Vultures across Africa and Asia face a poisoning crisis that has caused catastrophic population declines — driven by poison placed in carcasses, traditional medicine demand, and livestock owner retaliation.
Vulture poisoning causes agonizing death. Organophosphate and carbofuran poisoning — the most commonly used poisons — cause seizures, respiratory paralysis, and prolonged dying. Birds may number in the hundreds from a single poisoning event, representing a welfare catastrophe of enormous scale compounded by the ecological devastation that follows. Diclofenac in Asia caused vulture populations to collapse by 95-99% within a decade — one of the fastest declines of any vertebrate population ever recorded. The welfare impact extends beyond the immediate deaths to the population-level loss of social information and breeding networks. Banning veterinary diclofenac (already achieved in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh) and replacing carbofuran were direct and successful welfare interventions. Ranger rapid-response to suspected poisoning events and vulture-safe veterinary drug programs are further solutions.