I thought this deserved forwarding. Our vultures are unrelated to the
Eurasian ones, so perhaps they wouldn't be so affected. Also, of
course there probably aren't as many dead livestock lying around in
this country as there are in India. And in countries where there are
lot of dead livestock, e.g., Mexico, this drug may not be in as
widespread use. It would be a disaster for African vultures, but the
people there are mostly too poor to feed drugs to their animals.

>Valid message from Jerry Joyce of Moon Joyce Resources
>
>Study: Painkiller Threatens Survival of Asian Birds
>Wed January 28, 2004 01:00 PM ET
>
>By Patricia Reaney
>
>LONDON (Reuters) - 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 on 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 non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug after
>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, the
>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, the long-billed vulture and the 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 on 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.
>
>? Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.


--
Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-879-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-879-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
1500 N. Warner, #1088
Tacoma, WA 98416-1088
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html