Written by Mubina Akhtar
The news of death of around 25 Himalayan Griffon Vultures from Uttar Pradesh recently sent shock waves through the conservation community, highlighting key gaps in conservation plans to revive vulture populations. The incident took place at Semarya village in the Lakhimpur Kheri district on April 7, 2026. Locals found the vultures collapsed one after another after feeding on a dog carcass in the buffer of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve.
The dog carcass was reportedly used as poison bait by some villager to get rid of feral dogs hunting livestock. It was suspected that dogs were fed rice mixed with pesticide. The Himalayan Griffon Vulture (Gyps himalayensis) is native to the Himalayas. This majestic Old World vulture has been listed as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The mass death of the scavenging birds has drawn attention to secondary poisoning emerging as a significant ecological hazard.
Vulture mass mortality events have been reported from other states too. Mass casualty involving secondary poisoning were increasingly been reported from Assam frequently involving dozen to several dozen in a single incident. Just a day before the Uttar Pradesh incident, death of 16 Himalayan vultures were reported from the northeastern state.
On April 6, 2026, villagers at Hokai Pothar, Jamugurihat, in the Sonitpur district found the scavenging birds died after feeding on a poisoned cow carcass. Last year 13 vulture deaths were reported from the Kamrup district. The cause of death of the birds, reported from the Kamrup West Forest Division, was carbofuran (often called Furadon) used as a poisoning agent in the retaliatory killing of predators.
In March 2024, nine vulture deaths (including slender-billed species) had been reported from the same area. The beginning of 2022 saw death of a dozen vultures in Sipajhar in the Darrang district. In 2021, death of some 36 vultures in four villages under the Doomdooma Forest Division in upper Assam’s Tinsukia district caused widespread concern.
Among the dead birds were the Himalayan griffon (Gyps himalayensis) and the critically endangered Oriental white-backed (Gyps bengalensis) and Slender-billed species (Gyps tenuirostris) that fed off the carcass of a poisoned cow. In February, 2019 around 25 vultures died when Dhanapati Das of Kamalpur, Baihata in Kamrup district, laced the carcass of a goat with pesticide to kill the dog that attacked it. He was jailed after the State forest department lodged a complaint against him for not burying the carcass.
Later in March that year, 37 vultures died after feeding off a poisoned cow carcass. The incident was reported from the Sivasagar district.
There have been catastrophic decline in vulture numbers over the years. Population of red-headed vultures or the Asian king vulture (Sarcogyps calvus) declined by 91 per cent while the Oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures decreased massively with 99% between the 1990s and 2007- one of the most drastic declines in bird populations in the world that resulted in their Critically Endangered status.
The sharp decline has been attributed to the indiscriminate use of Diclofenac— an anti-inflammatory medicine used to treat sick cows later banned for veterinary use in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The toxic drug, used as a painkiller in cattle, has led to catastrophic decline in South Asian vulture populations.
The drug could still be found in pharmacies in India and untrained villagers tend to overdose sick cows that later becomes lethal for vultures. Not only Diclofenac, but several other painkillers used by veterinarians have been contributing to the death of these of these slow breeding birds.
Despite success of captive breeding programmes, conservation plans face critical gaps.
Assam houses at least six species of vultures. In a significant boost to conservation of Gyps Vultures, six captive-bred along with four rehabilitated, rescued White-rumped vultures were released into the wild at the Vulture Reintroduction Aviary in Rani Range, near Guwahati on March 19, 2026.
The initial milestone was achieved on December 8, 2025 when 30 White-rumped (Gyps bengalensis) and five Slender-billed vultures (Gyps tenuirostris) from the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (VCBC), Rani, were released into a soft release aviary in the Sixth Addition of Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.
A joint initiative of Assam State Forest Department and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), the VCBC at Rani in the Kamrup district of Assam has come a long way from breeding to reintroducing the critically endangered birds to rebuild their wild population and plans for regular annual releases.
To make the releases safe, plans are afoot to create Vulture Safe zone involving extensive testing of cattle carcasses for the banned veterinary drug Diclofenac. Meanwhile two other drugs Aceclofenac and Ketoprofen—that pose a fatal threat to vultures—were banned and subjected to similar testing.
While toxic veterinary drugs caused massive decline in populations of these scavenging birds, unintentional poisoning of animal carcasses to kill large carnivores and even feral dogs have emerged as a devastating cause of mass vulture mortality.
“The vulture is an important scavenging bird that helps maintain a clean surrounding since these birds eat up almost every part of carcass of animals and other livestock and thereby help to prevent spreading of diseases,” said Sachin Ranade, senior scientist associated with the Bombay Natural History Society and in-charge of the Vulture Conservation and Breeding Center (VCBC) in Assam.
“This unintentional poisoning has become a dangerous trend”, he said.
It has been observed that from January till April packs of feral dogs tend to hunt livestock. The owners would poison the carcass of the cattle with inorganic agricultural pesticides to get rid of the predator— jackals, leopards or feral dogs, for their loss.
The period from November to March is also critical as it coincides with breeding of resident species and presence of the migratory Himalayan griffon. Vultures die as a result of this inadvertent poisoning of cattle carcasses with lethal pesticide like carbofuran.
This retaliation leads to vulture deaths every year. Experts suggest registration of both buyers and sellers of this easily available pesticide as an urgent remedial measure to reverse the trend that has become a critical threat to the scavenging birds.
While there are specific guidelines on secure cattle disposal and prohibition on dumping, concerned authorities need to monitor the strict implementation of the same.
Mass mortality events jeopardize years of painstaking conservation work. These tragic events indicate that while restoration efforts are on, they remain insufficient without mass awareness.
Survival of the scavengers is crucial for ecological balance and spreading awareness on secure disposal of cattle carcasses and enriching knowledge on conservation and protection of vultures at the village and community level holds the key to reverse the dangerous trend of mass vulture mortality.