The three species-Oriental white-backed, long-billed and the slender-billed vulture-classified by IUCN as critically endangered, have reduced by more than 97% between 1992 and 2007. Longbilled vultures are now thought to number about 45,000 and slender-billed vultures just 1,000. The vulture population has steeply declined over the last 20 years or so, and there is a need for accelerated efforts to save these large, magnificent birds, from the many insidious threats they’ve been facing. When the birds eat carcasses of animals treated with the drugs, they experience acute kidney failure and die within days. India’s introduction of diclofenac in the 1990s proved immediately calamitous to the country's vultures. One species, the Indian white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis), declined by 99.9 percent. The Indian vulture (G. indicus) and slender-billed vulture (G. tenuirostris) experienced similar declines. All three species were classified as critically endangered in 2000. Vultures need more intervention-and quickly, if they are expected to survive.
