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Large vulture death by painkiller Diclofenac
A vulture stomach seems indestructible. The scavengers easily cope with poisons that occur when carcasses decompose and that have serious health consequences for humans. But conversely, vultures may find some poison that people use as medicine. These include the painkiller Diclofenac.
contents
- Many threats
- Frequency does not protect against eradication
- From 40 million to a few thousand
- Mass extinction by drugs
- diclofenac
- Side effects in humans
- Why Diclofenac?
- Powder in drinking water
- Why Bengal vulture?
- Holy cows
- Raw materials from cattle
- The cows daily diclofenac
- A social disaster
- disease risk
- loss of income
- End of a culture
- Tiger Reserves: A key to vulture protection
- Tiger protection is vulture protection
- Vulture in the open air museum?
- What did the Diclofenac ban do??
- Is it only on Diclofenac?
- Can the vultures recover??
- Carcass disposal inevitable
- Vulture deaths in Asia and Africa
- Not only vultures are affected
Many threats
The causes that threaten animal species are manifold: Destruction of habitat, uncontrolled hunting, pursuit as food competitors, bringing in predators on islands whose inhabitants have no protective mechanisms against them, loss of food sources, competition from farm animals, catch for private owners, global warming or environmental toxins.
There are many reasons why so many species are threatened with extinction today. Examples are the uncontrolled hunting and the destruction of the natural habitat. (Image: Alberto Masnovo / fotolia.com) Frequency does not protect against eradication
Today, a species that was still widespread a few years ago today can be threatened with extinction "overnight". Frequency does not protect against extinction, as the example of the pigeon shows.
Their numbers probably surpassed those of all other bird species in America, individual flocks darkened the sky, and the branches of large trees collapsed under the weight of the birds. Hunting, the destruction of the breeding colonies and the cutting down of the large forests in the east of the USA ensured that the pigeon vanished forever. And other species that once existed in abundance, such as subspecies, shared their fate. These include the quagga, a form of plains zebra, or the Carolina parakeet.
From 40 million to a few thousand
In India, dozens of millions of vultures lived in 1990. On the subcontinent live India, Bengal and thin-billed vultures, as well as the small Egyptian vulture, the bearded vultures living in rock regions and the snow vulture of the Himalayas. Three of the species, India, Bengal and Thin-beaked Vultures, are critically endangered today. According to international standards, this is the last category before extinct.
The Bengal vulture, once the most common bird of prey in the world, is one of the rarest today. Since 1990, the stock of the three vulture species decreased by 99.9%. Of about 40 million, only a few thousand remained. Or: Only every thousandth Bengal vultures survived.
Mass extinction by drugs
In the 1990s, in India, the dramatic vulture died, with the vultures were least affected in national parks and tiger reserves. The researchers first poked in the fog. Was it the effect of pesticides? To unknown infectious diseases?
The carcasses left no conclusions. The dead birds showed rather a visceral gout and strong deposits of uric acid in the internal organs. This, combined with acute renal failure, led to the death of the birds.
The veterinarian Wolfgang Baumgart discusses the explanation of dying: Finally, the diclofenac used as a veterinary drug could be determined as the cause of death. It acts like a strong poison for the vultures' kidneys: Birds do not excrete the decomposition products of the protein metabolism as water-soluble urea like mammals, but as uric acid.
The lethal dose of diclofenac is already at 0.1-0.2 mg / kg body weight for vultures. A 1.5 mg intake is lethal to vultures in two days.
About 5% of the animal carcasses that ate the vultures were contaminated with diclofenac. In order to bring about death, according to Baumgart, 1% would have been sufficient.
The vultures died because many of the animal carcasses they had previously eaten were contaminated with diclofenac. (Image: hecke71 / fotolia.com) diclofenac
Dichlorophenylaminophenylaceticacid, or diclofenac for short, is a remedy for pain and inflammation. It is used as a remedy for rheumatism, bruises, strains and arthrosis. The drug inhibits the cyclooxygenases and thus blocks inflammation.
Since 1974 it is on the market and one of the most widely sold painkillers. It can be purchased as tablets, capsules, dragees, droplets, suppositories or solution for injection, but also as a patch, gel or ointment.
In Germany, the active ingredient is occasionally also prescription. The maximum dose per day is 50 mg, divided into two to four tablets.
Side effects in humans
Side effects in humans include gastrointestinal discomfort, haemorrhage and hypersensitivity to external stimuli, dizziness and fatigue, and elevated liver enzymes. The kidneys can also be damaged - but this is very rare in humans. Long-term overdose increases the risk of having a heart attack.
