Diclofenac vultures

Oaks J, Gilbert M, Virani M, Watson R, Meteyer C, Rideout B, Shivaprasad H, Ahmed S, Chaudhry M, Arshad M, Mahmood S, Ali A, Khan A (2004) Diclofenac residues as the cause of vulture population decline in Pakistan. Nature 427 630-633... 

Green, R.E., Taggart, M.A., and Das, D. et al. (2006). Collapse of Asian vulture populations Risk of mortality from residues of the veterinary drug diclofenac in carcasses of treated cattle. Journal of Applied Ecology 43, 949-956. 

Schultz, S., Baral, S., and Charman, S. (2004). Diclofenac poisoning is widespread in declining vulture populations across the Indian subcontinent. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B Biological Sciences 271, Supplement, 458-460. 

Taggart, M.A., Cuthbert, R., and Das, D. (2007). Diclofenac disposition in Indian cow and goat with reference to Gyps vulture population declines. Environmental Pollution 147, 60-65. 

Green RE, Newton I, Shultz S, Cunningham AA, Gilbert M, Pain DJ, Prakash V (2004) Diclofenac poisoning as a cause of vulture population declines across the Indian subcontinent. J Appl Ecol 41 793-800... 

Diphenhydramine, diltiazem, carbamazepine and norfluoxetine have been reported simultaneously in the same wild fish [107]. Moreover, diclofenac was found accumulating in vultures [119], fluoxetine, sertraline and the SSRl metabolites norfluoxetine and desmethylsertraUne were detected in fish [120]. Diclofenac bioaccumulation factors were 10-2,700 in the liver of fish and 5-1,000 in the kidney, depending on exposure concentrations [40, 121]. Gemfibrozil occurred in blood plasma of goldfish after exposure over 14 days at 113 times higher levels than in water [40]. 

Figure 4.6 Proportion of vultures with diclofenac residues, visceral gout, or both (black area of each pie chart) at 13 locations where dead or dying vultures were found. The numbers next to each circle represent the number of birds assessed.

Swan G., V. Naidoo, R. Cuthhert, R.E. Green, D.J. Pain, D. Swamp, V. Prakash, M. Taggart, L. Bekker, D. Das, J. Diekmann, M. Diekmann, E. Killian, A. Meharg, R.C. Patra, M. Saini, and K. Wolter (2006). Removing the threat of diclofenac to critically endangered Asian vultures. PLOS Biology 4 395 02. 

Diclofenac residues as the cause of vulture population decline in Pakistan. Nature, 427 (6975), 630-633. 

Shultz, S., Taggart, M.A., Verdoorn, G. and Wolter, K. (2006) Toxicity of diclofenac to Gyps vultures. Biol. Lett.,... 

M.A., Meharg, A.A., Pattee, O.H. and Pain, D.J. (2008) Apparent tolerance of turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) to the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. Environ Toxicol Chem, 27, 2341-2345. 

Recently, a case of vulture mortality was reported from the Indian subcontinent related to NS AID toxicity. Diclofenac is a widely available veterinary NS AID in the Indian subcontinent, used in domestic livestock. Vultures were exposed to the drug when they consumed carcasses of cattle that were treated with diclofenac shortly before death. Experimental studies of this drug in vultures showed marked nephrotoxicity. The gross observations were primarily deposits of urate on the surface of internal organs related to renal failure. Histopathological findings were acute necrosis of the proximal renal tubular epithelium with minimal inflammatory response and deposits of urate crystals (Oaks et al, 2004 Meteyer et al, 2005). 

Meteyer, C.U., Rideout, B.A., Gilbert, M. et al. (2005). Pathology and proposed pathophysiology of diclofenac poisoning in free-living and experimentally exposed oriental white-backed vultures (G. bengalensis). J. Wildl. Dis. 41(4) 707-16. 

Ongoing exposure to the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) diclofenac is now considered to be the sole or primary cause of the virtual extinction of three species of Gyps vultures on the Indian subcontinent. Once among the most abundant species on Earth, these vultures rapidly and thoroughly scavenged the millions of livestock carcasses that... 

Diclofenac is now registered for veterinary use and is readily available in some parts of Afiica. Vigilance will be required on the part of conservationists and researchers to ensure that diclofenac and other NSAIDs used in Afiica are not further contributing to the declines. Exposure to even a fraction of the treated carcasses that were available in India, for example at vulture restaurants or feeding stations, could spell disaster for Africa s already imperilled vultures. 

Groups of compounds that need special attention are (i) antibiotics due to the possible contribution to resistance (ii) hormones, due to their effects already observed in veiy low concentration and (iii) some cytotoxics that can cause cancer. However, for other APIs such as diclofenac and psychoactive drugs effects on wildlife (fish, vultures) may be revealed as well. 

Given concerns about the environmental safety of these compounds, is there evidence that they interfere with local biotai The answer is clearly yes, as is evident from an example that comes from Asia, and concerns the relationship among the Oriental white-backed vulture Gyps benpaknsis) domestic catde, and the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. 

R. E. Green, M. A. Taggart, K. R. Senacha, B. Raghavan, D. J. Pain, Y. Jhala and R. Cuthbert, Rate of decline of the oriental white-backed vulture population in India estimated from a survey of diclofenac residues in carcases of ungulates, Biol. Lett., 2007, 3, 90 93. 

R. Cuthbert, M. A. Taggart, V. Prakash, M. Saini, D. Swarup, S. Upreti, R. Mateo, S. S. Chakraborty, P. Deori and R. E. Green, Effectiveness of action in India to reduce exposure of Gyps vultures to the toxic veterinary drug diclofenac, PLoS One, 2011, 6, el9069. 

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