Van Vihar to use artificial incubation, hand rear technique to breed vultures

By Ankita Garg :

In order to give pace to vulture breeding programme at Kerwa Centre, Van Vihar National Park has planned to use artificial incubation and hand rear technique. Kerwa breeding centre is the fourth in the country and first in Madhya Pradesh where vultures are being conserved. Ashok Jain, Deputy Director of Van Vihar said, “We have got approval for extending vulture breeding plan with artificial incubation technique. This includes removing eggs from incubating parents and using an incubator to hatch them.”

He further informed that recently the Government gave green signal to set up vulture breeding centres in five states. Besides, Bhopal centre has been given approval to extend breeding of vultures with the technique. The centre was set up in five acre land in year 2014. For the first time, four vultures were transported from Chhindwara and 40 vultures were brought from Haryana.

Now, the countof vultures at Kerwa breeding centre has increased to 54. He further informed that the technique of artificial incubation is complex as it requires fixed temperature and correct development of eggs. Hand rearing can also be used with chicks from artificially incubated eggs. This technique is useful to encourage vultures to produce more offspring. He said, naturally when vultures lay eggs they have low survival but this hand rear technique will be increasing the survival rate.