- Nepal’s white-rumped vulture population is growing by 13% annually since 2012, showing high survival rates following intensive conservation efforts.
- The recovery follows a 2006 ban on diclofenac, a veterinary drug that previously decimated vulture populations through accidental poisoning.
- Community-led initiatives like "Jatayu Restaurants" provide safe food, while Vulture Safe Zones ensure habitats remain free from toxic pharmaceutical contamination.
- While showing progress, the species remains critically endangered, necessitating strict monitoring of new veterinary medicines to ensure long-term survival.
Kathmandu, Nepal : For years, the sight of a white-rumped vulture circling high above Nepal’s forests and farmlands became increasingly rare. Once a familiar part of the country’s landscape, the bird nearly disappeared from the skies during one of the most devastating wildlife declines recorded in South Asia.
Today, however, there is reason for cautious optimism.
Nepal’s critically endangered white-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis) is making a remarkable recovery, with its population increasing by about 13 percent annually since 2012, according to a new study published in Ibis, an international journal of avian science.
The recovery is more than a conservation success story. It is evidence that determined action, scientific research and cooperation among government agencies, conservationists, veterinarians, farmers and local communities can bring a species back from the edge.
The study found exceptionally high annual survival rates among Nepal’s white-rumped vultures. About 95 percent of adult birds and 96 percent of immature birds survive each year—figures that researchers say have played a major role in the population’s recovery.
At the heart of this turnaround is a drug that once became synonymous with the vulture crisis: diclofenac.
A drug that changed the skies
During the 1990s, vultures across South Asia began disappearing at an alarming rate. Populations in Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh declined by between 20 and 50 percent every year.
The cause was eventually traced to livestock carcasses contaminated with diclofenac, a veterinary anti-inflammatory drug widely used to treat cattle and other animals.
Vultures, which naturally feed on dead livestock, were unknowingly consuming the drug. Even small amounts could cause severe kidney failure and death.
The consequences were enormous.
Vultures are nature’s cleanup crew. By rapidly consuming animal carcasses, they help keep the environment clean and reduce the risk of disease spreading. Their disappearance therefore represented not only a loss of biodiversity but also a potential threat to public and environmental health.
“It was a catastrophe unfolding across the region,” said ornithologist Krishna Prasad Bhusal, Asia Regional Co-chair of the IUCN Vulture Specialist Group.
Nepal eventually responded with decisive action. The country banned veterinary diclofenac in 2006 and followed the ban with awareness campaigns, market monitoring and enforcement.
Government agencies worked with conservation organizations, veterinarians, livestock owners, pharmaceutical companies and local communities to ensure that the dangerous drug disappeared from veterinary use.
By 2012, diclofenac had effectively ceased to be available in Nepal’s veterinary market.
That year marked an important turning point.
Slowly, the vultures returned
The recovery did not happen overnight.
For conservationists who had watched vulture numbers collapse, every surviving bird and every successful nest became important.
Long-term monitoring now provides evidence that the effort is paying off.
Between 2007 and 2025, researchers monitored 6,410 vulture nests across Nepal. The average nesting success was around 69 percent, demonstrating that the birds were not only surviving but also reproducing successfully.
Satellite tracking and demographic studies have added another important piece to the story.
Researchers found that the growing population is primarily the result of high survival and successful reproduction within Nepal, rather than large-scale immigration of birds from India.
In other words, Nepal’s vultures are recovering on their own home ground.
For conservationists, that is particularly encouraging.
Communities became part of the solution
Nepal’s success has also been built around the idea that wildlife conservation cannot be separated from people and their livelihoods.
The country established South Asia’s first Vulture Safe Zone, bringing together several conservation measures designed to create a safer environment for the birds.
The approach includes promoting safe veterinary medicines, protecting habitats, monitoring vulture populations and involving local communities.
One of the most visible examples is the Jatayu Restaurant initiative.
Despite its unusual name, these are not restaurants for people. They are community-based feeding sites where vultures are provided with safe carcasses from livestock that have not been treated with harmful veterinary drugs.
Such initiatives have given vultures a reliable source of uncontaminated food while also providing local communities with a direct role in protecting the birds.
The story therefore extends beyond statistics and scientific papers. It is also a story of farmers, conservation workers, veterinarians and communities changing everyday practices to give a threatened species a chance to survive.
The danger has not disappeared
Yet researchers warn that the comeback should not be mistaken for a complete victory.
The white-rumped vulture population remains far below its pre-1990s level. The species is still classified as critically endangered, meaning it remains at an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
Another concern is the growing use of veterinary medicines.
Diclofenac may have been removed from Nepal’s veterinary market, but conservationists fear that other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) could pose similar risks if their effects on vultures are not properly tested.
Researchers are therefore calling for strict monitoring of veterinary medicines and scientific safety assessments of new drugs before they become widely available.
The lesson from the diclofenac crisis is clear: prevention is far less costly than trying to rebuild a population after it has collapsed.
A recovery worth protecting
The new findings offer an encouraging message not only for Nepal but for South Asia as a whole.
The research team included Bed Kumar Dhakal, Deputy Director General of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation; Krishna Prasad Bhusal, Asia Regional Co-chair of the IUCN Vulture Specialist Group; and Ankit Bilash Joshi, Vulture Conservation Program Manager at Bird Conservation Nepal.
The study was jointly conducted by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, Bird Conservation Nepal, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction.
Their work shows that even a species pushed toward the edge can begin to recover when science, policy and community action move in the same direction.
For someone watching a vulture glide silently over Nepal’s hills or Tarai plains, the sight may seem ordinary. But after the devastation of the 1990s, each bird in the sky represents something much bigger—a conservation effort that worked.
Nepal’s white-rumped vultures are not yet out of danger. Their numbers remain only a fraction of what they once were, and new threats could emerge.
But their return offers something that was once difficult to imagine: a future in which these important birds once again become a familiar part of Nepal’s landscape.
The challenge now is not simply to bring the vultures back.
It is to make sure they never disappear again.