The most common side effect of diclofenac in humans is stomach bleeding. Possible are more serious disorders such as a gastrointestinal breakthrough. Anyone who is susceptible to such complaints receives Diclofenac together with a stomach protection product.
Why Diclofenac?
Until the late 1980s veterinarians in India had no access to diclofenac. Then, according to Baumgart, production rose to 800 tons per year, and the meloxicam effective for the same symptoms was at least ten times as expensive. Around 1990, cattle farmers used diclofenac in around 70% of the pain treatments.
The injection of the painkiller, according to Baumgart, can not explain the death of 40 million vultures alone. Injected diclofenac is rapidly eliminated and 30% metabolised in the liver. The lethal amounts for vultures are only to be expected for injections if the animals had received the injection approximately 24 to 72 hours before death.
Powder in drinking water
Baumgart researched that diclofenac was also given in powder form until 2006, to alleviate the pain of working animals, especially for cattle used as pack and pack animals - and inflationary.
Diclofenac was apparently also administered dissolved in water to relieve the pain of farm animals. (Image: costadelsol / fotolia.com) If lame animals or otherwise had problems moving, the farmers routinely diclofenac dissolved in water, which is not allowed in most countries.
As a result, probably large amounts of the preparation accumulated in the rumen of the cattle, as diclofenac is very stable in the digestive tract, so Baumgart. The level of the drug was also maintained over a long time in the body.
Why Bengal vulture?
Another indication that oral diclofenac as a painkiller caused vulture dying is, according to Baumgart, the fact that vultures first died out in areas of intensive agriculture.
In addition, this pain therapy explains why Egyptian vultures and bearded vultures came off relatively lightly: the little Egyptian vultures can not open the abdominal cavity with their beaks and feed on what the big vultures leave. The bearded vulture drops bones from a great height and eats the inside of the marrow bones.
The three now almost extinct and formerly commoner vultures, however, open the abdominal wall and eat the guts. So they took the bulk of the poison.
In grazing areas, livestock numbers did not decline to the same extent: grazing livestock is poorly or little treated with analgesics in India, in contrast to workhorses and sacred cows.
Holy cows
Hindu cows are a key to the extent of vulture death. Ethnologist Marvin Harris explained the sanctity of cattle from the material meaning of living animals.
First, the cows give birth to bulls who later worked as draft animals and formed the basis of traditional agriculture in India. An absolute kill habit for cattle was, according to Harris, a rule not to starve to death in the long term through a short-term supply of meat.
Raw materials from cattle
In addition, the living cattle in rural India provide existential materials for their daily needs. The dried cow patties serve as fuel such as fertilizer and even crushes as a floor covering of the huts and as a building material. The urine is a disinfectant, the milk staple.
The cows are considered part of the family: they are petted and fed, soaked and cared for when they get sick.
In the diet they are undemanding. Allegedly abandoned cattle walk around the Indian cities during the day and eat organic waste. So they serve, together with dogs, pigs, black kites and vultures also as garbage disposal.
The cattle move freely around the cities in India and eat organic waste. (Image: rpbmedia / fotolia.com) The cows daily diclofenac
The cheap diclofenac was the daily remedy for the signs of aging of the cared for cattle. For example, old cows often suffer from arthrosis, and diseased animals that died had high levels of diclofenac in the body.
Baumgart also suspects a secret disposal of sick animals. Hindus are forbidden to kill cows; In order to get rid of old and useless cattle, they sometimes stage "accidents", according to Baumgart, or poison the animals. Also such "accidental" cattle could, according to Baumgart, have high levels of diclofenac in the body.
A social disaster
Baumgart writes: "The consequences of the vulture's deaths in terms of their global nature and their economic impact were beyond the scope of previous species protection problems. These went far into the environmental, social-economic, cultural and religious spheres. "
Organic laypeople usually consider the decline of animal species to be an isolated phenomenon, and vultures in Europe do not enjoy a cuteness bonus like pandas. The big vultures as garbage disposal companies are not only key species in the ecosystem, but also for public health in non-industrial societies.
In India, vultures eliminated the carcasses of 300 million cattle before dying. A whole trade, the skinners, in the middle of the big cities, just brushing the skin off buffaloes and cows, left the dead animal lying there, and soon afterwards they took off their immaculately cleaned bones.
disease risk
In India, there were no alternatives to this disposal of animal carcasses, and the environmental damage such as epidemic diseases grew extremely. Air and water were contaminated with harmful bacteria, including anthrax, the air stank of decaying bodies.
