India

Endangered white-tailed vulture missing from Nepal found in Bihar

Patna An endangered white-tailed vulture, which went missing from neighboring Nepal, was found in Bihar’s Darbhanga district earlier this month. The male vulture, fitted with a satellite tag, was released into the wild by Nepalese authorities to track its population. The vulture lost contact with the radar in April.

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This vulture was last seen in Tanahun district of Nepal in September. This bird, sitting in a weak condition in a field at Benipur in Darbhanga district, was caught by the personnel of Bhagalpur Bird Ringing Station on November 13. Officials said that the disappearance of this vulture was a matter of concern for wildlife officials of Nepal.

Bihar’s chief wildlife warden PK Gupta said the white-tailed vulture (Gyps bengalensis) has been listed as endangered on the IUCN list since 2000, as its population has declined rapidly. Apart from Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam, vultures of this breed were very common in the Indian subcontinent.

The white-tailed vulture feeds mostly on the ground, but forages and nests in trees and rocks and spends most of its time in flight searching for carrion. Its nests are usually two to 18 meters above the ground. The white-tailed vulture is of medium size.

It has a white neck and lower back, except for the upper part of the tail, while the rest of the body is black. The adult bird is darker in color than the juvenile. An adult white-tailed vulture is 75 to 85 cm tall, with a wingspan of 180 to 210 cm and a weight of 3.5 to 7.5 kg. Male and female birds are almost equal in size.

Gupta said, “This vulture was released into the wild by the Nepalese authorities for research and monitoring of the protected area with ecotone satellite tags and aluminum rings. This vulture, which went missing in September, is now in safe hands.

He said the news of the vulture’s disappearance was shared with the Jatayu Conservation Breeding Center in Pinjore (Haryana), the Bombay Natural History Society and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds based in Sandy (England). Gupta said that the vulture has been kept under the observation of Bird Ringing and Monitoring Station in Darbhanga and after a few days it will be released in the open sky.

He said that after the rescue, it was found that the bird was emaciated as it had not had anything to eat for several days. According to Gupta, the said vulture was immediately provided with food and other essentials and is now in normal condition. He said, “The medical examination of the vulture was also done. Nepalese authorities appreciated our efforts and shared details about the same.”

Gupta said that according to the information received from the Nepali authorities, after being released in the wild in November 2021, the vulture traveled to Sohagi Baruwa Wildlife Sanctuary (Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh), about 55 km away, on February 9, 2022, with regular data transmission. Was. They said that the bird later made a nearly 96-km long journey to Abukhaireni (Tanahu, Nepal) and did not transmit data from April 2022.

It was last seen on September 3, 2022 around Tanahu and was missing since then. The Bhagalpur Bird Ringing Station had earlier rescued a Mongolian Pallas’s eagle named Anna in October 2021.

Gupta said, “This eagle started its migration from a bird sanctuary in Mongolia on 21 September 2021 and entered India on 10 October 2021 via Bangladesh. In India this eagle was rescued safely in Bihar.

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