The Environment Ministry has launched the National Action Plan for Vulture Conservation ,2020-25. The plan was approved by the National Board for Wild life, recently.
The plan suggests for a new veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The drugs is to be tested on vultures before they are released commercially
The new plan removes the veterinary use of a drug automatically in case it is found to be toxic to vultures. This will be done with the help of Drugs Controller General of India. Further, every state will host at least one vulture safe zone in order to conserve the remnant population of vultures in the respective state under the plan. These conservation centres would facilitate the conservation and breeding of vultures. Apart from that, the action plan would start a coordinated Nation-wide vulture counting. The counting of the vultures would be done by the Bombay Natural History Society, Forest Department, non-profit organisations, and Research Institute at regular intervals.
The vultures in India face major threats that has lead to decline in vulture population, Major threats include unintentional and intentional poisoning, death due to power grid infrastructure because of collision or electrocution, reduction in food availability for them, diseases, habitat loss as a result of fragmentation and degradation, human interference and climate change.
The scientific name of the Indian Vulture is Gyps Indicus. The vulture is native to India, Pakistan and Nepal. The species has been listed as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List. It was added to the list in the year 2002 after their population declined severely as a result of poisoning caused by the veterinary drug diclofenac. Indian vultures died of kidney failure.