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Please sign this very important petition and save our vultures from disaster!

  • 10-03-2014 6:30pm
    #1
    Capercaille
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭


    http://www.change.org/petitions/euro...e-on-eu-market
    Diclofenac is a powerful anti-inflammatory drug that has wiped out vulture populations in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Now, a repeat of this ecological disaster is threatening Europe. Despite the fact that safe alternative drugs are readily available, Diclofenac has been authorised for use on domestic animals in Italy, and in Spain where 80% of European vultures live, and is now becoming widely available on the EU market. According to experts in SEO/BirdLife (BirdLife in Spain), RSPB (BirdLife UK) and the Vulture Conservation Foundation, this may cause a European mass die off of endangered and ecologically valuable wildlife.
    I don't know whether petitions are allowed are not, but this one is vital!!


Comments

  • #2
    ytpe2r5bxkn0c1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    Signed. But pardon my ignorance. How is a drug for pets causing vulture deaths to that extreme level? They're hardly feeding that much on pet carcasses, or are they?


  • #3
    Capercaille
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Capercaille


    Eloise Short Guerilla wrote: »
    Signed. But pardon my ignorance. How is a drug for pets causing vulture deaths to that extreme level? They're hardly feeding that much on pet carcasses, or are they?
    Diclofenac can be used in the treatment of acute febrile conditions in cattle and sheep, e.g. mastitis, pneumonia. It would be used in conjunction with an antibiotic. If the bovine/ovine dies and the vulture consumes the carcase it would consume the diclofenac. Vultures lack the enzyme to break down diclofenac and thus the drugs builds up to toxic levels in the body. This rapidly causing kidney failure and death. In Southern Europe vulture live primarily on dead farm animals.

    There are numerous and better non-steroidal drugs than diclofenac, so it is criminal that this drug has been permitted to be used in cattle/sheep medicine


  • #4
    Gently does it Bacchus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17 ✭Gently does it Bacchus


    Poisoning of Vultures in Africa is now becoming a serious problem too.There's been a significant decline in their numbers in recent years.I saw a very interesting BBC documentary last month 'Vultures:Beauty in the Beast',with wildlife cameraman Charlie Hamilton-James.I've attached a link to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLZXHTKxflQ

    The problem of poisoning is touched upon in the last few minutes of the documentary,but it's still worth looking at the whole episode - fascinating birds!


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