Bangladesh 1st to ban all known vulture-toxic drugs
Bangladesh is showing important leadership by banning ketoprofen across the country, Chris Bowden says
Tuesday February 23, 2021 10:10 AM, Vishal Gulati, IANS
New Delhi: With Bangladesh banning painkiller ketoprofen used widely to treat the cattle, it became the first country to ban any of the drugs now known to be toxic to vultures since the previous veterinary diclofenac ban more than 10 years ago.
Ornithologists said this is a landmark initiative to save the small remaining population of Asia s globally threatened vultures an example for others like India, Pakistan, Nepal and Cambodia to follow.
With Bangladesh banning painkiller ketoprofen used widely to treat the cattle, it became the first country to ban any of the drugs now known to be toxic to vultures since the previous veterinary diclofenac ban more than 10 years .
Tightening the ban on a cow medicine can save India’s vultures
In just over a decade, crores of vultures have died from kidney failure after feeding on cattle carcasses laced with an anti-inflammatory drug.
On October 8, 2020, eight satellite-tagged white-rumped vultures that were bred in captivity were released from an aviary near the Pinjore vulture conservation breeding centre in northern Haryana. The project had been in the works for years.
“We monitored vulture populations in a 100-km radius of the aviary,” said Vibhu Prakash, deputy director of Bombay Natural History Society, a conservation NGO. “We also monitored the area for [vulture-toxic] drugs, the food availability, diet and everything.” Around 300 captive vultures, divided between three species – white-rumped, Indian and slender-billed – are fed and housed in Pinjore, in the foothills of the Himalayas in India.
Mr Powell moved to RAF St Mawgan, in Cornwall, before being posted to RAF Wattisham in 1971.
He bought a house in Hadleigh and remained there ever since, becoming a committed member of the community and bringing up three children who gave him four grandchildren.
On leaving the RAF, Mr Powell worked for the Prudential and became someone to confide in and helped those who grieved when they lost loved ones.
Mrs Powell said her husband was caring, loving, and very family-orientated , adding his family was his life. He never complained throughout his illness, he always kept the pain from us,” she said.
Mr Powell moved to RAF St Mawgan, in Cornwall, before being posted to RAF Wattisham in 1971.
He bought a house in Hadleigh and remained there ever since, becoming a committed member of the community and bringing up three children who gave him four grandchildren.
On leaving the RAF, Mr Powell worked for the Prudential and became someone to confide in and helped those who grieved when they lost loved ones.
Mrs Powell said her husband was caring, loving, and very family-orientated , adding his family was his life. He never complained throughout his illness, he always kept the pain from us,” she said.