Long-billed vultures feeding
By Shevlin Sebastian
On January 18, 2021, wildlife photographer Nitish Agrawal and his parents travelled from Raipur to Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, to pay a surprise visit to his aunt on her wedding anniversary. After the celebrations, the family drove to the nearby Purwa Waterfalls.
As Nitish stood barefoot on a wet, sloping rock, mesmerised by the pulsating roar and the frothy fall of the water, against a translucent blue sky, he saw a giant shadow beside him. When he looked up, he saw a long-billed vulture.
“I was mesmerised,” he said. “In my 12 years of birding, I had never seen a vulture.” The eyes were brown, and the bird’s wingspan was ten feet. “When it flew, it cast a shadow almost that wide,” said Nitish with a smile.
Tears fell from his eyes. Nitish had never cried while seeing a bird before, but the vulture’s size and beauty overwhelmed him. Soon, he saw the red-headed and the Egyptian vulture. Eventually, he sighted several vultures.
From a higher elevation, he could even look down on their nests, which were made of leaves and thick sticks. “In India you cannot see vulture nests because they are too high up in rock shelters and trees,” said Nitish. “But in Purwa, the nests were below us.”
He saw one big white egg, which was about three times the size of a hen’s egg. “It was a rare experience,” he said. “I saw a vulture for the first time and could see an egg as well.”
Thereafter, Nitish began vulture-watching extensively. For him, the most enthralling sight was to see the birds soar above 500 ft. “On an hour-long flight, they flap their wings only a few times to conserve energy,” said Nitish. “They fly in concentric circles. From those heights, they cannot differentiate carcasses from live cattle, but they can spot groups of vultures. That signals food, and they join. Any vulture is welcome. Vultures dominate while feeding on a carcass as they want the best pieces, but they are not territorial at scavenging sites.”
Nitish noticed vultures tend to fight when others come near their nests. “They push each other with their legs, use their beaks to attack wings or the body, trying to unbalance rivals. The intruder has to surrender, or the fight becomes fierce.”
Asked whether they make sounds during fights, Nitish said no. “Usually, they make a shrill, high-pitched call. It reminded me of the dinosaur shrieks in the film ‘Jurassic Park’.”
Like the dinosaurs, vultures face extinction. Estimates from 2021 suggest only 35,000 to 45,000 vultures remain in India. Before 1992, there were over four crore in India alone.
One of the main reasons for the decline in population is the use of diclofenac, a veterinary drug, and other drugs like aceclofenac, ketoprofen, and nimesulide by farmers. They used these drugs to treat cattle for pain or fever. If the cattle died within 48 hours, residues of the drug remained in their muscles.
When vultures fed on the carcasses, they ingested traces of these drugs. Within 48 hours, the vultures died because the urea crystallised in their kidneys. Fortunately, the government banned the drugs in 2006.
A vicious cycle set in. As vulture populations crashed, villagers stopped throwing carcasses in the open. “They began burying them because the smell was unbearable without vultures to clean it up,” said Nitish. “That reduced food availability further.”
Yet, against these odds, Madhya Pradesh still holds the largest population of vultures, with Rewa being one of the strongholds.
There’s a reason for this.
In tribal areas, because of illiteracy, they did not use any drugs to treat sick cattle. Instead, they relied on Ayurvedic medicine. So, the carcasses were safe to eat.
Asked about the character of a vulture, Nitish said, “If you see them from the side, they have an angry, menacing look. This is because their eyelids are created in such a way that they cast a shadow over their eyes. And that shadow creates a mean look. If you see them from the front, they look cute as babies.”
Nitish said that vultures are quite bold. “They are not afraid of human beings or dogs. Even after dogs chase them, they try to sit next to them.”
But they have different attitudes towards human beings. If a villager in traditional attire is around, the vulture is comfortable. But when someone wearing jeans or a T-shirt is nearby, they become alert. They show this by stopping their feeding and walking away from the person.
The vultures are family-oriented. For the first three months both parents feed the chick. The vultures have an extended pouch in their neck where they store food, holding about 200–300 grams of meat. They fly back to the nest and regurgitate the food to their chicks. By this time, it is also partially digested.
Then, in the next three months, the parents teach them where to find carcasses, and to locate water. In the third month, the chicks can take short flights. But by the fourth month, they can fly and soar like their parents.
Documenting these life stages became a passion for Nitish, and he has since taken thousands of photographs. Two of his photographs came seventh and tenth in the World of Vultures Photography Contest. Beyond Madhya Pradesh, vultures can be spotted in Maharashtra, the Himalayas, the North-East, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
In addition to his photography, Nitish is doing his bit for vulture conservation. Sonika Kushwaha, the president of the Indian Biodiversity Conservation Society, asked Nitish to host a session on September 6, International Vulture Awareness Day 2025, with the Forest Department at Chitrakoot.
Nitish spoke to students about conservation challenges, the significance of vultures, their role in the ecosystem, and ways to raise awareness and ensure their protection. On September 11, he also conducted Vulture Awareness campaigns across four villages — Purwa, Baridih, Chachai, and Keoti.
In a way, Nitish, of his own accord and love for the birds, is waging a one-man campaign to protect vultures and ensure they have a beautiful future. Along with his fiancée Sriti Pandey, he has started an outfit called ‘The Last Vulture’.
“The Last Vulture is a journey of celebrating the vultures, through awareness, conservation, sensitisation, and ecotourism,” said Nitish.
(Published in rediff.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment