This is all fascinating. I lived in Nepal for 5 years when there were lots of
vultures, feeding mostly on garbage and various corpses, not all cattle. Both
there and in India the cows are sacred, not eaten, and mostly feral, just
wandering about.They keel over eventually and the vultures eat them (or used to).
Even milk cattle get very little medication of any kind, let alone
painkillers. Mexico is wealthy by comparison.

This research was done in Pakistan, where people do eat beef and animal
production is a bit more sophisticated, but it's hard for me to believe this
accounts for the crash in vulture populations all over the Indian subcontinent.

It will be interesting to see if this is confirmed in India.

I was in Nepal again a year ago, and the white backed and long billed
vultures had gone, whereas the Egyptian (Neophron)and Black (Torgos) vultures were
still there, in the lowland areas, as were the high altitude Himalayan Griffons,
which are closely related to the species that have crashed, but separated in
habitat.

Richard Isherwood

Port Townsend WA
Reply to Risherwood at aol.com

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