Chaygaon: Carcasses of four rare Himalayan vultures were discovered in a paddy field on Thursday morning by locals of Nowamati village in Chaygaon in the Kamrup district of Assam, about 41 km from Guwahati.
Babul Ali, a local resident, said, “In the morning around 8 am, I saw a few vultures in the paddy field. When I looked closer, I saw that four vulture carcasses were lying on the ground and one vulture standing near the carcasses seemed to be sick.”
“Later, I immediately informed the Bamunigaon Range Office and Kukurmara Beat office,” added Babul Ali.
After receiving the information, a forest official team led by the Bamunigaon Range In-Charge Haliram Saikia arrived at the spot.
Babul Ali said, “The sick vulture left the carcasses of the other four vultures when the forest officials arrived.”
“I suspected that they died due to poisoning. Maybe the other vulture will also die,” added Ali.
“A few days ago, we found two to three vulture carcasses in the Alukhunda village area, and we found four vulture carcasses today as well. We suspect that the vultures had some poisonous meat and then died in this area. I had already informed the matter to the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre, Rani, to find out the reason behind the unnatural deaths,” said Haliram Saikia, In-Charge of the Bamunigaon Range Office.
Saikia added, “We, the forest department, had already organized an awareness meeting to save vultures. We explained that if we find out that anyone had poisoned and killed the vultures, they will face imprisonment for a minimum of 10 years.”
“We will find out the actual reason behind the unnatural death of the vultures after post-mortem. We have observed that recently in the Chaygaon area, vultures have been dying unnaturally or due to poisoning,” said scientist Sachin Ranade from the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre, Rani.
The incident highlights the plight of vultures, who often become unintentional victims of poisoning. Farmers sometimes mix pesticides in the carcasses of goats or cows to kill dogs that are a threat to their livestock.
“Furadan is a commonly used pesticide that has been used in this case. It is very lethal and was mixed with the carcass of a goat to kill dogs,” said Ranade.
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This is not the first time that such an incident has occurred in Assam. In January of this year, 25 vultures were found dead under mysterious circumstances in the state’s Sivasagar district. It is believed that the vultures fell ill after feeding on a cattle carcass found a few meters away from the spot.
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