Of the 14 baby vultures reared inside an artificial cage at the CNP´s breeding center five years ago, a dozen had laying eggs last year - but none of them have hatched so far, informed Bed Bahadur Khadka, chief at the center.[break]
“Everything seemed well in the beginning. The vultures built their nests and laid eggs inside the concrete cage last year,” said Khadka, who is also the deputy conservation officer at the national park. “But then none of the eggs have hatched.”
Alarmed by a sharp decline in vulture population, CNP had established the breeding center, and built the cage at the cost of Rs 1.2 million five years ago.
The conservationists remain baffled by the problem.
“There could be a problem in the process of egg incubation inside the cage, or the vultures, which were brought away from its natural habitat, are yet to learn how to hatch. There might be yet other reasons behind it,” said Khadka.
After preparing their nests, vultures lay eggs toward October and November. A vulture usually lays only one egg a year.
CPN officials, nonetheless, have kept their fingers crossed.
“Vulture breeding centers in India had reported similar problem, but the eggs had eventually hatched,” said Khadka.
The conservationists at the national park are also weary of the local residents who still seem apathetic to the rapid decline in the population of the vultures that help keep our environment clean by consuming the dead animals and decaying materials.
“It´s the medicine called Daicholfenic fed to the domestic animals that has been killing these scavengers,” lamented Khadka. “When a vulture consumes such dead animals, the medicines affect its kidney and it dies gradually.”
The number of vulture has drastically decreased over the past 14 years. “Chitwan, once used to be replete with a wide species of vultures, but they are hardly visible now,” said Hem Subedi, a former staff at Chitwan branch of Bird Conservation Nepal.
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