This study elaborates on beliefs and perceptions about common avian scavengers amongst cultural mosaics represented by heterogeneously-developed tropical megacities like Delhi that comprise of multiple stakeholder units. We contribute to advance the resolution of human-animal interactions, which are interdisciplinary and difficult to achieve via standalone ecological or ethnographic studies. Our results contribute folk-biological perspectives that are transdisciplinary and offer insights on how people ordinarily understand the biological world in rapidly urbanising ecosystems shared with opportunistic commensals. In cities like Delhi, millions of scavenging populations of myriad species live on waste and ritually offered food-subsidies by thousands of devout people who indulge in diverse practices, expressing patronage to animals. This is probably the largest human-animal interface in the world16. Human-animal interactions in tropical cities are distinct from their western counterparts50, driven by people acknowledging age-old ecosystem services by animals, potentially configuring regional urban nature-based-solutions e.g. in solid waste disposal 16. Cities within the Global South are conglomerates of immigrants that impact social traditions and practices at multiple scales14. Thus, dissociation of urban immigrants from their biocultural roots impacted their attitudes and ecological salience for non-human animals, even for frequently encountered avian scavengers33,51,52.
Unravelling ecology of opportunistic synurbic organisms to support their conservation will need distinction in how we characterise ‘cities’, which are confined in physical geography. Urban systems, however, are not limited or defined by political boundaries32. When characterising organismic ecology well entwined with the populous, we need to account for the co-production of materials, information (tangible and intangible archives), people, power relations, etc. – to establish forms of interconnection that most meaningfully constitute the urban for humans and non-humans in shared spaces53,54. Unfortunately, as vulture-restoration efforts are being consolidated to achieve numerical response for a far greater quantity of human-offal, the eventual lag phase would not just be modulated by birds’ life-history traits. Even the access to food-subsidies would be impacted by urban-development which entails increased power transmission lines, considering that vultures and other large birds like Great Indian Bustard are electrocuted by overhead power lines or windmill collision7. The functional response of vultures in human-use landscapes, unlike the small populations currently confined to protected areas, would oversee newly co-produced ecosystems, contextualising ecological opportunism that fits the socio-cultural and socio-economic milieu. Based on the four domains of population, demography, behaviour and ethnoecology that we explore in more detail below contextualise urban scavengers and people in social-ecological systems34,36,37,55 SES.
First, as an upper-trophic wide-ranging raptor, vultures fall under those avian groups that successfully colonised and thrived in human-dominated landscapes, attracted to the frequent allocation of anthropogenic resources. Raptor populations are typically limited by food and nest-sites3, wherein, the latter constrains the level of resource-tracking by individuals attuned to opportunism (e.g. 15). However, unlike the commensal-scale urban niche for kites and crows, vultures’ services were resolutely harnessed by locals through the allocation of designated feeding sites - an erstwhile practice analogous to today’s “vulture-restaurants''56. It not only had implications for solid waste and disease management but also enabled the maintenance of the world's largest livestock population in poverty-stricken regions7,8,57. Till the last century, this vulture-mediated nature-based-solution for solid waste disposal simultaneously addressed economic, sustainability and socio-cultural goals- a regionally motivated feat incorporated by highly variable communities across South Asia7,25 and elsewhere10. Therefore, for the Indian subcontinent’s likely future, the largest milk-producing region of the world, we reckon to couple: (i) dairy-colonies' displacement as the urban gentrification drive58; and (ii) releasing vultures from conservation-breeding facilities7,25. The latter would, of course, depend on careful, multi-stakeholder and multi-scalar planning to afford accessibility of safe feeding, roosting and nesting sites for vultures, whose availability could easily be exploited as a tool to simultaneously address urban waste and poverty15,16. For instance, north-western Delhi, where informal livestock-rearing colonies’ resettlement is planned58, lies in proximity to the Aravallis range that is currently an active, safe nesting zone (Authors’ unpublished data). Correspondingly, policies pertaining to vulture restoration shall solicit simultaneous contributions from the federal and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that concern the environment and forests, animal husbandry practices and resettlement of the urban poor.
Second, the demographic shifts in vulture populations have accompanied changes in human population structure across the globe, especially in the Global South (Census Organisation of India, 2011; 41). Our surveys informed that migration to cities selectively de-couples younger generations from the joint-families, disrupting direct as well as oblique biocultural transmissions. Previously, these formed the basis for mutual tolerance59. Cities’ physical urban sprawl and far-ranging urban impacts will likely affect successful vulture-reintroduction. Therefore, demographic repair for vultures should factor in cultural dynamics in humans to support re-attainment of mutually conducive niches in rapidly urbanising ecosystems 59,60.
Third, while our subjects offered deep insights into how religious beliefs motivated them to patronise and tolerate vultures in localities, unfortunately, we have a poor understanding of how these birds dealt with the behavioural bottleneck that involved trade-offs in urban environments in terms of defending their young against humans, while exploiting anthropogenic food sources45. Recent studies on birds that occupy and exploit anthropogenic resources stress the factor of animal-personalities generated under the selection of individuals that could breed within the higher-end spectrum of adaptation to urban life5. But unlike multiple birds that have been studied to aggressively attack human beings to defend offspring, e.g. kites17, and magpies61, vultures are not known to attack humans39,62,63. Therefore, we speculate that vultures-populations breeding within cities were constituted by individuals that had synurbic personalities, developed via selection for tolerance to human proximity as a behavioural strategy 15,17.
