A small change in the human world can be catastrophic in the animal kingdom: the introduction of a new NSAID drug destroyed India’s vulture population after it entered their food chain and caused kidney failure in the birds. In turn, the destruction of just one species proved fatal right back—with no vultures to compete with them, scavenging street dogs have exploded in number, bringing a rise in rabies cases in humans. A study of how easily the intricate ecology of a city can be unraveled.
The loss of vultures is all the more surprising given India’s reverence for animals.
It is a country “that believes humans and animals coexist,” explained Kedar Girish Gore, director of the nonprofit Corbett Foundation in Mumbai, which is dedicated to wildlife conservation and environmental awareness.
Signs of coexistence are everywhere. In the northwestern state of Rajasthan and in cities like Hyderabad in the south, cars, trucks and motorcycles share crowded roadways with free-ranging dogs and cattle, goats, schoolchildren and other pedestrians.
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