Environment Day celebrations: Javadekar to release vultures

With a drastic decline in vulture population in country, the Environment Ministry has decided to kick start this year's World Environment Day celebrations with the release of vultures bred in the nation's first breeding centre at Pinjore in Haryana.

Observing that his Ministry will work towards increasing the number of vultures in the coming years, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said that he along with Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will release the vultures into the wild on June 3.

"The theme of the World Environment Day on June 5 is 'Go Wild' which means take care of the wild and nature. Vultures was in danger. In the last ten years, when diclofenac (medicine) was introduced for livestock, they used to get cure, but after their death, vultures used to eat them and it led to their deaths.

"We had 40 million vultures. Ten years down, we have now not even 4 lakh vultures left. To revive that, efforts are going on at various places. Haryana Chief Minister and I will go and release the vultures into the wild.

"They are not zoo birds and they have to live in nature. We have lost vultures in last ten years, in the next ten years, we will revive the vultures as they are the natural scavengers," Javadekar said on the sidelines of an event to 'Swachta Abhiyan' fortnight in his Ministry.

The Environment Ministry has included three species - Oriental Rumped Vulture, Long-billed vulture and Slender-billed vulture in Schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.

Vulture has also been included as one of the 17 species identified for recovery programme under Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats scheme.

Ministry officials said the vulture recovery programme is intended for urgent recovery of its population and the Ministry has prepared an action plan for it.

Haryana in collaboration with Bombay Natural History Society and other international agencies like Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), UK; Zoological Society of London and International Trust for birds of prey has established country's first conservation breeding centre for vulture at Pinjore in 2001.

This centre has successfully identified the cause of vulture death - drug declofenac and also developed the techniques of captive breeding of vultures.

The Health Ministry has prohibited manufacture of diclofenac for animal use and also restricted packaging of multi-dose vials of diclofenac to single dose.
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At an event to launch Swachta Abhiyan Fortnight, Javadekar said his Ministry has revised five waste management rules and introduced new construction and demolition waste management rule.

"Secretaries and other officials will conduct meetings with officials at the district level as well with municipal bodies to discuss how these rules can be implemented in a better way. This will be our Ministry's contribution to Swacch Bharat Abhiyan," he said.