Unfortunately, this urban opportunism was also the basis for ecological trap64 that fuelled rapid decline of populations via consumption of cattle-carcasses which had diclofenac-residues in urban areas7,25. In terms of the erstwhile functional ecology of avian-scavengers that conjugated with animal-husbandry practices, behavioural-phenotype(s)65,66 of the captive-bred vultures might preclude their settlement in human-use landscapes, rendering the small populations exposed to multiple threats at the currently altered human-wildlife interface66–68. Alternatively, urban opportunism on cattle carcasses can also be species-specific tolerance of proximity to humans, selecting for White-rumped vultures Gyps bengalensis that constituted >80% of all vultures in South Asia before decline7,25. Collectively, based on aforementioned links in human and non-human agencies, changes to human-vulture interface have contributed to a long-drawn social-ecological trap for both agencies69 . Given that media assisted in spread of anthropomorphic socio-cultural legends about vultures, as well as misinformation regarding what led to their loss and/or treatment as bad omens, socio-cultural shifts can erode patronising attitudes that previously allowed Indians to tolerate vultures70.
Fourth, we weave the aforementioned population, demographic and behavioural perspectives for the human and non-human animal agencies that co-produce and constitute the ‘urban’ in the Global South. Under the domains of SES, for cities under variably urbanised status, these constitute regional ethnoecology. Previous studies71,72, including a few in the region5,45, have shown that commensal species’ functional ecologies are ascribed via centuries of coexistence, enabling metabolism of human offal by opportunistic species at multiple trophic levels. For instance, food waste is a valuable subsidy to livestock and poultry owners in South-Asian cities and towns16. Thereby, the urban ecology of the human-animal interface in urbanising systems is an unintended, informal selection of animal rearing practices. These ethnic-practices sustain and support millions of poor people, configuring domains of political economies and political ecologies with respect to which animals can cohabit in rapidly changing tropical SES73. Along with commensals, citizens in urban tropics share living spaces with livestock in the backyard, which consume edible waste as nutrient-rich feed. It reduces the costs of milk and meat production74–76. Scavengers like vultures, dogs, kites, rats and crows, thereafter, consume the organic remains, as human-mediated commensal agencies, with highly variable synurbic status77. Therefore, for the old world, the fastest declines witnessed in the vulture populations should not be treated as a single event isolated from simultaneously occurring changes in the human-wildlife interface and socio-economy. Such events are driven by, and, in turn, further cascades urban growth and development that shapes local culture, built environment and social-ecological processes74,78. Meanwhile, tropical cities have witnessed massive increase in their solid waste since the vulture decline e.g. Delhi’s waste grew by 300% since 200279. Unlike their western counterparts, the ecology of human-nature interactions in tropical megacities33 respond to the geography of human religion, hygiene and poverty via (i) interactions of socio-economic and socio-cultural processes amidst, (ii) rapid spatio-temporal alterations over availability and accessibility to food subsidies that are inextricably entwined with; (ii) population and behavioural dynamics that characterise functional urban ecology of non-human animals in human-dominated landscapes36 (Fig. 4).
Further, vultures’ loss has had its share in contributing to the burden of diseases that spill from animals to humans (zoonoses)80. Given that South Asia and Africa share the highest zoonotic burden, human-animal interactions within finite spaces have reportedly been associated with an increase in the population of stray dogs and other warm blooded commensals that cause rabies80,81. These commensals that share urban opportunism underwent competitive release in the absence of vultures80. The latter’s resurrection will, therefore, be impacted by competition over anthropogenic resources, involving commensals’ opportunism that is currently contingent on regional cultural geography16. Considering the perpetual increase in solid waste and its poor disposal in South Asia48,82 that supports dense populations of free-ranging animals, successful seeding of captive-bred vultures will be challenging, considering the projected urbanisation of 500-million citizens over the next 30 years30,35,36,41,83.
Furthermore, a comparison of current precarity for vultures in Asia, Europe and the African continents (see Table 1) reflects the distinguishable socio-cultural as well as socio-economic factors for respective regional ethnoecological practices. It involves agroecosystems in human-use areas interfacing the protected area systems84. Within Europe and Africa, illegal use of poison baits is the most important human-induced factor for local extinction or decline in vertebrate megafauna, including Red Kites and Vultures85,86. Additionally, vultures are vilified in many regions in Africa, from where studies have not reported ethno-ornithological aspects that still motivate people to patronise vultures and other animals5,16,17, as reported here, and by Taneja87. In the wake of recent changes to urban political ecology in the Global South, we need to plan and define corresponding functional ecological domains for vultures and other opportunistic commensals36,53,54,88–91.
