RIYADH, 16 June — Saudi and British conservationists are pooling their resource to protect Saudi Arabian vultures following alarming reports that the vulture population is threatened by a mysterious virus.
This priority project, coordinated by the Taif-based National Wildlife Research Center, is being taken up after the mystery virus virtually wiped out vultures and related species in the entire Indian sub-continent.
The nick-named Eurasian griffon vultures found in Saudi Arabia are closely related to the Indian white-back and long-billed species, whose number has been severely decimated by the disease. “So far, the virus has been confined to the sub-continent, but there is a very grave risk of it spreading westwards”, said an expert, Martin Foulds who has been deputed at Taif to carry out the research sponsored by the BAE Systems.
“We are very worried because some 95 percent of the white-back and long-billed griffon vultures of India have been wiped out and we want to make sure that this does’t happen here in Saudi Arabia,” Foulds said. He will study the habits of Eurasian vultures and find ways to conserve the rare species. The project is being carried out under the supervision of Dr Mohammed Shobrak, a bird ecologist of the Kingdom.
According to Dr Shobrak the preliminary aims of this joint effort are tfind out more about the breeding, feeding, mortality and characteristics of the vultures in the southwest of the Kingdom.
