one, one, one corpse-eating vulture, 'a 'a 'aaaa!

well, i'm apparently not the only person worried about the lack of vultures in india... (see previous post here). ahmedabad newsline reports:

One, Two, Three...
Vulture Count to Start in May
Abhishek Kapoor

Vadodara, March 20: Missing vultures had made news in the late 1990s, following a memorandum by the Parsi community to the Government of India, dependent as they are on the bird for disposal of their dead.

Earlier this month, a two-phase study on vulture census and conservation was launched by Gandhinagar-based Gujarat Ecology and Environment Research (GEER) Foundation in the state, in what could be the first organised effort to salvage the declining population of the endangered species in the country.

The first phase of the study began some days ago and will continue till March 27. The second round involving actual census of the birds will be conducted on May 28 and 29.

The present survey will provide us with valuable information on a number of factors that affect vulture population. Like the number of colonies in the state, nature and dimensions of their nests, quality of habitat. All this will help us prepare a conservation plan.

[...] informs Director GEER, C N Pandey. Also a member of the National Wildlife Board, Pandey, who attended the March 17 meeting with the Prime Minister, says that their effort is different from the central government’s decision. "What the Centre announced is different from what we initiated before that. It might be converged at a later stage," he said.

Officials say the second round of actual counting has been kept for May, as in that part of the year, hatching is over, young ones are out and water is scarce, concentrating population in smaller areas. "This makes the job of enumerators easier," Pandey says.

More than 200 volunteers from NGOs and wildlife enthusiasts have been involved in the statewide exercise. Informs Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Pradeep Khanna,

A dedicated team of wildlifers is working across the state. We hope it is a success.

Following the data collection from the first survey, GEER will prepare a map of major vulture colonies, that experts say will help in future initiatives.

Of the nine species in the country, Gujarat is home to six: the White Backed (also called White Rumped), Long Billed (locally called Girnari Giddh) Egyptian White, King Vulture, Cinereous (locally called Jatayu) and Eurasian Griffin.

i have this overwhelming need to count vultures; i wonder if they take volunteers in the united states. to count here, i mean. do we even have dakhmeha here? (and by that i mean a zoroastrian tower of silence, although the term really only means a tomb...)

no problem. i'll just go and count them myself. my dad did that with cougars in new england, and now he's the famous cougar expert of the east coast, so it must work somehow.

left: Gyps bengalensis (White-Rumped Vulture)
right: Gyps indicus (Long-Billed Vulture)

left: Neophron percnopterus (Egyptian White Vulture)
right: Sarcogyps calvus (Pondicherry, Red-Headed or Asian King Vulture)

left: Aegypius monachus (Cinereous or Black Vulture)
right: Gyps fulvus (Eurasian Griffon)

seriously, those are some scary birds, man. i want some. i want to walk around with one on my shoulder and feed it raw meat. they're scarier than my cat spanky, who admittedly does not impress upon first view, but again is a bouncing betty on her own. still, if i kill someone they can eat the body in like, under ten minutes. try and forensify that shit, o dr. jordan cavanaugh!