By Susan Milius
Oops. The drug ketoprofen, which conservationists once hoped might aid South Asia’s collapsing vulture populations, has turned out to be yet another poison for the birds.
A medical cousin of ibuprofen, ketoprofen reduces inflammation and pain, and some of India’s farmers treat their cattle and other livestock with it. Researchers started testing ketoprofen in hopes of finding livestock drugs that don’t leave residues in carcasses that vultures eat, says zoologist Richard Cuthbert of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Sandy, England.
Since the early 1990s, residues of a widely popular anti-inflammatory, diclofenac, have inadvertently poisoned so many vultures in the genus Gyps that three species now totter on the brink of extinction. The one known bird-friendly alternative, meloxicam, costs somewhat more than the main vulture menace and has not replaced it in practice.