Vanishing vultures

Guwahati, May 22: Vultures from different parts of Assam are being trapped and brought to the Jarasal reserve forest in Kamrup district for captive breeding.

The project has been undertaken to save the species from extinction.

Jarasal reserve forest in the Rani area of Assam is the first conservation breeding centre for vultures in the state and the third in the country. The project is being implemented by the Bombay Natural History Society, in collaboration with the forest department of Assam.

Two hectares of land have been allotted to the centre and work has already started. Experts say captive breeding will increase their count and eventually allow the release of vultures into the wild.

“We will trap vultures from various areas of Assam, including Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, North Lakhimpur and Kamrup,” said Vibhu Prakash, principal scientist of Bombay Natural History Society’s vulture conservation breeding programme.

Nearly 100 birds of both the species — white-backed vultures and slender-billed vultures — will be bred at the centre. Altogether 70 per cent of the birds trapped would be nestlings.

“According to our experience from centres at Pinjore and Buxa, birds older than a month-and-a-half take easily to captivity. The nestlings will reach adulthood after five to six years. We will release their offspring in areas which are free of diclofenac, a chemical, and have a good source of food,” Prakash said.

“Not more than 200 pairs of slender-billed vultures survive in Assam,” Prakash added. He said the vultures would be ringed and weighed at the trapping site and microchipped at the centre.

Darwin Initiative for Survival of Species and the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, a grant-in-aid from the British government, has provided the funds for the project.

“We will be building aviaries for various purposes like quarantine aviaries, colony aviaries and breeding aviaries,” Prakash said.

Quarantine aviaries will provide total isolation to birds to recover from stress.

A colony aviary will house birds of a single species after they have been quarantined for 45 days. Breeding aviaries will house at least two breeding pairs.

“Electric fences will be erected along the boundary of the centre. A small laboratory will be built for conducting haematology, biochemistry and other basic tests which are required in the breeding programme,” Prakash said.