October 2014: new papers published
NEED TO ADD SECOND AND THIRD PAPER
New key papers – number of vultures deaths per meal reduced by two thirds since deadly drug ban and flunixin also toxic …but now the threat has moved to Europe as diclofenac is licensed for veterinary use in Italy and Spain.
The number of vultures dying from diclofenac contamination in India has reduced by more than two-thirds between 2005 and 2009, according to a study published in an issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B) on the risk and impacts of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Since the banning of the vulture-toxic veterinary drug in India in 2006, the number of livestock carcasses found containing the drug has halved. However, experts say that by 2009 6% of carcasses were still contaminated with diclofenac, despite its use to treat livestock now being illegal.
Scientists sampled thousands of cattle carcasses dumped in the open and therefore available to vultures throughout India between 2004 and 2010. They found that in 2009, the proportion of carcasses positive for diclofenac was 49% lower than four years earlier. Using these data, in conjunction with information on the concentration of the drug, scientists calculated that the probability per meal of a vulture being killed had fallen by 65%.
A decade ago, three species of South Asian vulture faced near-extinction because of widespread use of diclofenac to treat livestock, the carcasses of which were their main food source. One species, the oriental white-backed vulture, declined by more than 99.9% in just 15 years. However, vulture populations are now showing the first signs of recovery. The governments of India, Pakistan and Nepal banned veterinary diclofenac in 2006 and Bangladesh banned it in 2010.
Dr Toby Galligan, RSPB conservation scientist and co-author of this study, said: “The findings of our study are both good news and bad news. The good news is that veterinary use of diclofenac in India has decreased significantly; the bad news is that it has not stopped completely”.
“This is because Indian pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing diclofenac for human use in vials large enough to treat livestock; and some veterinarians and livestock owners continue to choose diclofenac over the vulture-safe alternative, meloxicam”.
“Six percent of livestock carcasses remained contaminated with diclofenac in 2009, which equates to 1 in 200 vultures dying from diclofenac poisoning every time they feed. This might not sound like much, but we know that the death of 3 in 200 vultures per meal was enough to have caused the catastrophic declines”.
The study strengthens the case for a ban on large vials of diclofenac in South Asia, which will make livestock-sized doses of diclofenac more expensive and more complicated to administer to cattle without impacting human healthcare. Vulture conservationists think that this additional ban will stop the illegal misuse of human diclofenac to treat livestock.
Despite ample evidence for the impact diclofenac has had in South Asia, last year veterinary diclofenac was approved for manufacture and use in Italy and Spain and has since been distributed to other European countries. A coalition of conservation organisations, including the RSPB and BirdLife partners in Spain and Italy, alongside Members of the European Parliament and members of the public are campaigning for this decision to be reversed. In response, the European Commission has asked the European Medicines Agency to assess the risk diclofenac poses to Europe’s scavenging raptors. They will present their findings at the end of November.
In another article, published online in the Journal Conservation Biology, a Spanish-British-American team reported a combination of residues of the drug flunixin and renal failure in a dead Eurasian griffon in Spain. Flunixin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) like diclofenac and meloxicam. This is the first case of flunixin poisoning a vulture and the first case of a wild European vulture being exposed to a NSAID, though the toxicity of flunixin to captive vultures was reported seven years ago.
Dr Galligan continued: “Europe, particularly Spain, is home to significant populations of vultures and eagles, which are now at risk of declines due to diclofenac contamination of their food. Our opponents claim that Europe is different to South Asia, but it is not – in both regions vultures are provided livestock carcasses, either in the field or at carcass dumping sites; and, as our colleagues have shown, in both regions vultures are exposed to NSAIDs. The European Commission needs to recognise this problem and impose a continent-wide ban on veterinary diclofenac and other vulture-toxic NSAIDs”.
The RSPB is a member of SAVE (Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction), which is a consortium of international organisations created to oversee and co-ordinate conservation, campaigning and fundraising activities to help the plight of South Asia’s vultures. SAVE is campaigning for mandatory safety testing of all veterinary pharmaceuticals of scavenging birds where ever they are used.
SAVE is working to stop veterinary use of diclofenac by advocating vulture conservation to governments and raising awareness among veterinarians and livestock owners. SAVE promotes the use of meloxicam, the only known vulture-safe NSAID, which is just as effective in treating livestock as diclofenac. While these issues are being tackled in situ, SAVE has established captive breeding populations of vultures at centres in India, Nepal and Pakistan. These captive bred vultures will be released to supplement surviving wild populations, but only when it is safe to do so.
A third paper was also published last month which examined the genetics of the vulture populations in the Indian Conservation Breeding Centres, and happily it found relatively good diversity and other important findings and implications for captive management.