An Almost extinct species -the vulture

The news that’s griping the world today is global warming. Its effects are now slowly coming to light. Some things that were just understood by intellectuals now concerns the common man as well. This ecological imbalance is undoubtedly a result of mans self centric activities. When the sea levels are rising at an alarming rate and the agriculture is suffering, it’s now that he feels the heat. A lot of awareness and steps to reduce global warming are now being discussed on a global level. But a lot which is left in the dark is still facing problems. One such thing is the extinction of vultures that play an important role in maintaining the ecosystem and the bio diversity in general.

As we all know vultures are scavenging birds. They feed on dead animals mostly the cattle. But they don’t kill their prey but are born to clean the environment by consuming the dead. These natural cleansers of the ecosystem are facing a grave problem of extinction, a cause of great concern for all of us.

 Extinction of these birds was considered to be the result of their loss of habitat which is partially true. Increasing urbanization has rendered not just vultures but many more species of birds and animals in danger. But a more recent study claims that population of vultures has been drastically abridged, due to poisoning by the anti-inflammatory drug called diclofenac. This drug is present in the pain killers that humans normally use. It is also present in large amounts in pesticides and chemical fertilizers given to plants and crops to increase productivity. Cattle tend to feed on these plants and hence imbibe these pesticides. When humans and cattle die vultures in turn nourish on them. Diclofenac causes renal failure in vultures.

Scientists feel the quantities of pesticides found in carcass may not cause death of cattle but vultures being small framed animals these chemicals lead to disorders in their reproductive organs. Also, Vultures don’t eat a single carcass, they survive on them. So if one Vulture has tasted flesh of 100 different animal corpses in its lifetime, it has absorbed a lot of chemical. These disorders cause thinning of their egg shells which further results in high mortality rates. This is bothersome, because vultures lay just two or three eggs and that too once a year, also a Vulture chick needs at least 3 complete years to develop, which makes them naturally susceptible to immature death. Researchers studying their deteriorating population have found that pesticide residue causes almost a 20 percent thinning in the egg-shells, making them more vulnerable to the elements of nature, premature hatching and also being an easy prey to predatory birds.

 To add to this, a survey has also found out that in India a number of tribes in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra eat vulture meat! But what leads to the concern is the fact that villagers view these as scavenging birds as aggressive predators with a tendency to lunge and lift their livestock. Hence detailed entraps are laid out to destroy these vultures, the widespread method being to mix lethal poison in a body which kills these birds instantly.

Dr. Salim Ali in ‘The Book of Indian Birds’ described vultures as God's own incinerators, which cannot be replaced by even the most sophisticated ones. Serving as nature's doorkeepers, these birds dash about, tolerating the most repellent of food, and ridding our ecosystem of young insects and disease-carrying viruses in the process.Hence it’s our duty to help save these birds from going extinct.

Defining Development

An innovation in the field of technology is what determines development today. A nation is said to be developed if it has succeeded in curbing the village culture and walking on the way towards urbanization, building concrete cities with a huge density of people per square kilometer. History shows that the original settlements that grew into cities were usually built as trading centers or as forts to defend strategic locations. For this reason, most major cities are on rivers or harbors, or at the junction of important overland routes. Mumbai is a good example of this.

Development of science and technology has no doubt improved living conditions. There is a huge decline in death rates, and the life expectancy has increased considerably. But this definition of development comes with its own set of problems. Problems of population and pollution. The developing world is heading towards an uncontrollable growth of metro cities in upcoming years. When it comes to metro cities let us consider Mumbai as we are familiar with its growth and its problems. This is a land of dreams for most Indians. Mumbai is India’s financial capital, and one of the richest cities in the world. It is ranked the seventh best city in the world for number of millionaires. Mumbai hopes to become the world’s new Shanghai, and is predicted to become the world’s second largest urban conglomeration after only Tokyo by 2025. However, there is another side to Mumbai. It has Asia’s largest slum in which 55% of Mumbai’s population lives. A slum is a major part of any metropolitan city in India. It is a part of the development process associated with each growing city. If the belief that urbanization makes life better is true, slums do not fall in this category, though they constitute more than 50% of the urban population.

Slums are places with very poor quality of living conditions. Survival is the only aim and the daily struggle of people who live here. These areas are definitely insanitary. This gives rise to a number of water born diseases every single day. Here disasters like floods during monsoons or fire otherwise are common. Living space is cramped – there are 1 million people packed into one square mile. Privacy is almost absent. It is not unusual to see things like children playing around toxic sludge or their parents rooting among the rubbish for things to reuse or eat. There are astonishing statistics which represent the intensity of these problems. Hence when it comes to poor cities, bigger is by no means always better. Rapid economic growth brings substantial problems of its own -- notably increased pollution. Already, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China, which is arguably undergoing the most rapid industrial and economic transformation the world has ever seen.

It is time we change our definition of development. Technology alone cannot guarantee better living conditions for all at least in a developing country like India. More than half of the existing population is struggling to survive on a daily basis to make the life of the other half easy and comfortable. This attitude cannot be labeled as growth or advancement. There is a need for development which is all inclusive.