Associated Press

New Delhi, May 2:

A northern Indian state has banned a painkiller used to treat farm animals due to fears that it is killing off endangered vultures that feed on their carcasses, a newspaper reported today.

Last Friday, Punjab state banned the anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac amid research showing it causes a fatal illness called drooping neck disease in India’s three vulture species, The Asian Age newspaper said.

The vultures’ numbers have declined sharply over the past decade from eating dead animals treated with the drug, the paper said, citing research by the Bombay Natural History Society, India’s leading conservation group.

Indian wildlife authorities have listed the country’s three vulture species as “critically endangered.” The vultures are found mostly in India, and also in Pakistan and Nepal.

The US-based Peregrine Fund, which is working to conserve birds of prey, reported last year that South Asia’s vulture population had plunged by an alarming 95 per cent since 1995.