Nepal’s vulture "restaurants" for endangered birds

PITHAULI: In the village of Pithauli, surrounded by ripening mustard fields, a woman hauls a cow carcass on a trolley, drops it in an open field, then runs and hides in a nearby hut as dozens of vultures swoop down.

In under half an hour, the carcass has been reduced to picked bones by the dun-coloured birds, occasionally squabbling as they feed.

The site is one of a handful of vulture “restaurants” opened to save the birds, which help keep the environment clean by disposing of carrion, from extinction — and at the same time help impoverished villages become self-sufficient.

A drug called diclofenac, used for treating inflammation in cattle, causes kidney failure and death in vultures which feed on their carcasses. As a result, two species of vulture — the White-rumped and Slender-billed — are now critically endangered in Nepal, as well as in Pakistan and India.

“If the situation continues the two species will be extinct in ten years,” said Hem Sagar Baral, chief of the Nepalese Ornithological Union.

“We may maintain certain minimum numbers but we’ll never see the numbers we had 20 years ago.”

Two decades ago there were about 50,000 nesting pairs of the two vulture species in Nepal. Now, barely 500 pairs remain.

Their steep decline is blamed on the widespread use of diclofenac, which was banned in 2006, and loss of habitat, with the kapok trees they use for nesting vanishing fast to meet demand from factories producing match sticks and plywood.

Five years ago, Bird Conservation Nepal came up with the idea of “restaurants” as places where the birds could feed on safe carcasses.

Pithauli, some 100 km (60 miles) southwest of the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, was the site of the first such feeding station, which now number six around the country.

The number of nesting pairs there has grown to 46 compared with just 17 before the feeding site was opened five years ago, said Dhan Bahadur Chaudhary, who coordinates the project.

“When we started I had no idea how it would do. I am happy that we have come to this point,” he said.

Baral agreed that the “eateries” and the ban on the drug had helped, with numbers stabilising after an initial rise, but noted that they still remain under threat.

For one thing, the ban on diclofenac use is being flouted by giving cattle a version of the drug intended for humans, meaning it is still taking its toll on the birds.

In addition, despite the vulture’s positive depiction in Hindu mythology as fighting to free Sita, wife of the god-king Rama, from the clutches of a demon, the birds are widely reviled as ugly and the harbingers of bad luck.

SUPERSTITION AND SUCCESS

Residents in Pithauli, a village of more than 6,000 people, tell how villagers carried out special “purification” rites when vultures perched on the roofs of their homes.

When an old villager died a few days after a vulture had alighted on his house, it was widely believed to have resulted from his failure to perform the proper ritual.

But in an effort to win over the villagers, the organisation that started the feeding stations provides training in income-generating activities such as beekeeping, trail and bridge construction, and tourist guide services.

They also give support to schools and public health offices.

“Initially, it was not easy. But the villagers started to support us gradually as we launched community activities for the local people,” Chaudhary said.

Authorities have also set up a vulture breeding centre in the Chitwan National Park in the neighbouring jungle resort of Kasara, where 60 birds, captured in the wild, are being raised. Ultimately, they plan to release chicks into the wild.

The vulture restaurant has become a tourist attraction in the poverty-stricken village, and admission fees from visitors — who last year numbered some 2,000 — help support it.

Additional help comes from authorities who buy old and sick cattle from the villagers for $3 a head, a modest income. These animals are kept on a farm in a community-run forest and offered to the birds when they die naturally since killing a cow is illegal in deeply Hindu Nepal.

Despite the gains, though, some villagers remain skeptical.

“Why save a bird that feeds on dead animals?” said 34-year-old Chet Nath Gandell, noting that the birds sometimes leave parts of the carcasses unfinished.

“Stinking carrion pollutes the air and we are forced to breathe in a slow poison.” AGENCIES

Flood submerges over 40 villages in Dadu

LARKANA: The deluge continued spreading devastation across Qamber-Shahdadkot and the floodwater is now flowing in southward direction, caused several breaches in Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD) and over 40 villages in Mehar and Khairpur Nathan Shah talukas of District Dadu became the latest victims of devastation.

A 20 feet breach was reported in Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD) in Khairpur Nathan Shah that submerged the Guza Konb, Bheb, Mehtu Babbar and other several other adjacent villages while thousands of people were marooned.

On the other hand, no maintenance work was visible on the part of the authorities, as the villagers were strengthening the protective embankments on their own.

