Vulture Vultures are scavenging birds found throughout the world except for Australia and other oceanic islands. They are recognizable from their bald heads (except the bearded vulture ) and large wings. These birds are generally classified into two different types – the Old World vultures and the New World vultures . The Indian vulture or long-billed vulture (Gyps indicus) is a bird of prey native to the Indian subcontinent. It is an Old World vulture belonging to the family of Accipitridae. It is a medium-sized vulture with a small, semi-bald head with little feathers, long beak, and wide dark colored wings. It breeds mainly on small cliffs and hilly crags in central India and south India. The Indian vulture is a keystone species that has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since ... There have been very few more dramatic, fast and wide scale species declines of any birds or other taxa than those of South Asian Gyps vulture populations since the 1990s. —Chris Bowden, Globally Threatened Species Officer, Royal Society For The Protection Of Birds (RSPB), UK (in The Current Threats And Status of Asian Vultures , 2018) It is quite an alarming statement, but it is the sad truth about the vultures of India. Even today, four of the nine vulture species in India fall under the ...
