KARACHI: Two chicks born to critically endangered white-backed vultures at the Changa Manga Vulture Conservation Cen-tre, located about 80km from Lahore, are six weeks old now, the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) reported on Thursday.

This is the first successful breeding of the species in captivity in the country, according to the organisation which set up the centre in 2007.

The chicks are growing well under the watchful eyes of their parents, according to the WWF-P staff.

The population of the white-backed vulture, Gyps bengalensis, has been on a decline and more than 90 per cent of its historic geographic range in Pakistan, India and Nepal has been lost since the early 1990s.

This drastic fall is attributed to the use of Diclofenac Sodium, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), in livestock. Other harmful NSAIDs include Ketoprofen, Aceclofenac, and Flunixin.

The NGO launched the captive breeding programme in Changa Manga Forest Reserve in 2005 to enhance understanding of the vulture lifecycle. Land for the centre was provided by the Punjab Wildlife and Parks Department with a seed grant from the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi. The Hawk Conservancy Trust (HCT) supported the construction of aviaries and has regularly extended financial and technical support to vulture conservation work.

The facility currently houses 15 white-backed vultures, of which two pairs bred successfully this year, while two other pairs have shown encouraging signs of breeding behaviour.

As a result of lobbying by the organisation, the government banned Diclofenac Sodium in Pakistan in 2006.

“The survival of these chicks is a significant achievement in bringing this critically endangered species back from the verge of extinction. This successfully bred population will contribute in achieving a viable population, once released into the wild,” WWF-P’s Director General Hammad Naqi Khan said.

The organisation also established a safe vulture zone at Nagarparkar in Sindh in 2012 which hosts the last remaining wild population of critically endangered white-backed and long-billed vultures.

To a question why vultures couldn’t breed earlier in captivity, the WWF-P conservation manager at the Lahore office, Humaira Ayesha, said: “It’s a shy bird and takes a lot of time to feel comfortable and mate in a new environment. In an earlier case in which the egg was artificially hatched, the chick couldn’t survive. This is for the first time that both male and female completed the whole incubation period together in the nest.”

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2016