How Humans Made the Only Poison a Vulture Can't Handle

What the film says

1. Old World vultures live in Europe, Africa and Asia; New World vultures are a separate group in the Americas.

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2. A study led by Michael Roggenbuck found about 528 types of bacteria on vultures' facial skin but only about 76 in the gut.

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3. Clostridia and Fusobacteria, which are pathogenic to other vertebrates, dominate the vulture gut.

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4. Prey DNA found on vultures' faces was completely degraded by the time it reached the gut.

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5. Diclofenac, a livestock anti-inflammatory widely used in India from the 1990s, causes kidney failure in vultures that eat treated carcasses.

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6. India banned veterinary diclofenac in 2006, and meloxicam is a vulture-safe alternative.

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7. In 2016 the Pinjore breeding centre released captive-bred vultures in Asia's first vulture reintroduction programme.

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8. A 2024 economics paper found the vulture collapse in India raised human mortality through a sanitation shock.

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9. Microbiologist Lars Hansen says vultures' gut bacteria 'kind of work like a probiotic', occupying the niches that pathogens would.

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10. A 2004 study in Nature by Oaks and colleagues identified residues of the veterinary drug diclofenac as the cause of vulture population declines in Pakistan.

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