ISLAMABAD: The white-rumped vulture is disappearing faster than conservationists can count, says a new study.

The 40-page document, “National vulture conservation strategy and action plan” says in Pakistan the population of white-rumped vulture (WRV) declined by over 95pc since the mid-1990s.

According to experts, WRV used to be the species of least concern.

“If there is any bird that needs to be saved it is the white-rumped vulture. In the last 10 years, WRV has disappeared so drastically that it has skipped all intermediary stages of being declared as vulnerable, threatened and endangered, and gone straight from least concerned to critically endangered species not just in Pakistan but the whole of subcontinent,” said Director Biodiversity Programme, Ministry of Climate Change, Naeem Ashraf Raja.

In Pakistan, where hundreds of thousands could once be found, the population of WRV is down to an estimated 102 in Nagarparker (according to a census in 2015). Another 50 were spotted in Azad Jammu Kashmir during the census and the number is decreasing.

The report was prepared with support from the USAID and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The WRV is one of the eight species of vultures found in Pakistan. Except for the Himalayan and Griffon Eurasian vultures, the remaining six species such as the red-headed, long-billed and cinereous vultures are being driven to extinction.

Less than 503 critically endangered Indian long-billed vultures can be found in Pakistan today. The picture is as gloomy with the Egyptian vulture that is not more than an estimated 650. The cinereous and the bearded vultures are the two species that are near threatened.

The major cause of decline in the population of vultures has got human fingerprints on it. The use of painkiller drug, diclofenic, injected into weak, sick and old domestic animals is the major reason for these declines.

“The drug is retained in the carcasses that vultures used to feed on. The drug causes kidney failure in the vultures leading to their death,” said Mr Raja.

He said when a research indicated the severity of the effects of diclofenic on the vulture population, the governments of India, Pakistan and Nepal banned the drug in veterinarian uses in 2006.

But the drug can still be obtained from pharmacies for human consumption.

However, conservationists are now urging farmers to replace diclofenic with meloxicam with little or no poisonous impacts on vultures.

The second reason behind the decline in the vulture population is the destruction of their natural habitat. Mr Raja said WRV raised one chick a year. However, its nests were destroyed and chicks killed when the forest covers were cleared in the past.

“Sadly, the felling season coincided with the breeding season of vultures.”

He warned that the near extinction of WRV was alarming.

“It’s disturbing to learn that we have managed to lose a species in our lifetime that was of least concern a decade ago. Vultures are a barometer that reveals our impact on the eco-system that sustains us,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2017