As vultures disappear, minister calls for 'safe zones'
Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav has called for the establishment of 'Vulture Safe Zones' to combat the sharp decline in India's vulture population. The initiative aims to address the primary cause of death, which is the ingestion of livestock carcasses treated with the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac.
Why it matters
Vultures are critical scavengers in the ecosystem, and their disappearance poses significant risks to public health and environmental sanitation.
NEW DELHI: With vultures vanishing from nearly 72% of their historically known nesting sites across India, Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav Sunday called for persistent efforts to create 'Vulture Safe Zones' to aid species recovery in the wild.Known as Nature's most efficient scavengers, the vulture population has seen a sharp decline since the 1990s, mainly due to disruption in their food chain and veterinary use of diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug that was commonly administered to livestock across the country.
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