Vulture Conservation in Central Gujarat

WHITE - RUMPED VULTURE (GYPS BENGALENSIS)NESTING - MONITORING IN KHAMBHAT:

White- rumped Vulture was once abundant in South-East Asia, and the Indian Sub-continent.

But unfortunately today they have declined from many parts of their ranges owing to food shortages and loss of habitat.

STUDY AREA:

We conducted a survey of this Critically Endangered White-rumped Vulture in Khambhat, located on the plains of River Mahi, District Anand, Gujarat.

Gujarat luckily has good population of these vultures that helped us to select Khambhat as our STUDY AREA.

MONITORING:

Monitoring being a very crucial part of our work to assess the impact of conservation work being carried out and level of awareness among local community.

August-September is the right period of monitoring the nesting sites.

During this period, we regularly monitored nesting/roosting colonies, feeding sites and pharmacies too.

We have been monitoring these colonies since last 9 years and have carried on with Gps mapping of active nests, tree species , nest height and tree height. 

Photo-documentation has been restricted as it may disturb the vultures.

EGYPTIAN VULTURES (NEOPHRON PERCNOPTERUS) NESTING-MONITORING IN HATHIDRA, NORTH GUJARAT:

The Egyptian vulture(Neophron percnopterus) , also called White scavenger vulture , is widely distributed in

Indian sub-continent .It mainly feeds carrion, small mammals, birds and reptiles.

It is an endangered species and has steadily shown decline in its population all over Gujarat and other parts of India.

STUDY AREA:

We surveyed extensively its concentration area to understand the cause behind the population decline and chose HATHIDRA , a village in Palanpur Taluka in Banaskantha district of Gujarat.

MONITORING:

The Egyptian vultures breed later in the year between April or May.

Couples build nest together, in rocky areas, often on cliffs.

Under our conservation program we have documented their active nesting sites. Usualyl they nest near human settlements and hence Awareness program for local community too is a crucial agenda on our list of work.

Again photo-documentation is a restricted process looking into the critical situation where we don't want to disturb these species.

LONG-BILLED VULTURE( gyps indicus) NESTING-MONITORING IN SANTRAMPUR,GUJARAT:

This vulture is Critically Endangered since steady decline in its population. Its Breeding season started from Nov-March.

STUDY AREA:

Santrampur, is a town of Mahisagar district of Gujarat state. It is near Jhalod Taluka in Dahod district, Gujarat. (70 kms from Dahod). 

MONITORING:

Long-billed vulture breeds in colonies.

This species-Gyps indicus breeds on the cliffs.

They usually nest around human colonies. Mainly they feed on carrion and remains of cattles that increase their chances of poisoning.

What we generally evaluate from our studies is that these all species nest around village ponds and human habitation.

Thus besides our scientific work of collection of data under conservation program also equally needs to parallely run the Awareness program among local people. 

These constantly needs man-power , time and also financial support from all corners of the state.

We kindly request you to donate generously to help us in carrying with our long-term program of conservation and increase in their(vulture) population , thereby conserving the ecosystem.