Dogs took over the vultures' gap, and stray dogs increased from 8 million in 1987 to 29 million in 2003. The rat populations also exploded. The numbers of dog bites increased with dogs: despite a successful vaccination of 80% against rabies by 2004, at least 1737 Indians died from 1992 to 2002 from the disease.
loss of income
Poor Indians lost, according to Baumgart, a traditional source of income: In contrast to dogs, vultures only leave the bare bones, and their utilization into bone meal and gelatine earned many Indians the bread and butter.
Vultures leave only the bare bones of the dead animals. (Image: vrabelpeter1 / fotolia.com) In dogs, pigs and other less efficient scavengers, on the other hand, remains of tissue are left behind, which is very difficult to remove - and the danger of becoming infected with pathogens is enormous.
Today animal carcasses usually have to be transported away, burned or buried, which causes additional effort and expense.
End of a culture
In India live members of the oldest monotheistic religion. Described as parsis or fire worshipers in India, they are among the Zorasters, the religion of pre-Islamic Iran.
The Zoroastrians created the building of thought from the conflict between the good god (Ahuramazda) and his dark antagonist (Ahriman), winged beings with human bodies mediating between God and man, the figure of the Messiah, and ultimately heaven and hell.
Essential ideas of this Zoroastrianism flowed into Judaism and from there into Christianity and Islam.
For the Pars it is unimaginable to bury their dead in the earth. A central element of their religion are the "Towers of Silence", where the corpses are abandoned at a dizzy height to nature and thus return to the circle of life. This sky burial can only be done by the big vultures.
In India vultures, in contrast to Europe, enjoy great esteem, and not for nothing did Rudyard Kipling place them prominently in the Jungle Book.
Tiger Reserves: A key to vulture protection
The Indians love the tiger, and the Hindus do not use his body parts as medicine. Although the combination of Indian corruption and traditional medicine in China led to a collapse of the tiger population in India, since the "Save the Tiger" campaign begun in 1973, 48 tiger reserves have established themselves by 2015 to more than 2% of the country's surface. Today there are 2,226 tigers in India, a multiple of the remainders in Indonesia or Southeast Asia.
These tiger reserves have the highest importance for the endangered vultures. The tigers provide enough carcasses, and the prey consists of wild animals such as deer and wild boar, so is not burdened with diclofenac.
The habitats are preserved in their original diversity - the vultures not only have poison-free food, but also nesting sites and suitable terrain with canyons, rocks, trees, etc., where they can circle for potential food and raise their young.
Tiger protection is vulture protection
The vultures are protected from human disturbance by almost military protection of the reserves.
These tiger reserves (and other national parks) were also home to feeding grounds for vultures - with dead livestock that are guaranteed to have no residue at Diclofenac.
Baumgart writes that vultures could re-emerge from these protected areas. In fact, the numbers of India, Bengal and bald eagles increased in various tiger reserves.
The Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan in North India offers a safe home for many vultures. (Image: s4sanchita / fotolia.com) Vulture in the open air museum?
Today's national parks in India are not only a retreat for endangered species such as tiger, Ganges gavial or rhinoceros, but unfortunately also a kind of "open-air museum". The Kaziranga National Park in Assam, for example, not only provides a home for 80% of the last rhinos, but also contains as one of the few places in the world the surface of the Brahmaputra; The Ranthambore National Park with its palace ruins and dry forest (jungle) not only provides a jungle book atmosphere, but also shows how much of Rajasthan looked like a hundred years ago.
The "green revolution" saved millions of Indians from starvation with the massive use of pesticides, but at the same time transformed Bengal from a wilderness of swamp and forest into an empty wasteland: the rose-headed duck completely died, tiger and swamp crocodile, wild water buffalo and Maralhirsch only kept in national parks.
For one thing, it is probably due to Hinduism and Buddhism, that there are still large wild animals in the country with the second largest population in the world. In Europe, it would be hard to imagine that one hundred kilometers from a city with 16 million inhabitants lives the largest population of tigers in the world as in the Sundarbans at the gates of Kolkata.
On the other hand, before Diclofenac the vultures belonged to the wild animals, which even benefited from the population growth. Every third in a billion cows lives in India, and for the vultures their carcasses offered an inexhaustible source of food.
Today's national parks are not only a particularly protected part of the landscape, they are in sharp contrast to the surrounding land in sharp contrast. As if cut with the ruler, behind the entrance of the Ranthambore National Park begins another world - dry forest instead of a dried-up plain.
While the vultures until recently were still native in both worlds, they now count among the immensely protected wildlife of the national parks.
What did the Diclofenac ban do??
After Diclofenac was recognized as the cause, it was banned in India. The reality was different. Large parts of the population either did not get along with the prohibition or did not stick to it. The illegal market for the drug flourished.
