West Bengal: RVCB to release six vultures in wild

Six vultures will be released in the wild very soon, said Samay Sunder Chakraborty, a manager with Rajabhatkhawa Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (RVCB), said here on Saturday.

Chakraborty, who was speaking on the sidelines of a rally organised to create awareness about vultures, said: "RVCB will release six Himalayan Griffon vultures in the wild. Two of them will be satellite tagged to help us understand their behaviour and survival instincts. Accordingly, we will start releasing other vultures from our centre."

To mark the International Vulture Awareness Day, the awareness rally had been organised by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in collaboration with West-Bengal Forest Department, Fulbari Gram Panchayat and Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation (HNAF).

At present, India has four vulture conservation and breeding centres, one in Assam, which has 130 vultures, Rajabhatkhawa in West-Bengal has 118 vultures, Pinjore in Haryana has 500 vultures and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh has 60 vultures.

According to BNHS, about 20 years back there were four crore vultures in India, which has now come down to 22,000.