Tagged vulture flies 4,000 km in five months

A one-year-old captive-bred juvenile white-rumped vulture, listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, has flown from the Tadoba National Park in Maharashtra to Pudukkottai in Tamil Nadu.

- SV KRISHNA CHAITANYA @Chennai

The vulture was GPS-tagged and released in Tadoba-Andhari in July as part of the Jatayu conservation initiative. The Maharashtra forest department and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) have GPS tagged 20 vultures (10 long-billed & 10 white-rumped), all brought from the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre in Pinjore, Haryana. While the long-billed vultures were released in the Pench tiger reserve, the white-rumped ones were released in Tadoba.

Of these, one juvenile white-rumped vulture has been observed to be wandering alone and flying long distances. As per GPS data shared to TNIE, the vulture has so far covered 4,000km, making pit stops in different states in the past five months. Data shows it even stopped in Chennai briefly.