Experts from Uttarakhand and Nepal stressed on the importance of conserving species like the vulture at a stakeholder workshop on Indo-Nepal vulture conservation issues here.

Expressing his views, the State biodiversity board chairman Dhananjai Mohan said that conservation of threatened birds like vulture is vital for the environment. “Protecting the vulture is the need of the hour, though we need to bring all stakeholders within and outside the country together to facilitate this,” he said.

Hari Bhadra Acharya, representing the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation, Government of Nepal said, “Vultures and other wildlife are not restricted by any national and international boundaries and can freely move from one nation to another, thus, protecting a global species like vulture becomes the responsibility of its range countries. However, it is only possible through healthy transboundary collaboration,” he said.

Krishna Bhusal from Bird Conservation Nepal said, “Even if we eliminate all the possible threats like poisoning due to veterinary NASIDs in a country and it is available in the neighboring country, the vultures still remain prone to such threats during their migration. Considering this too, we must initiate collaborative efforts in order to protect them.”

Former professor of Wildlife Institute of India, BC Choudhury, the person behind initiating research and conservation action on vultures in Uttarakhand, said that veterinary drugs like diclofenac were responsible for the severe decline in vulture population in the recent decades.