On the other hand, the Kotri Barrage as usual sustaining high flood where the water inflow was recorded at 800,132 cusecs against the outflow of 788,337

South Philippine:11 Killed As Militants Assailed A Village

Suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen raided a village in Basilan, killing at least 11 people and injuring 20 others, including a one-year-old girl.
Police said most of the villagers of Poblacion Tubigan in Maluso town were asleep when they were attacked by suspected Abu Sayyaf extremists. The assailants opened fire with automatic arms and torched several houses in the village that also left 10 people wounded, including four children who were last reported in critical condition. Initial reports said the number of victims could increase since many of the villagers were caught in a hail of gunfire from the attackers. The attack came in the wake of the recent killing of Abu Sayyaf leader Albader Parad and the arrest of two key leaders of the extremist group. Government forces had been told to be on alert for reprisal attacks. It was the worst attack on civilians since 2001 when the Abu Sayyaf seized dozens of villagers and later beheaded nine farmers and shot to death another civilian in Lamitan town. The attack also came a day after government troops rescued two Chinese nationals in nearby Sumisip town. The two men were kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf from a plywood factory in Maluso in November. One of the factory workers seized with them was beheaded.

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South Philippine:11 Killed As Militants Assailed A Village was first posted on March 1, 2010 at 1:03 am.

Katrina Kaif Looks For Adoption

MUMBAI: Katrina Kaif has found a new love these days. No, it’s not about any man in her life but about a cub that Katrina want.

Ever since the actress came to know that a cub has been rescued in a village in Bhopal and named after her, the actress has shown a keen interest in adopting the rescued cub. The officials of the wild department of the area said they have even received a call from Katrina’s assistant who wanted to know the complete procedure of adopting the cub.

The cub has been named Catreena after the villagers felt that it was beautiful and silky like Katrina Kaif.

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Katrina Kaif Looks For Adoption was first posted on February 1, 2010 at 6:51 pm.

Worlds Youth Is Effected By Violence And Accidents: Study

LONDON: Road accidents, pregnancy and childbirth complications, suicide, violence, the AIDS virus and tuberculosis are the biggest killers of young people across the world, according to a study published Friday.

Researchers supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) said their study — the first to look at global death rates in those aged 10 to 24 — exposed as myth adolescents’ belief that they are stronger and fitter than other age groups.

In reality, they said, 2.6 million young people are dying each year and most of those deaths are preventable. Some 97 percent of the deaths were in low- and middle-income countries.

“Mortality rates in low-income and middle-income countries were almost four-fold higher than were those in high-income countries, a difference that was particularly pronounced for young women,” the authors wrote on their study in The Lancet.

According to the WHO, there are more young people in the world today than ever before — 1.8 billion 10 to 14 year-olds account for 30 percent of the world’s population.

But George Patton of the Center for Adolescent Health and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Australia, who led the study, said the needs of this age group were often eclipsed by the very young, the elderly or the very sick when governments draw up health policies — an approach he said was increasingly risky as economic development continues.

MORE VULNERABLE THAN THEY SEEM

“We are seeing a shift of mortality to adolescence with economic development,” Patton told a news conference in London. “No longer can politicians and those making policy say ‘young people are healthy. We don’t need to worry’. They do die.”

Patton’s study found that two in five deaths worldwide in this age group were due to injuries and violence, with young men in low and middle-income regions such as eastern Europe and parts of South America at particularly high risk.

The top cause of adolescent male deaths was road traffic accidents at 14 percent, followed by violence and suicide. Road accidents were also the biggest overall killer, accounting for 10 percent of all deaths in the 10 to 24 age group, with suicide next at 6.3 percent.

The researchers said this suggested the current focus on AIDS and other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis in this age group, while important, was “an insufficient response.”

Maternal conditions including pregnancy and childbirth were a leading cause of adolescent female deaths, at 15 percent. The study showed dramatic disparities in maternal death rates.

Rich nations like Britain have a 1 percent maternal death rate while 26 percent of female deaths in Africa are related to childbearing.

“It is shocking the levels of maternal mortality that still exist,” Krishna Bose, of the WHO’s child and adolescent health department, told the news conference. “There is no reason at all for women to die in the process of giving birth.”

Of the total adolescent deaths, 97 percent were in low- and middle-income countries and some 65 percent were in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, despite these regions containing 42 percent of 10-24 year olds.

High-income countries had only 3 percent of the deaths, despite having 11 percent of the population in this age range.

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Worlds Youth Is Effected By Violence And Accidents: Study was first posted on September 11, 2009 at 12:21 pm.
©2009 “News Trends“.

700 Years Old Houses in Iran

THERAN: In the north east of Iran at the foot of Mount Sahand in Kandovan, the villagers live in cave homes carved out from the volcanic rock. The age of some houses is more than 700 years. People still living in these age-old houses.

The area is famous for scenic sites and according to local myths; hot water streams of this area are beneficial for kidney patients.

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700 Years Old Houses in Iran was first posted on September 11, 2009 at 2:17 pm.
©2009 “News Trends“.