Next year, after Uttarayan, the popular kite festival in January, which results in the injury or death of many birds including vultures due to the glass coated strings used to fly kites, the Ahmedabad Parsi Panchayat (APP) hope to "take in half a dozen of the inevitably injured birds (vultures)… and keep them in semi captivity near the Towers of Silence,” according to a report posted on coveringreligion.org dated April 24, 2017. Under a program known as Sangam, the students of the Covering Religion seminar at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism had travelled to India in March of this year to report on diverse religions.
Fund-raising has still to be done, according to the report, but Brig Jahangir Anklesaria (Retd), president of the APP is "optimistic.” With barely two Parsi deaths each month in the 1,500 strong community there, "the rest of the time, the birds will have to be fed with meat, funded by the local community.” The 22 acre property situated on the outskirts of Ahmedabad in a locality called Jashoda Nagar has three towers of silence, a disused one dating from 1843, the one in use dating to 1929 and the third reserved for non-navjoted children and those who die of "unnatural causes.”
The report describes the Towers of Silence as a "scubby lot.” Speaking briefly to Parsiana on May 28, Anklesaria states that he "hopes to convert the place into a green space.” He hopes that "the birds will come back.” Presenting the report for the activities at Ahmedabad at the executive council meeting of the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India on April 30, Anklesaria had mentioned that an anonymous donation of Rs 2.5 crores had enabled the Anjuman to plant 600 trees on the doongerwadi lands there, with 2,000 more to be planted after the monsoons.
Parsiana requested Homi Khusrokhan, corporate executive and president of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) to comment on the Ahmedabad proposal. Khusrokhan had sent a copy of the failed Bombay Doongerwadi proposal to set up an aviary to Anklesaria (see "Vulture project shelved,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, July 21, 2007). Elaborating on the BNHS position on the Bombay aviary project, Khusrokhan said that "it could only (have been) an experiment… Its success was dependent on awareness being created amongst the community to inform their doctors not to administer certain drugs if the person had an intention of availing of the dakhmenashini system after death.” He cautions that that "some other drugs like ketoprofen and nimusilide besides the well-known diclofenac sodium (sold under various brand names like Voveran and Volini), have now been found to be toxic to vultures and these may also need to be added to the list of pain killers to be avoided.
"These…scavenging birds are unable, genetically, to metabolize even a trace quantity of diclofenac… Diclofenac sodium is seven times more toxic per kilo of body weight than cyanide is to a human being,” he reveals. Although these drugs are metabolized by humans very rapidly and are expelled through urine within 72 hours of administration, Khusrokhan states that "just one human body contaminated by diclofenac sodium can kill a flock of 20 to 30 birds within 48 hours of ingestion on account of a surge of uric acid.” He reiterates that the erstwhile BNHS proposal can only "be tried as an experiment, but with no guarantee of success.”
Elaborating on plans of the research wing of the Vulture Program of BNHS, Khusrokhan states that "today our project for saving this endangered species has moved into planning the release of the birds already bred in captivity and there are no plans for creating more breeding centers.” He adds that the bird releases will be done in areas that are "vulture-safe, at least 60-100 km away from any human habitation and avoiding areas where there is… farming or animal husbandry.” All of BNHS’s resources are now committed to the release program, he ends.