Do vultures need a rebranding campaign in India?

It will still be a while before Indians — or people anywhere — sport tee shirts or tattoos avowing love for vultures. Even the word in English has a flesh-crawling recall for many. But vultures are much maligned birds. Quite literally so, in fact, as its numbers have plummeted from four crore to one lakh in India alone in the last 30 years with nary a tear shed, unlike those spilt for grander, handsomer creatures. Which is why we commend the epic effort of the delightfully named Jatayu Conservation and Breeding Centre. After all, the pre-release this week of vultures bred in captivity into an aviary at the Bir Shikargah sanctuary prior to their full release into the wild has taken as long as Lord Rama’s exile.

The mythological allusion is befitting, as the eponymous winged creature in the Ramayana was killed by Ravana as he heroically tried to prevent Sita’s abduction. However, the recent decimation of his descendants has been due to diclofenac, to defeat which, unlike Ravana, one does not need divine intervention. Farmers and veterinarians have to shift to other painkillers so that vultures do not die of kidney failure after eating diclofenac-laced carrion. The unpretty bird also urgently needs a rebranding campaign, so that it can regain the pre-eminence it enjoyed in ancient Egypt, Tibet, Persia, India and elsewhere.