle painkiller diclofenac; birds that fed on dead cattle that had been treated with the drug died of severe poisoning.
- Bangladesh has since banned diclofenac and ketoprofen, another livestock painkiller deemed poisonous to vultures, and established vulture-safe zones around the country in an effort to boost their populations.
The preliminary inquiry by the Bangladesh Forest Department and the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, determined that local people had deliberately poisoned a goat carcass and left it out for feral dogs and jackals that had been attacking the community’s livestock.
The discovery of the dead vultures began with a white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) that IUCN researchers had fitted with a satellite tag in October 2022. On March 22 this year, they noticed that the bird had been transmitting its position from the same location for about 15 days. This prompted them to send a rescue team to the location, where they found the vulture dead and hanging between two trees. A wider search yielded two more dead vultures, also hanging from trees.
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