Science, 15 July 2024

Find could offer lessons for conserving key species in other places

Loss of India’s vultures may have led to deaths of half a million people

Vultures have long been associated with death, and perhaps for good reason. With their hunched shoulders, hooked beaks, and signature bald heads, they fly around looking for dead and decaying animals to scavenge. But they also serve an important role in protecting human life, a new study finds.

The near-extinction of the birds across India in the 1990s led to the spread of disease-carrying pathogens from an excess of dead animals, killing more than a half-million people from 2000 to 2005. The study, currently online as a working paper that will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Economic Review, puts the monetary damage from the related public health crisis at nearly $70 billion a year.

“This [paper] will be a classic in the field,” says Atheendar Venkataramani, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the study. “It’s going to generate a lot of new science.”

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