DEFYING THE ODDS

AFTER 99 PER CENT OF INDIA'S VULTURE POPULATION COLLAPSED, ONE MAN MADE IT HIS MISSION TO SAVE THEM. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER HE BEGAN, HERE IS HIS STORY

- EISHA GUPTA

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW A VULTURE soaring high in the sky? I remember a winged creature soaring past the chhatris of Orchha and alighting on one of its ledges, a huddled shape with a long, thin neck and bald head that, when captured on camera, could not do justice to the beauty of its real-life form. Initially confused about whether it was, in fact, a vulture, I asked around, and after some back-and-forth, everyone settled on it being the iconic bird of prey. That was perhaps my first and last memory of seeing a vulture in the flesh.

But this story is not about me, but rather about a conservationist who has given his life to protecting one of India's most threatened birds-albeit one with a PR problem.

A MAN OF MANY FIRSTS

Dr Sachin Ranade is an ornithologist at the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (VCBC) in Rani, Assam. He works on captive breeding vulture populations nationwide and conducts scientific research on wild vultures’ population and habitat. Of the nine vulture species that live in India, Ranade is focused on reviving three of them: the white-rumped vulture, the long-billed vulture, and the slender-billed vulture. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), all of these species are critically endangered.

His work is bearing fruit. The first successful hatching of the white-rumped and long-billed vultures occurred under Ranade’s watch at the VCBC in Pinjore, Haryana, in 2007-8, followed by the hatching of a slender-billed vulture in Assam a year later. So far, he has released 10 captive long-billed vultures and 74 captive white