In the 1990s, a cattle drug wiped out millions of vultures. Years later, their disappearance was linked to 500,000 human deaths |
For generations, vultures were part of the everyday landscape across India. They gathered around cattle carcasses, circled above rubbish dumps and cleared away animal remains before they had time to linger. Then, in the 1990s, their numbers began to collapse at an extraordinary rate. A veterinary painkiller called diclofenac was eventually identified as a major…
