Protection Efforts
Today about a hundred of the vultures are in captivity, distributed among three major facilities in Pakistan and India, Johnson said.
The facilities, however, are separated due to political and logistical barriers that "potentially hamper exchange … and the maintenance of genetic diversity even further," the study said.
"There need to be more facilities to house these birds," Johnson said. Computer simulations suggest that at least 300 vultures would have to be in captivity to protect the diversity needed to ensure the species' ability to adapt to changing environments and recover.
The study was based on genetic diversity analysis of vulture breeding colonies in Pakistan from 2000 to 2006.
The last survey samples were taken in 2006, however, so the diversity levels could already be in decline, Johnson said.
(Related story: "Can Captive Breeding Rescue Vultures from Extinction?" [May 11, 2004])
Bad Drugs
Key to the species' long-term recovery is the removal of diclofenac from the vulture's habitat.
Researchers were told that manufacturing of the drug has now been banned in the region, but Johnson was skeptical that the measure would be enough to keep diclofenac from showing up in the vulture's natural habitat.
"Certainly there's a stockpile of the drug left in India," he said.
Farmers in the area may also be giving their livestock a form of the drug that is approved for humans and not banned.
Todd Katzner, director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, agreed with the study's dire message that as many oriental white-backed vultures as possible need to be put into captivity.
"The threat to these birds is immediate, and birds that are not brought in are almost certain to die," he said in an email.
However, there still is hope for the species.
"If diclofenac is removed completely from the environment, then it is possible that these populations will recover," Katzner said.
"It is generally assumed that these populations are unlikely to return to their former levels," he said. "But they could reach a new stable state, probably with fewer birds."
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