They may not be your most favourite bird to look at and certainly wouldn’t win any beauty contests but the future of three of Southern Asia’s largest scavengers are severely threatened. Numbers have declined dramatically and continue to do so at around 40% per year. To put it into perspective this is a faster rate of decline than that suffered by the ill-fated dodo and it places these three critically endangered species (oriental white-backed, long and slender billed vultures) on the brink of extinction!

Extensive research has identified the cause of the decline to be diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug routinely administered to livestock in Asia. Vultures are exposed to the drug when they consume carcasses of animals that were treated a few days before death only in their case it is highly toxic, causing them to die of kidney failure.

The potential loss of these vulture species has profound ecological and social consequences in Asia. Vultures play a vital ecosystem service by rapidly disposing of carcasses that would otherwise pose a risk of disease. With the decline of vultures there has been a dramatic increase in feral dog numbers, which pose a real risk to human health and safety.

All is not lost however and a group called Vulture Rescue aims to halt the species decline and to minimise the ecological and social costs of the decline in the three key species.  Through an active program of conservation research, captive breeding and advocacy Vulture Rescue is working to ensure the survival of vultures in Asia.

Vulture Rescue is a collaboration between a large number of regional and international conservation organisations, working together to help solve the vulture conservation crisis. Vulture Rescue's mission is to "Respond to the vulture crisis in Asia by striving to halt vulture population declines and working to minimise their negative impacts on ecological and human health".

The Vulture Advocacy Programme is spearheaded by Nita Shah of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and is based in Delhi. The programme was initiated in November 2004, with RSPB funding, and has received much of its further funding from the Global Environment Facility (UK Government, directed through British High Commission, Delhi), together with additional support from the RSPB. Since April 2007, RSPB has taking on full support of this crucially important programme.

The involvement of BNHS in the capture and breeding of vultures in India continues to expand and the programme now holds 182 vultures in captivity at three centres in the States of Haryana, West Bengal and Assam.