By Amartya Deb on 5 September 2018.
Scrolling down my Facebook wall, I came across a post on migratory birds. The orange-yellow tint in the banner and warmth of the image made it a positive emotional experience. Given the enhanced image appeared on a social media wall, a positive experience helps readers develop an aesthetic sense for the otherwise disfigured bird. That does justice to vultures given their value as scavengers who perform clean-up functions in ecosystems and keep a balance in the food-web. Now, an introspection of my emotional upheaval superimposed by the experiences of rural-urban transition help me make sense, that the episode of disappearing vultures has more to offer to future course of urban development.
An extraordinary experience with vultures
The fact vultures are almost extinct is well recognised. As the recent past for the Gyps vultures in South Asia has been gruesome, I can assume the photograph must be looking at a promising future – when the vultures become a common sight again. Then, examining the text below the image, might I suggest that site markers be preserved; illegal hunting and traps be stopped; and wind turbines and electricity lines be better planned so as to mitigate conflicts? Indeed we must look forward to a future – for that is only place where lies our potential to what we can become. But some of us romantics definitely have it backwards. The featured image of a vulture with spread wings, jolted memories that had me embraced with emptiness. Although the vulture in photograph is alive; I cannot escape picturing the dead birds – because I saw them dying.
The heat of the scorching sun jumps out of through the bright yellow tint in the picture. It reminds me of when my brother and I – both below 10 years of age – roamed the paddy fields of the village in search of a man who was half lion and half man. Scouting the fallow fields during summer we found the black-feathered birds, with steely hooked beaks; and bare flesh as if skinned out from faces down to their necks. A vulture grows up to a metre in height, but seemed much bigger to us children. Perhaps biased by my premature impression, and possibly mesmerised by their enormous spread of wings, vultures remain the most frightening, yet fascinating of all birds I have encountered in the natural world.
Download the bookmark info-graphic by IUCN CEM South Asia on vultures: click here
In mid 1990s, vultures were not a rare sight per se. But they only flocked when dead cattle was disposed in the fallow fields. I couldn’t tell if they lived on the tree-tops; for the trees, it seemed then, grew all the way up to the sky. Fellow villagers knew that the scavenger-birds would eat up the carcass leaving the bones behind for dogs. The herders couldn’t possibly fathom a single vulture’s worth to be 585,000 to 696,000 INR (8500 to 9800 USD) – for in early 1990s, that sum meant a decent house. Nonetheless the birds had to be valued, as their service of scavenging offered an immediate and direct benefit to the community. It was fascinating, and even humorous, to find vultures and dogs contest for the carrion; their strategies and manoeuvres to outsmart each other. The very aspect of watching nature’s exposed machinery at work was intriguing – also a rich learning experience.
The unforgettable sight of dying vultures and an invisible cause
One afternoon, when out exploring, we found few vultures lying dead beside a cow’s carcass while other vultures still fed on the carrion. A horrid sight, but more troubled with the questions as to: WHY WAS IT HAPPENING? WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO THE DREADFUL LARGE BIRDS? Slowly the vultures all disappeared. Without any knowledge of their high site-fidelity, I wrongly assumed the birds had found another home.
Less than a decade later, systematic research revealed the environmental fate (pdf) of a veterinary drug (NSAID) called ‘diclofenac’ given to cattle, poisoned the vultures when they ingested the carrion. In 2006, India banned diclofenac for veterinary use. But referring to the forest department, a Times of India article published in 2008 reads, “not a single white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis) has been seen in and around Kolkata since 2005.” Indeed, our efforts to save the species were far from being made ‘on-time’; for once ingested the drug only takes two days to kill the vulture. While IUCN reports an overall decline of 95 per cent of vulture population in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal since 1999, a recent publication from Planet Earth has confirmed attribution to the NSAID as a prevalent cause (pdf). One can picture the scene I described with the dying vultures before – only ‘million times’ worse. But it is not easy for all to picture the intricate bio-chemical processes associated with the phenomenon.
Today the IUCN Red List classifies all Gyps vulture species as Critically Endangered. While the vulture population reads a drop from over 40 million to only several thousands; I can feel a gap in emotion that was mixed in amazement and dread. Although the vultures were frightening to look at, they were extremely enchanting – and more memorable than any other bird in the vicinity of my village. The birds had brought to me unparalleled nature of excitement – making the experience an adventure right next to home. Countless people who might never see the bird, are going to be deprived of that joy.
Responsibility of cities towards rapidly changing natural landscapes
The lesson I take is more than risks associated with use of chemicals, but that Cities Have Invisible Links with Natural Landscapes. Through manufacturing diclofenac, a city was at best innovating new ways of improving the lives of its citizens and in the hinterland by producing medicines, supporting dairy and giving jobs in the process. Then can one pardon the city for ‘not having intentions’ of killing the birds? On one hand, it is the city that produced the diclofenac; on the other while both the city and the hinterlands were unaware of its effects, the city assured the drug’s success playing a part in Schumpeterian growth. Knowledge and innovation being at the heart of the urban, cities have the power to influence regions far beyond its administrative boundaries; this they must use responsibly. Even with their ‘compact’ coverage, cities are continuously changing the natural landscape. Some of these changes like that of the vulture population are devastating, potentially irreversible and unfair. We are fortunate that planning safe-zones, breeding programs and alternative to the drug (pdf) has been able to promise revival of vultures. But, the lesson remains conspicuous. Cities need to be smarter– to the point that they are intelligent enough to understand a priori, what their actions mean for the environment.
Amartya Deb is Managing Editor of Harnessing Nature. Deb is a member of IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management 2017-2020.