PULLMAN -- A Washington State University researcher has discovered a link between the decline of three Asian vulture species and a drug commonly used to treat livestock there.
Lindsay Oaks, a microbiologist in the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine, worked with an international team of scientists. The findings of their work will be published in the journal Nature (www.Nature.com/nature).
The three-year study links the veterinary use of the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac in domestic livestock with the crash of three species of raptors.
The oriental white-backed vulture was once one of the most common raptors on the Indian subcontinent. But over the last decade, population losses of more than 95 percent have been reported in many areas.
The international team, assembled by the Peregrine Fund, included members from WSU, the Ornithological Society of Pakistan, Bird Conservation Nepal, the Zoological Society of San Diego, the National Wildlife Health Center, the University of California and the University of Idaho.
"This discovery is significant in that it is the first known case of a pharmaceutical causing major ecological damage over a huge geographic area and threatening three species with extinction," says Oaks, the lead diagnostic investigator for the Peregrine Fund team.