If irony were an Egyptian vulture

a tale of the vanishing cleansers

The tale begins with a boy in his early twenties, by the name Swaroop, who lived a simple life in the fringe villages lining the outskirts of Jaisalmer, a town in Rajasthan. He had a dozen goats, few sheep and a cow, all of whom he cared for deeply. On an unfortunate morning, two of his goats collapsed and despite the efforts of the vet, shortly succumbed to disease. With a heavy heart, Swaroop left the goats in the interior dunes and saying his prayers, returned.But the victim in this story is not the goat. It was someone else.

If you walk a few feet from where Swaroop laid rest to his goats, you would see what irony would look like if it were a vulture, in this case an Egyptian vulture.

But this isn’t about the living soaring vultures either, this is about a vulture, lying deathly still, next to Swaroop’s goats, something that even nature isn’t prepared for. You watch its wings folded in a surrendered prayer, its head draining out the beautiful yellow and slowly merging with the sand in color and texture, its talons now pale grey half buried in the dunes, folded to a side, a blob of vomit crystallizing on the underside of its beak. 

This bird had the unfortunate fate of being punished for doing its job right. Death due to diclofenac poisoning. As you stare at the rays shining down on its lifeless corpse and look back at the putrefying carcass, it sinks in that it is probably a matter of days when the three other vultures diligently scooping up the carcass, would soon be met with a similar fate.

Deceased cattle in rural India are left to nature for their efficient disposal, and that was the absolutely correct approach, until recently. Nature is an intelligent organism, it has put in place various elements to efficiently complete the circle of life and death. But one intervention by man has turned this on its heels. Treatment with Diclofenac, a drug that is commonly used by Veterinarians for pain and illness management. This one kink has turned this efficient cleansing mechanism into a nightmare, a death knell for the facilitators of the process – the vultures. Despite the ban imposed on the drug, there remains the uncomfortable, incriminating evidence of its continued use, albeit in pockets, but that is not even half the problem and we’ll come to that in a bit.

Course correction in this situation needs all of a small change today that would help circumvent an inevitable crisis tomorrow. Yet we watch this species rummage their way to extinction, without realizing the impact it would have on every other species, man included.

Nature is a complex system far beyond the comprehension of man, that is the cumulative result of millions of years of learned wisdom. Dislodging, decapitating even one cog has a domino effect which will manifest itself in devastating ways that we are not even equipped to predict today. A world without its cleansing force is an easy one to guess.

Decline of vultures leaves the meat open to be scavenged by mammals that are not equipped for this purpose like rats and dogs that in turn gives rise to a whole host of problems beginning with spread of diseases. The terrifying counter-intuitiveness of this situation lies in the fact that while these birds are eating the spiked meat to their doom, the numbers of the farmed cattle are ever increasing and the state of sanitary affairs is painfully stagnant.

But the biggest of them all is the binary nature of this problem. It is a problem where incremental or partial progress does not exist. One single aberration has a profound impact on the species for it is that one poisoned carcass that feeds a big committee of vultures, all of whom will suffer the inevitable consequences. So it is a problem that cannot be approached behind a cloak of an “almost”.

Today, as we look around, instead of finding vultures clearing up the cattle carcass, we find ourselves in a place where man has to clean up carcasses of these vultures. 

And once again, as you look skyward, this time, instead of finding soaring birds, you find yourself looking into the lifeless eyes hanging upside down from trees. 

As the death that once fed, is today the feed that causes death, this is the tale of – “If irony were an Egyptian Vulture” 

DISCLAIMERS: All the characters and events depicted are fictitious and any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental, except for the Vultures and the fact that they are vanishing - that part is painfully true

#diclofenacpoisioning #egyptianvulture #rajasthan #vulturepoisoning