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The fall of the bird

"Death Watch," a documentary on the declining vulture population

Finally the truth is out. Our cattle are eating up vultures! No, there is no role reversal in the food chain. It is just that a drug widely prescribed for joint pains in cattle has been found largely responsible for the drastic decline in the vulture population.

The discovery is part of Death Watch, a documentary by Miditech that premieres today on the National Geographic channel.

"Vultures are highly unglamorous for making a wildlife documentary. They don't have the dynamism of a tiger or a leopard to catch the fancy of the audience. However, the topicality, particularly their importance in the food chain, forced us to take up the subject," says Nikhil Alva of Miditech.

Interestingly, Nikhil says it has been worth the effort. Recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called a meeting where it was decided that the culprit drug Diclofenac would be phased out from the market within the next six months.

The Alvas, known to put an element of drama in their documentaries, roped in MTV VJ Cyrus Broacha. "Cyrus is one of the best known faces of the Parsi community, and the Parsis have suffered the most because of the sudden fall in the vulture population." For the uninitiated, Parsis follow a custom wherein they put their dead in a structure called Tower of Silence where they are consumed by scavenger birds, particularly vultures, within minutes. Because of the sudden fall in the vulture population, now the bodies rot for days creating a sense of distress in the community.

The documentary throws up three theories for the cause of the decline. There is a theory doing the rounds that the Air Force is exterminating the big birds, which love to fly in flocks and are capable of attaining speeds up to 280 km/hr, because it is a source of concern for its jets. The Air Force spokesperson though denies the charge of extermination but accepts that the vultures are not being allowed to nest in the air base and its vicinity.

Another theory hints at a mysterious viral disease, but it's more or less overshadowed by the diclofenac revelation made by scientist Lindsay Oaks working with the Peregrine Fund in Pakistan, which also faces the problem. However, Death Watch seems to have been completed in haste. It doesn't capture "observations" like that of associate director of the documentary Devika Ahluwalia. Most important, it doesn't address Parsis or any humans for that matter, who consumediclofenac in large amounts in medicines. It could be a contributing factor behind the fall in vulture population. It would have been good if Cyrus had appealed to his community to give up this drug to save the custom, provided the research proves the point. Nikhil accepts, and perhaps that's why is contemplating a sequel. Still Death Watch is worth a watch.

ANUJ KUMAR

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