Vultures are critical ecosystem engineers facing dramatic population declines from poisoning and persecution. Their welfare and conservation are essential for healthy ecosystems.
Vulture welfare involves both individual animal suffering and catastrophic population losses that eliminate ecosystem function. Diclofenac poisoning causes acute visceral gout in vultures — a painful systemic failure following consumption of treated livestock carcasses. Lead poisoning from ingesting gut piles and shot-killed carcasses causes neurological dysfunction and death in condors and eagles consuming hunter-shot wildlife. Deliberate poisoning to prevent vultures alerting authorities to illegally killed wildlife is a significant threat in Africa. Individual vulture welfare interventions include removing diclofenac from veterinary use in vulture range countries — already achieved in India, Nepal, and Pakistan — and transitioning hunters to non-lead ammunition.