Boost for endangered vultures after captive breeding success
Two slender-billed vultures born in RSPB breeding programme in India as wild population heads towards extinction One of the world's most threatened birds has been successfully bred in captivity for the first time, conservationists said today. The slender-billed vulture, which is even more threatened than the tiger in India, is one of several Asian species of the carrion-eating bird which has seen dramatic declines in numbers in recent years and are now critically endangered. There are just 1,000 slender-billed vultures left in the wild, according to the RSPB. Conservationists say successfully breeding one of the birds in captivity is a "huge boost" to efforts to prevent it becoming extinct in the wild. The slender-billed vulture and another species, the long-billed vulture, have together suffered declines of almost 97% since 1992. The population of a third of critically...
Read the whole article on The Guardian - Science
More from The Guardian - Science
Related
- Recovery efforts not enough for critically endangered Asian vultureFri, 5 Sep 2008, 13:03:45 EDT
- Scavenger birds chew the fatMon, 8 Sep 2008, 12:36:47 EDT
- Captive breeding introduced infectious disease to Mallorcan amphibiansMon, 22 Sep 2008, 14:07:38 EDT
- Captive breeding introduced infectious disease to Mallorcan amphibiansMon, 22 Sep 2008, 14:07:40 EDT
- A fisheries catch-22Thu, 11 Dec 2008, 12:13:49 EST