Painkiller threatens survival of Asian birds, says study

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http://www.enn.com/news/2004-01-29/s_12574.asp

 

Painkiller threatens survival of Asian birds, says

study

 

Thursday, January 29, 2004

By Patricia Reaney, Reuters

 

LONDON — A common painkiller used to relieve the aches

of arthritis is threatening the extinction of three

types of vulture in Asia, conservationists said in a

report Wednesday.

 

Although humans have been taking diclofenac for two

decades, the report said its use in veterinary

medicine is killing rare birds of prey, which ingest

the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug by eating the

carcasses of livestock treated with it.

 

" This is the first time a pharmaceutical drug has been

implicated in the decline of large-vertebrate

wildlife, " Dr Rick Watson, program director of the

U.S.-based Peregrine Fund, said in an interview.

 

Over the decade that the drug has been used to treat

animals in India, Pakistan, and Nepal, populations of

the Oriental white-backed vulture, long-billed

vulture, and slender-billed vulture have fallen

drastically, researchers said.

 

Dead birds found in Pakistan contained residues of the

drug and when it was fed to vultures in experiments,

the birds suffered from kidney failure, according to

Watson's findings, reported in the science journal

Nature Wednesday.

 

The fund, which is holding a summit in Nepal in

February to urge the governments of India, Pakistan,

and Nepal to take action, has joined forces with other

conservation groups to call for a ban on the drug and

support for species restoration.

 

" Vultures have an important ecological role in the

Asian environment, where they have been relied upon

for millennia to clean up and remove dead livestock

and even human corpses. Their loss has important

economic, cultural, and human consequences, " Dr. Munir

Virani, a biologist with the fund, said in a

statement.

 

 

 

 

 

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