Vultures are facing catastrophic declines across Africa and Asia due to deliberate and accidental poisoning, with welfare implications for millions of individual birds and ecosystem consequences for the scavenger guild.
Vulture poisoning events cause mass death at a scale rarely seen in wildlife persecution. A single poisoned elephant carcass may kill several hundred birds in one event — death from poisoning involves convulsions, paralysis, and prolonged suffering before death. Accidental poisoning by veterinary drugs like diclofenac kills birds gradually as kidney failure progresses over days. The ecological consequences of vulture decline compound the welfare dimension — without vultures to rapidly consume carcasses, disease pathogens persist in the environment and feral dogs proliferate, creating additional welfare problems across ecosystems. Vulture-safe alternatives to diclofenac exist and have been approved in both India and some African countries.