White-rumped and long-billed vultures noticed in Sigur in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve buffer zone throughout a earlier chook survey
| Photo Credit: SATHYAMOORTHY M
The Kerala Forest and Wildlife Department, with its counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is making ready to organise the first synchronised vulture survey in chosen areas of the Western Ghats on February 24, 25 and 26.
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Need for synchronisation
“Every year the Forest departments in the three states were organising separate surveys at different timing to count the remaining vulture population in South India,” says Dinesh Kumar, Additional Deputy Conservator of Forest, Wayanad wildlife sanctuary. But this usually resulted in duplication of counting the avian inhabitants as a result of the surveys have been carried out in several timings, he stated.
But he added {that a} tripartite coordination assembly held in Mudumalai Tiger reserve in Tamilnadu two weeks in the past determined to organise the first synchronised vulture survey in Western Ghats to keep away from the duplication.
The survey would concurrently be organised in the three forest divisions, together with the Wayanad wildlife sanctuary, and the South and North forest divisions. It could be carried out after dividing the Wayanad panorama, the place the chook species have been continuously sighted, into 10 places. Each of the places could be monitored by a five-member workforce, comprising a vulture skilled; a forest beat officer, one or two volunteers and a forest watcher, he stated.
Wayand wildlife sanctuary
Wayanad wildlife sanctuary, contiguous to the tiger reserves of Nagarhole and Bandipur of Karnataka and Mudumalai of Tamil Nadu, is the lone area the place vultures thrive in the State. The sanctuary harbours practically 120-150 white-rumped vultures and lower than 25 red-headed vultures. The occasional sightings of long-billed vultures have additionally been reported in the sanctuary.
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Vultures confronted a catastrophic inhabitants decline throughout the 2000s when the species was uncovered to the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac utilized in cattle as a painkiller. South Asia had about 4 crore white-rumped vultures till the finish of the nineties. But the inhabitants has come down to lower than 10,000 .
The motive for the survival of the Wayanad inhabitants is that they’ve by no means been uncovered to the drug.
