Doon valley prepares to receive rare vultures

DEHRADUN: As the Pinjore Vulture Conservation Centre and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) plan to release vultures bred and reared in the Morni Hills for the first time, the Doon Valley, located around 50 to 80 km from Morni Hills, has become all important due to the expected movement of these vultures.

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, January 7

As the Pinjore Vulture Conservation Centre and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) plan to release vultures bred and reared in the Morni Hills for the first time, the Doon Valley, located around 50 to 80 km from Morni Hills, has become all important due to the expected movement of these vultures.

Prof BC Choudhury, senior adviser, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), stated this while addressing a consultation workshop with dead livestock disposal workers and contractors on vulture conservation issues, organised jointly by WTI in collaboration with Uttarakhand Forest Department, BNHS and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK, at Forest Rest House, Jhajhra Range, of Dehradun Forest Division.

Prof Choudhary said the vultures released from Pinjore breeding centre were expected to fly into Doon valley for foraging on livestock carcasses. “It is therefore important to ensure that such carcass dumping sites in Dehradun were in a safe zone, free from electrocution hazards. Further, it is also important to ensure that the carcasses were free from diclofenac contamination,” he pointed out.

The livestock disposal contractors and workers attending the workshop supported the conservation requirement and assured their total support to the Forest Department and the vulture research community. They also requested the state government to allocate permanent and safe livestock carcass dumping grounds as currently they were facing a lot of objection from villagers and others for dumping carcasses near residential areas.

They also vowed their participation and contribution if the state government planned to create Vulture Safe Zones (VSZs) to provide carcass samples to examine whether the carcasses were free from diclofenac. The carcass disposal contractors also suggested continuation of such consultation meetings at panchayat level so that the vulture conservation issues and requirements were understood at the ground level.

Dehradun Sub-Divisional Officer Gulvir Singh, front line staff of the Forest Department, carcass disposal contractors, BNHS researchers, WTI officials and Doon University participated in the day-long workshop.