Years back, about 25 years past, I took a photograph of vultures attending a cattle on the roadside while returning to home in Puri. Somehow, it had aroused my curiosity perhaps a stimulation coming from the new Minolta Camera I was handling then. At that time I was not aware that such a sight shall ever be rare in future because vultures were neither very much liked nor in any manner in demand by the people.
Thus, it used to be a common sight then to find vultures attending carcasses. That used to be nature's own way of keeping the area clean and also perhaps to compensate the 'inappropriate systems of carcass-disposal' by humans.
The last such congregations of vultures I ever saw was in the banks of river Chambal during 1983-1985. Everytime, on our return trips to Rajghat from a day-long search for radio-fitted gharial, we used to see the vultures bathing, cleaning their wings and drying these spread open in the afternoon sun. Of course, they had some specified spots where they congregated.
After coming to Similipal in 1987, sighting a congregation of over 30 vultures have never been possible. As such, Similipal Tiger Reserve doesn't have any vultures. That has made it difficult to impossible to locate any animal-kill made by the carnivores. We have been linking the situation to the thick ground vegetation through which the vultures find it impossible to locate carcass and thus have remained off the 2750 sq.km area of the sanctuary.
Surveys outside the sanctuary, in the transitional zone of the Similipal Biosphere Reserve and outside it have indicated that vulture populations are on the decline.
Three species of vultures have been on record from the periphery of Similipal. These are the
Black or King Vulture
(Sarcogyps calvus),
Indian White backed Vulture.
(Gyps bengalensis) and
Indian Long-billed Vulture (Gyps i. indicus).
All three have become rare. This has been our own experience, and recently confirmed by a survey conducted by the Bombay Natural History Society.
DISCUSSION
Vultures are on the decline : it is a well realised fact. When I am asked about the reason for their decline, I can see the niche having been taken over by human scavengers. Man is a competitor with wildlife everywhere for everything, even for carcass. Man has learnt to use the skin and bones of dead cattle and even dogs. That is one reason why the city-outskirts or even the streets are easily swept clean of carcasses. With human habitations growing all around, leaving little space for vultures to survey and come down to ground, scavenging humans are perhaps doing the right service. When ecosystems are turning into "human systems", vultures have no other option but to give way to human system to 'prosper'.
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