The Sigur plateau in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in the Nilgiris is one of the last remaining regions where a sizeable breeding vulture population is clinging on in Southern India. At least four species of India’s vultures are seen in the region, and at least three are believed to be using the plateau to breed and nest.
The region could potentially help critically endangered vulture species recolonise the surrounding landscapes from where they have become locally extinct over the last few decades because of the use of Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) to treat cattle. Due to the use of drugs like diclofenac since the early 1990s, vulture populations across India have plummeted as they died after feeding on the carcasses of cattle treated with the drugs. Four of India’s nine vulture species have been listed as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Three of the four species seen regularly in the Sigur are on the “critically endangered” list, while the other, the Egyptian vulture, is classified as being “endangered”.
H. Byju, a researcher who has studied vultures in the Sigur plateau and the Moyar Valley, says the future of vultures remains precarious in the Sigur. “For a population of vultures to be considered stable requires at least 800 pairs, while Sigur, which has the largest population of vultures in southern India, hardly has 300 individuals,” said the author of Valley of Hope–Vultures and Moyar.
