I wrote recently about how captive breeding is sometimes the only thing that will save animals from extinction (‘Last chance to see'). This is the case in the huge crisis - as catastrophic as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" - affecting Asian and African vultures. These birds are entirely irreplaceable in the role as ‘trash collectors' -removing dead animals from the landscape across large portions of the world's surface. But they are on the edge of extinction because of drugs used to treat domestic cattle which are, to them, deadly poisonous. Eat a dead cow treated with the drug? Death follows. And populations have fallen by more than ninety-nine point nine percent. Yes, you read that right.

(read the background to this story: http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2009/09/vulture_awareness.html)

The drug - diclofenac- is an oft-prescribed human drug for arthritic pain, and it is a similar use in cattle. When veterinarians started prescribing it in India and elsewhere, they - and everyone else - had no idea as to the consequences. But vultures who fed on dead animals treated with this non-steroidal anti-inflammatory were overtaken by a lethal form of gout, where their neck was bent over and they could no longer feed.

This problem was first documented in 2004. In 2006, India, Pakistan and Nepal outlawed the use of the drug....but the populations are still in decline. The birds are in deep trouble.

And surprise, surprise, you only appreciate something when it's been taken away from you.... lack of vultures has meant that wild dogs have stepped into the breach - their population has exploded. As has the risk of dog bites and rabies.

Then, God help us, the same problem started in Africa.

I have always admired vultures, I must admit, although I know they are not everyone's cup of tea. Even so, we are on the point of having a Silent Spring with no happy ending. DDT was banned and the bird population came back, eventually.

...But it is getting all too horribly close for the vultures. But then, who cares about the garbage collectors until they don't turn up one day?