Loading…
Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav inaugurated the national workshop 'From Crisis to Recovery - Conserving India's Vultures' at Panchkula, Haryana, on 6 September 2026, marking International Vulture Awareness Day.
It was organised by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change with the Central Zoo Authority, the Haryana Forest and Wildlife Department, the Bombay Natural History Society and the Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre, Pinjore.
The Minister called for more Vulture Safe Zones and vulture-safe veterinary practice, urging a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach.
The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre housed 356 vultures in 2025-26, bred 35 chicks and contributed 87 birds for reintroduction.
India's vulture population collapsed from the 1990s after the veterinary painkiller diclofenac entered livestock carcasses; the drug was banned for veterinary use in India in 2006.
Nodal ministry for wildlife policy; it issued the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation and convened this workshop.
Statutory body under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 that recognises and regulates zoos and oversees conservation breeding programmes.
Founded in 1883, the research partner that identified diclofenac as the cause of the vulture decline and runs the breeding centres with State forest departments.
India's flagship vulture conservation breeding centre, established in 2001; breeds White-rumped, Indian, Slender-billed and Himalayan vultures for release.
Halt the decline and begin recovery of India's vulture populations through breeding, safe zones and drug regulation.
Key: Provided for additional conservation breeding centres and vulture-safe landscapes, building on the earlier 2006 action plan that led to the veterinary diclofenac ban.
Create landscapes where scavenging birds can feed without being poisoned.
Key: Veterinary diclofenac and other harmful NSAIDs are restricted, carcass availability is monitored, and veterinarians and livestock owners are trained in vulture-safe practice.
Maintain captive populations for species recovery, genetic management and staged release into the wild.
Key: Centres such as Pinjore breed chicks in captivity and release birds into safe zones with satellite tracking to follow their survival.
The statute under which India's vultures are protected species and under which the Central Zoo Authority, a co-organiser of the workshop, is constituted.
India prohibited the veterinary use of diclofenac in 2006 after research linked it to renal failure in vultures feeding on treated livestock carcasses. Nepal and Pakistan banned it the same year and Bangladesh in 2010.
Several Indian vulture species are covered by international cooperation on migratory birds of prey, which frames cross-border action on drug regulation in South Asia.
Panchkula is a district of Haryana in the Shivalik foothills, adjoining Chandigarh and close to the Himachal Pradesh border. Pinjore, in the same district, hosts the Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre; the Shivaliks form the outermost and youngest range of the Himalayan system.
GS Paper 3 > Environment > Species conservation and biodiversity
General Awareness > Environment and important days
"Project Tiger" was launched in India in which year?
Answer: 1973
A non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkiller used on livestock; residues in carcasses cause fatal kidney failure in vultures. Banned for veterinary use in India in 2006.
A landscape where veterinary drugs toxic to vultures are restricted and carcass availability is monitored, so released and wild birds can feed safely.
Observed on the first Saturday of September each year to draw attention to vulture conservation; India marked it in 2026 with this national workshop.