Silent Wings, Loud Warnings: India’s Vulture Crisis and the Painkiller That Poisoned the Skies

Sri City: In the 1980s, India was home to around 40 million vultures, however, today we find that over 97% of India’s vulture population have vanished, victims not of hunting or habitat loss, but from an unlikely source. A common anti-inflammatory and “harmless” drug, a painkiller: diclofenac. 

Diclofenac was introduced in veterinary practice in the early 1990s and was for cattle and humans alike but was widely used by farmers to ease the pain of their livestock. The side effect on treated cattle was that the drug residue was left behind in the tissue once the cattle was dead. For vultures, who scavenged on the leftovers off of these carcasses dumped in landfills, their digestive systems cannot metabolize even trace amounts as they were proved lethal, causing acute kidney failure and visceral gout, and so even one contaminated carcass killed dozens of birds. 

By the early 2000s, scientists and conservationists started to dig deeper and began to link everything together. Studies published in Nature and The Royal Society confirmed diclofenac’s role in catastrophic declines across the Indian subcontinent, and the once-common Oriental white-backed vulture, long-billed vulture, and slender-billed vulture became critically endangered almost overnight. So in 2006 India banned veterinary diclofenac but given the amount of years it was already on the market, the formulations of the drug continued in multi-dose vials that were easily redirected for cattle use. 

The consequences of the drug set off a chain reaction that was not limited to the ecological sphere. The decrease of vultures led to an increase of stray dogs in each city, slowly starting a great plague as they feasted on the rotting carcasses left in the landfills by the scavenger birds. The increase in the dog’s population led to an increase in the number of rabies cases and A 2024 study, from the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) linked it to over 500,000 excess human deaths in India between 2000 and 2005 and this ecological imbalance spiraled into a public health crisis.

Reports from Down to Earth and Mongabay India show the fact that other veterinary drugs, such as ketoprofen, aceclofenac, and nimesulide, are other toxins contributing to the vulture crisis affecting humans too. While the safest alternative available is meloxicam, the immense power of the veterinary sector and lack of awareness keeps this vicious cycle going. However, programs in places like Pinjore (Haryana), Rani (Assam), and Bhopal are slowly reviving populations and there may still be hope. Conservationists are advocating for a ‘One Health’ approach, where health policies for wildlife, livestock, and humans are being linked in addition to building public awareness campaigns and pharmaceutical accountability, but unfortunately the change remains slow and uneven across the states of India.

The vulture crisis is a signal and proof that harm to nature is rarely contained. A single chemical that is unregulated, neglected, and irresponsibly used can have widespread impacts on ecosystems, economies, and human lives. The vultures’ narrative does not solely concern extinction; it also deals with linking consequences and the cost of turning a blind eye.