Image credit: Goran Ekstrom/PLoS Biology

Reuters has this article about India’s vultures.  Apparently they are becoming extinct.  Hmmm, wonder if humans had anything to do with it…

“There are fears for the future of some species of vultures after environmentalists in India reported a dramatic reduction in numbers.

Vultures used to flock from distant lands in great numbers in the Bikaner region of India’s western Rajasthan during the winter season. But many seem to have vanished this year.

Research on the declining number of vultures has indicated that the kites die because they eat the carcasses of dairy livestock which have been treated with the anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac Sodium”

Did we just find this out?  Yeah, um, no.

In researching this subject I came up with this article, from 2003, which states:

There has definitely been an “exponential” rise in the number of stray dogs that feed on rotting flesh and spread rabies, experts add. Their concern is high because more than 20,000 Indians die of rabies each year, the highest rate in the world. “Carrion-eating dogs can become a major human problem,” Jakati said in an interview. In Bikaner, Rajasthan, for instance, over 1,000 vicious dogs inhabited a large carrion dumping ground. This poses a serious threat to the local population, many of whom they regularly attack.

Hmmm…and yet humans cannot connect what the animal eats to their own health.  It amazes me.

The article goes on to say:

Tests carried out by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in Delhi showed that lactating mothers were passing on unacceptable amounts of DDT to infants in breast milk. Other tests showed unacceptably high amounts of DDT in the flesh of cows, which is left largely to vultures to feed on because of Hindu religious taboos concerning the animal. Scientific experiments have shown that DDT can interfere with bird reproduction by affecting the embryonic development of bird species or by reducing the thickness of eggshells.  But in spite of warnings about the rapid decline in the vultures’ numbers by leading environmental groups such as Greenpeace International and the Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment (CSE), the government and the environment ministry refused to act.

None of this is shocking but it so shocking.  Look at this article on the same subject.  This one was written in 2008 (for those who are mathematically challenged, that is 5 years from the above article.  5 YEARS)  The article says:

India banned the veterinary form of diclofenac in 2006, but vets and farmers just switched to using the version of the drug intended for humans. Now, India has warned 70 pharmaceutical companies to clearly mark diclofenac as “not for veterinary use” in a last-ditch effort to save the three vulture species from extinction.

Instead of not using diclofenac at all, we are just going to mark it “not for veterinary use”.  Are you kidding me?  What is it going to take to realize that this shit needs not to be used at all?  Amazing. Really just amazing.

Humans have no need to be eating animals in the first place.  So not only is there the moral issue there is the stupidity issue as well.  I mean, they knew that the vultures were dying.  They knew why. And for 5 years they did nothing.  And when they finally did do something it was basically nothing.  It’s past time to evolve.  It’s time to realize that we don’t need to poison our animals because we don’t need to eat our animals.  Animals are not food, folks.

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons.  They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” ~ Alice Walker