Although the controls were successful, they were sparse. From 2008, diclofenac residues in bovine carcasses decreased by only 4.3%. This proved that the farmers continued to use the remedy. Replacement meloxicam was comparatively expensive compared to that and research shows that 36% of sellers still use diclofenac. In Nepal, however, the ban proved to be the norm: in 2011, only 0.6% of traders had Diclofenac on offer.
However, hardly anyone in India sold diclofenac in powder form - and that was, according to Baumgart, the heart of the problem. In Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala Diclofenac was not banned. There, the vultures are almost completely extinct.
As a result of the ban, Bengal, India, dirt and bald headed vultures returned to extremely low levels: Bengal vultures reached 0.15% of their former stock, India vultures 2.29%.
The ban was flanked by the following measures: feeding grounds with non-polluting food and protection zones, protection of breeding and rest areas; Expansion of breeding centers.
Is it only on Diclofenac?
Baumgart does not see diclofenac alone as the cause of the mass extinction. Specific factors played a role in India, causing vulture populations to collapse so dramatically:
First The Indian government let the drug sell unchecked, even for oral use.
Secondly It was easy and cheap to buy in a freely accessible drug market.
thirdly Small farmers gave it excessively to livestock with drinking water.
Fourth Baumgart mentions the uncontrolled disposal of millions of cattle carcasses by vultures.
According to Baumgart, the dimension and dynamics of the ecological catastrophe triggered by Diclofenac can only be understood against the backdrop of India: For example, the millionfold disposal of animal carcasses by vultures would not be possible in the EU.
Can the vultures recover??
Vultures were once also widespread in Europe. Today, there are only geese and black vultures in a few areas, especially in mountains of Spain and France, in the Balkans and the Mediterranean countries.
The black vulture is today only in a few areas, such. in mountains of France, widespread. (Image: rhoenes / fotolia.com) The reason for their decline in Europe was, firstly, massive persecution by humans, but second, industrial agriculture and advanced epidemic sanitation: there was simply not enough animal carcasses in the landscape to feed the birds.
They kept either in areas with abundant wildlife where cadavers were not disposed of and / or in areas with extensive livestock. This is especially true for the free pasture of goats and sheep.
According to Baumgart, the feeding of cattle carcasses by vultures, even without diclofenac, would not have been a prospect for the future. Solutions must now be found urgently to tackle the problem, for example, by establishing cover-ups in Indian cities.
Carcass disposal inevitable
Even if the vultures recover, they will never be able to regain their old stocks when it comes to eliminating cadavers. In the long run populations in the amount of 10% to 15% of the original amount would be realistic.
Since vultures are not dependent on cattle carcasses, the stocks can settle on a higher level, with the distribution is initially limited to the foothills of the Himalayas, West Indies and Tiger Reserves. The Indians support the protective measures, as they are positive to the vultures.
In the future, the most common vultures could become the Indian vulture and the thin-billed vulture, while the Bengal vulture is likely to be confined to narrowly defined areas. Egyptian vultures will continue to be widespread as waste recyclers in rural areas.
Vulture deaths in Asia and Africa
Although Baumgart discusses in detail why the conditions in India trigger a particular dynamic of vulture dying, but the problem is not limited to the subcontinent. In Africa and Asia, the total number of vultures decreased to 5% - out of 23 species of vulture today 6 are globally threatened.
The list of critical species now includes the African white-backed, capped and sparrow eggs. Even in reservations like Masai-Mara in Kenya, vulture populations have decreased by 60% in 30 years.
In Africa, however, the reasons are primarily poisoned livestock livestock, which farmers interpret to decimate predators. But also Diclofenac threatens the animals.
In Cambodia, conservationists are now setting up "vulture restaurants" where animals can eat pollutant-free carcasses.
In Europe, the vulture stocks could also break. Despite the Indian disaster, Diclofenac was allowed in Italy and Spain to handle grazing animals. If these treated animals are released into the wild, vulture dying is inevitable. Today, in Spain and Italy 80% of all vultures live in Europe, in addition to geese and Egyptian vultures also the most rare black vultures.
Not only vultures are affected
Diclofenac kills not only vultures, but also eagles. The researcher Toby Galligan found in the cadavers of two steppe eagles in India residues of the drug. In addition, the birds showed the same deformations of the kidney as the dead vultures.
Consequently, in Spain, the drug is also a danger to the highly endangered Spanish imperial eagle. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Source:
Wolfgang Baumgart: The vulture dying in India caused by diclofenac. A veterinary drug shakes a subcontinental culture. In: German Veterinary Gazette 65/2017