The VCF warns that today´s International Vulture Awareness Day could be one of the last to see these birds in Europe.
The VCF and a number of other conservation organisations suggest that European countries are failing to tackle the use of a dangerous drug which could cause the extinction of vultures across the continent.
According to the VCF, BirdLife International, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, the future of Europe´s vultures is dark, unless the European Commission moves to ban the veterinary use of diclofenac now.
A ban in some Asian countries, including India and Pakistan, has helped to arrest the catastrophic effects on vulture populations there. Disappointingly, EU member countries decided, following a meeting this summer, that the drug can instead be ‘controlled’ through vague action plans. Veterinary diclofenac is still legally available in countries such as Spain, which is home to 95% of Europe’s vulture population. That’s despite the European Medicines Agency earlier this year identifying the serious risk the drug poses to vultures.
Vultures provide services to European farmers that are far more valuable than the benefits of this product, which can be replaced by safer drugs. It is clear that Spanish and European authorities are choosing pharmaceuticals over the environment.
India is again leading the way, as the country recently approved a ban on multi-dose vials of human formulations of diclofenac, following the ban on vet diclofenac several yars ago. If only Europe could follow the way and ban the veterinary formulations now legally sold in Spain, Italy and a few other EU countries”
Both the conservation and the scientific communities are united in warning of the dangers of diclofenac to vultures. We are asking the European Commission to enact a ban on veterinary use of diclofenac because ‘Action plans’ and further study are not enough. We need to stop the harmful use of this drug in livestock immediately.
Diclofenac is an anti-inflammatory used in animals such as cattle and pigs, but it is highly toxic to vultures and kills them hours after they have eaten a contaminated carcass. A safe alternative to diclofenac exists and is widely available, which would limit any adverse effects of a ban.
For further information, please see www.4vultures.org
Notes
Diclofenac use in livestock was linked to the near-extinction of vultures in Pakistan,
India and Nepal in the 1990s. Residues of diclofenac remained in livestock carcasses,
that were then eaten by vultures. In 2006, the government of India enacted a ban on
production, importation and sale of veterinary diclofenac products, followed soon
after by Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Since then, vulture population declines in
South Asia have slowed or been reversed.
Spain’s plan to mitigate the effects of diclofenac on vultures is wholly inadequate. It offers to add a label that says carcasses of livestock administered diclofenac should not be fed to wildlife, providing information to veterinarians and sampling carcasses. This plan will do almost nothing to protect Spain’s fragile vulture populations. Evidence that such mitigation is unlikely to be effective is already available within Europe, where the carcass of a Griffon vulture collected in Spain was shown to contain toxic residues of another veterinary drug (flunixin), likely to have come from a contaminated cattle carcass. Even infrequent lapses could have dramatic consequences, with scientific modeling showing that contamination of less than 1% of carcasses would have been sufficient to cause the declines seen in South Asia.
The Convention of Migratory Species, an important treaty to which both the EU itself as well as all EU Member States are parties, adopted guidelines in 2014 to prevent the risk of poisoning to migratory birds. It recommended banning the veterinary use of diclofenac, as it is one of the most severe causes of poisoning worldwide. In its November 2014 meeting, the World Organisation on Animal Health (OIE) working group on Wildlife Health expressed concern about Spain’s decision to allow the use of veterinary diclofenac and also recommended a ban.
The European Medicines Agency, responding to a request by the European Commission, has confirmed that diclofenac poses a threat to Europe’s vultures and recommended that measures be put in place to better protect the birds.
