Vulture watch '07

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Vulture Watch, Surat & Dang District, May '07

It was decided to conduct Vulture counts in whole of Gujarat on 26^th and 27^th of May 2007. To keep an eye on them or to count them was not a big issue but what was important was doing the counts on the said dates in the whole of Gujarat at the same time.

The work of counting Vultures in Surat as well as Dang district was undertaken by Nature Club Surat and Vulture Cell of Bird Conservation Society of Gujarat.

Ø Surat District:

There are only two places in Surat district where Vultures are seen.

Hazira region where Vultures built their nests and
Akhakhol where dead cattle’s are disposed off due to Panjarapole, which is a good feeding site for the Vultures.

Apart from Surat they were also seen in Mahuva Taluka of Surat District.

Hazira has a vast area which is in Olpad Taluka near Surat and so considering the area six places were selected to keep an eye on the flying and resting place of the Vultures. Two volunteers each were keeping an eye on all the six points. White-rumped Vultures (Gyps bengalensis) recorded in the Hazira area are as follows:

Places	26^th May ‘07		27^th May ‘07
Places	In flight	Perching	In flight	Perching
Hazira (3 points)	26	09	25	15
Suvali (1 point)	25	05	05	19
Junagam (1 point)	27	04	03	28
Vasva (1point)	24	08	27	13
Total	102	26	60	75
		128		135

	Hazira Village N 2105’45.19” E 7238’48.37” Altitude: 22.9 ft
	Suvali Village N 2110’13.10” E 7238’20.78” Altitude: 32.8 ft
	Rajagari Village N 2110’38.68” E 7238’37.92” Altitude: 22.9 ft
	Junagam Village: N 2109’12.68” E 7238’24.62” Altitude: 36.0 ft
	Vasva Village: N 2112’51.41” E 7239’33.44” Altitude: 39.3 ft

Important points:

	It is the only place where White-rumped Vultures (Gyps bengalensis) built their nests. During the year 2006-07 a total of 21 nests were recorded here in this area.
	Here White-rumped Vultures (Gyps bengalensis) built their nests on the tall palm trees or uses them as their roosting place. Palm trees are found in abundance in this region.
	Leaves of these trees are often used for making the fence, roofs of the houses or even used as fire-wood. And so for the said purposes the leaves are cut very often. Many a times leaves of old and tall trees are being slashed which are appropriate for making nests.
	Besides people of many villages around have cultivated their lands and turned them into mango and chikoo farms.
	One of the most important points is that of up coming of big industries in this region. They have been expanding on a very large scale day by day and at most of the places they have come very nearer to the Vulture sites. Companies are trying to persuade people to sell off their lands to them where Vultures are building their nests or using it for roosting.
	Documentary “Vanishing Vultures” in Gujarati, given to us by Mr. Chris Bowden of RSPB and Mr.Vibhuprakash of BNHS is being used to create awareness among the villagers where the vultures are breeds.

Hazira is one of the favorable places for the White-rumped Vultures (Gyps bengalensis) to breed. And if the trees are being saved from cutting where the vultures roost or built their nests and if food is easily available to them nearer than we can save the White-rumped Vultures (Gyps bengalensis) from being extinct or may even find an increase in their number.

Ø Dang District:

Most of the part of the Dang district is a forest area comprising of Bamboos and Teak. To its East is Maharashtra and the border is a hilly region with tall mountains with straight slopes, which is the most favorable place for the Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus).

For the year 2007, Vulture counting had been undertaken by the volunteers of Nature Club Surat and Vulture Cell of Bird Conservation Society of Gujarat.

It was not possible for the volunteers to carry on the vulture count at all the said places in the limited time period as this part of the Dangs is very vast.

Dead cattle was carried in a trailer attached to the Jeep from Surat and was dumped at one place. Due to the bad smell coming from the dead cattle many Vultures were attracted and found soaring on the top. And because of this a good number of vultures were counted compared to last year. Information of the Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus) seen in the eastern part of the Dangs especially near Chinchli, Gadad, Nakatiya Hanvat village area is as under:

Places	26^th May ‘07	27^th May ‘07
Places	In Flight	In Flight
Gadad and Chinchli	26	36
Sanghvad (Nakatiya Hanvat)	-	05
Total	26	41

	Gadad Village: N 2044’26.96” E 7352’21.96” Altitude: 2034 ft.
	Sanghvad Hill: N 2050’22.12” E 7356’25.28” Altitude: 3700 ft.

During this year survey was undertaken only at the above said places. Apart from here Vultures have been sighted near Bhintbari and Moriyaghat also. And so it can be concluded that we could find Vultures in good number here and also their nests.

During 2007 survey 41 Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus) have been reported between Sanghvad and Piparwadi mountains (see the detail in the Goggle image), and further on there is a possibility of 70 to 80 Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus) to be sighted in the region between Sanghvad and Bhintbari.

Important points:

	A good number of Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus) are found in the Dangs apart from Kutch and Junagadh.
	As the nests in this region are built on the mountain slopes, they are beyond the reach of humans and so nests are not destroyed directly by them.
	Looking to the past records of the survey and having had a word with the people around it has been concluded that the most important factor here is food.
	On an average only one cattle is found dead during the whole week which is not enough for so many Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus) to feed upon.

Note: If we really want the Vultures to survive and to protect them then there is a need to make a proper feeding site in this region.

Approximate cost for building the breeding center comes to around 1 to 1.5 crores. And we can set up a feeding centre with much lesser cost than this. Because of this we could breed the Vultures naturally rather than breeding them in captivity.

Vulture Team:

Nirmala Chathoth	Mukesh Bhatt	Viral Prajapati	Devasis Jadia
Pratik Patel	Darshan Jardosh	Nirav Desai	Harsh Pandit
Vivek Joshi	Minesh Patel	Daxesh Patel	Almin Lakhani
Rohan Patil	Jay Thakkar	Ramchandra Agre	Vijayshree
Harsh Desai	Hitesh Sukhadiya	Mahant	Sandeep Javare
Ritesh Pande	Chandrakant Mahajan

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Send mail to info@natureclubsurat.org with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © 2003 Nature Club Surat, India Last modified: August 07, 2008

Send mail to info@natureclubsurat.org with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2003 Nature Club Surat, India
Last modified: August 07, 2008