KARACHI, April 11: An American NGO, working for conservation of birds, has sought the Sindh Wildlife Department's permission to catch vulture chicks and eggs for the purpose of captive breeding, it is learnt.

According to sources, the US-based Peregrine Fund World Centre for Birds of Prey, is seeking permission also for a visit to Nagarparkar, in Tharparkar district, by its 17-member team of experts, most of them foreigners, to collect the chicks and eggs.

The team comprises Martin Gilbert, Kurt Kristopher Burnham, William Albert Burnham, Nadia Sureda, Richard Terry Watson, Russel Kim Thorstrom, William Robert Heinrich and Jim Lesley Wilmarth from USA; Simon Richard James Thomsett and Munir Alam Zulfikarali Virani from Kenya; Ronald Hartley from Zimbabwe; Casper Andreas Haltmann from the Netherlands; and Mohammad Arshad, Shakeel Ahmad, Mohammad Ramzan, Faisal Farid and Mohammad Asim from Pakistan.

The sources said that over the past few years, a large number of at least two vulture species - original white-backed vulture (gyps bengalensis) and long-billed vulture (gyps indicus) - had been dying in Pakistan, India, Nepal and other countries of the region.

A specific research and tests conducted in the region shows that these vultures are facing a serious threat of extinction, probably owing to the effects of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug transmitted through the vultures' feed - animals having been administered the drug during treatment before their death. The feed causes kidney ailments, according to scientists.

The sources recalled that at a summit in Kathmandu a few weeks back, it had been decided that vulture chicks and eggs would be collected from the wild and sent to the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency (ERWDA), UAE, where captive breeding would be done.

The chicks, thus raised in a sufficient number, would then be released in their habitat after ensuring that the environmental conditions had become vulture-friendly.

The ERWDA had offered free of cost captive breeding and transportation of the eggs and birds from Pakistan to its Abu Dhabi facilities, the sources added. They pointed out that about a month back, the Ornithological Society of Pakistan, a Pakistani NGO engaged in research on vultures for many years, had also approached the Sindh Wildlife Department for a permission to collect the eggs and chicks from Nagarparkar.

However, the SWD had not even bothered to respond to the request, they said. In the case of the US-based NGO, the SWD responded promptly and positively, but it had been revealed at the last moment that the department could not grant the permission to a large number of foreigners because Nagarparkar was a sensitive border area.

Before grant of any permission in such cases, the SWD would have to seek an approval from the federal interior and foreign ministries, the sources said, adding that the SWD's enthusiasm and desperation in obliging the American NGO could be gauged from the fact that instead of advising the applicant to seek an approval from the federal authorities at their own, the department had itself approached the authorities on behalf of the NGO.

The Sindh Wildlife Secretary Shamsul Haq Memon told Dawn that the SWD had been keeping the permission in 'ready to be issued' status but it had to wait for the required approval from the federal government. He said that he had also requested necessary security arrangements for the foreign and local experts while on the visit to Nagarparkar.