Table 1: A comparison matrix of current conservation threats, policy tools for vultures in Asia, Europe and the African continents, and the impacts of regional losses reflects the distinguishable socio-cultural as well as socio-economic factors for respective regional ethnoecological practices. Adapted from CMS Raptor MOU Technical Publications8,92
Region
|
Vulture spp
|
CR Status
|
Major Policy intervention
|
Socio-cultural, persecution status
|
Threats
|
Impact of vulture loss
|
References
|
Asia
|
Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus
|
NT
|
|
belief based persecution in Nepal
|
persecution, decline in food availability
|
increase in population of mammalian scavengers like dogs, genetic bottlenecks
|
93
|
Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus
|
EN
|
Ban on diclofenac
|
|
electrocution, NSAID poisoning
|
94,95
|
Red-headed Vulture Sarcogyps calvus
|
CR
|
reported in Cambodia
|
NSAID poisoning, habitat loss, electrocution
|
96
|
Himalayan Griffon Gyps himalayensis
|
NT
|
reported in Cambodia
|
NSAID poisoning, habitat loss, electrocution
|
97
|
White-rumped Vulture Gyps bengalensis
|
CR
|
reported in Cambodia
|
NSAID poisoning, habitat loss, electrocution
|
98
|
Indian Vulture Gyps indicus
|
CR
|
|
NSAID poisoning, habitat loss, electrocution, unintentional poison baits
|
98
|
Slender-billed Vulture Gyps tenuirostris
|
CR
|
|
NSAID poisoning, habitat loss, electrocution, unintentional poison baits
|
98
|
Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus
|
LC
|
reported in Cambodia
|
NSAID poisoning, habitat loss, electrocution, unintentional poison baits
|
98
|
Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus
|
NT
|
ban on diclofenac
|
persecution for feathers
|
unintentional poison baits, electrocution, decline in food availability, NSAIDS, persecution
|
99,100
|
Lappet-faced Vulture Torgos tracheliotos
|
EN
|
|
|
insufficient data
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Africa
|
Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus
|
NT
|
research and policy decision in making
|
|
Unintentional poisoning (baits), collision with powerline, lead poisoning
|
genetic bottlenecks
|
101
|
Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus
|
EN
|
|
Unintentional poisoning (baits), collision with powerline, decline in food availability
|
|
102
|
White-headed Vulture Trigonoceps occipitalis
|
CR
|
intentional poisoning
|
poison baits, sentinel poisoning, habitat loss, decline in food availability
|
|
103,104
|
Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus
|
CR
|
persecution for wildlife parts
|
bushmeat trade, poison baits, sentinel poisoning
|
|
103–105
|
White-backed Vulture Gyps africanus
|
CR
|
persecution for wildlife parts
|
poison baits, sentinel poisoning, habitat loss, decline in food availability, electrocution
|
|
103,106
|
Cape Vulture Gyps coprotheres
|
EN
|
belief based use- African Traditional medicine
|
poison baits, electrocution
|
|
107–109
|
Rüppell's Vulture Gyps rueppelli
|
CR
|
belief based use- African Traditional medicine
|
poison baits
|
|
104,110
|
Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus
|
LC
|
belief based persecution
|
|
|
|
Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus
|
NT
|
|
|
|
found occasionally
|
Lappet-faced Vulture Torgos tracheliotos
|
EN
|
belief based use
|
poison baits, habitat loss and disturbance, sentinel poisoning
|
|
110–113
|
Europe
|
Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus
|
NT
|
vulture feeding sites; research and policy decisions on powerline collision and poisoning underway
|
|
Unintentional poisoning (baits), collision with powerline, lead poisoning
|
genetic bottlenecks
|
114–116
|
Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus
|
EN
|
|
Unintentional poisoning (baits), collision with powerline, lead poisoning
|
|
117,118
|
White-backed Vulture Gyps africanus
|
CR
|
|
-
|
|
found occasionally
|
Rüppell's Vulture Gyps rueppelli
|
CR
|
|
-
|
|
found occasionally
|
Griffon Vulture Gyps fulvus
|
LC
|
|
Unintentional poisoning (baits), collision with powerline, NSAIDs
|
|
62,119
|
Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus
|
NT
|
|
decline in food availability
|
|
120
|
Poor prevalence of religiously motivated patronising attitudes for commensals in youngsters5- a generational shift we noticed in our horizon scan- will eventually alter cultural tolerance for backyard-biodiversity. Loss of biocultural diversity for backyard species will homogenise the human agency for vultures across the old world in future85,121. Thus, in near future, we expect increase in the cases of indirect poisoning of the vultures that consume depredated cattle carcasses deliberately poisoned by people to avenge the loss caused by mammalian carnivores. We based this argument on the exposition of relatively small protected areas (average size = 486 km2)[84] that increases their interface with agroecosystems witnessing rapid loss in tolerance for wildlife in South Asia 122,123. In the wake of urban changes that entail habitat fragmentation and biocultural loss, a general increase in agonistic attitude towards wildlife124 is expected to spill over to South Asian vultures in future7. Therefore, restoration for vultures and other wild fauna would require accommodating the SES dynamics for tropical megacities. It should inculcate a nuanced understanding of spatial extent of ethnoecological differentiation for the non-human organisms in SES that is analogous to patch dynamics in ecology125,126.