Abstract
Slender-billed vulture is an Old-world vulture classified as critically endangered, yet insufficiently studied on account of future habitat and population trends. This is a narrow ranging, forest confined species found in the moist deciduous Tarai region of Northern India along Himalayan foothills. In the wake of a decreasing population trend and impact of climate change, we made model predictions to study suitable habitat area dynamics. Though the Ensemble model predicted better results than other models (GBM, GLM, MARS, CTA, ANN, MaxEnt, RF and SVM), independent Maxent prediction was found equally good. Suitable area was mainly determined by two vital climatic variables. Rising mean temperature of the driest quarter, 16 oC onwards, and falling precipitation of the wettest month, 700 mm downwards, lowered the habitability of this vulture in Tarai ecozone. The projected suitable habitat showed spatiotemporal dynamics and a general trend of net gain in the expanse in different emission scenarios of near and distant future. However, the predicted population status was not encouraging. It is suggested that considerable attention and quick recovery management practices should be enforced proactively by total warding off of the population from diclofenac, followed by intensive breeding in captivity, habitat improvement and habitat construction/reconstruction for further spread.
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Notes
A sharp decline in vulture population in a short period was reported in the Indian subcontinent during late 1990s and early 2000s. This was attributed to unrestricted use of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, diclofenac, in cattle. This was transferred to vultures on carcass consumption proving fatal.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Shri Sanjay Kumar CCF (Dudhwa Tiger Reserve), Shri Sujoy Banerjee CCF (Wildlife East) and DFO (Pilibhit) for extending their help and logistical support during the field survey / verification stage. Valuable suggestions from the reviewer are highly appreciated.
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Jha, R., Jha, K.K. Projected future of slender-billed vulture: Habitat distribution modelling and population study in Northern India. Biologia 79, 223–238 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-023-01523-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-023-01523-2