A campaign in Europe to ban diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory and analgesic drug used to treat livestock, has been relaunched by conservation organisations led by the Vulture Conservation Foundation. Diclofenac is lethal to vultures, which ingest the drug through the carcasses of contaminated animals.
In the 1990s, the use of diclofenac led to the extinction of 99% of four species of vulture on the Indian subcontinent. Vultures play an important role in cleansing the environment by removing carcasses quickly, but with far fewer vultures the feral dog population boomed, resulting in a rise ...
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