Good Samaritan nurses rare vulture back to health
LUCKNOW: At a time when empathy towards human beings is on the wane, a wildlife enthusiast has shown exemplary compassion towards a rare Egyptian vulture that got injured by a kite string.
AH Abidi, who had earlier, too, rescued animals, not only saved the life of the white scavenger vulture but also took care of the bird for over a month before handing it over to the Lucknow zoo on Saturday.
“Kite string had almost killed this vulture while it was flying over Lucknow’s Old City area. Its wing and body were badly wounded,” said Abidi. The vulture was spotted by Rehaan, a local.
“Bleeding profusely, it was found near Kudiaghat. Kite string was wrapped all around its body,” said Abidi, who brought and treated the bird at his home.
“It’s a prey bird hence it attacks everyone who comes near and can finish small mammals, birds, and reptiles within minutes. Cleaning the wounds, feeding and caring this vulture, therefore, was extremely difficult,” said Abidi, a graduate in political science and credited with rescuing over 1,000 poisonous snakes, injured birds, monkeys, foxes, and other animals found by people in and around the state capital.
Having in-depth knowledge of about 100 odd varieties of avians and reptiles, Abidi claimed the Egyptian vulture or (Neophron percnopterus) is also called the white scavenger vulture and is found in south-western Europe and northern Africa.
Egyptian vultures are rarely seen these days, claimed zoo director Anupam Gupta.
“We have kept it in our campus hospital and it shall remain under observation for now,” he said.
In UP, vulture count conducted a year before recorded it to be around 1,780.
Report said human activities such as use of painkiller to treat animals are causing death of vultures in the state.
Vultures, which feed on animal carcass with painkiller dose in body, and eating animals killed with bullet, get fatally infected.