A BRITISH vet has helped to save dozens of vultures killed every year by glass-coated kite strings during a traditional festival in India.
Andrew Routh, of the Zoological Society in London, provided specialist knowledge to vets in Gujurat where one in five of the vulture population is injured every year by flying into the kite strings, which are coated in powdered glass to cut through the strings of rivals’ kites. The birds — three species of griffon vultures — face extinction. They used to number millions in India but in the past six years their populations have declined by up to 99.7 per cent.
The rescue project was so successful that this year all the injured vultures that were alive when vets reached them were saved.
They can no longer fly but the crippled birds have been sent to rescue centres where, it is hoped, they will breed and save the species.