Something Missing

I've had some amazing flights in Pakistan already this May and so much has happened to write about but I can't until I cover one thing from my travels in Nepal and India.

Riding across the low hills on the edge of the Himalaya in India I saw an amazing site. It was a column of vultures climbing in a wide flatland thermal. I could visualize the thermal because around 60 birds were climbing in all parts of it's 300 meter height, it was easy to see the west drift of the prevailing wind pushing it and how it widened as it climbed higher, at the top as the vultures turned to specks they all glided off in the same direction and were lost to my sight. As the lower vultures soon climbed up and followed I lost sight of all them and now I imagined the thermal to still be there but could no longer see proof of it's existance. For a moment they had helped me understand the world a little better, helped me visualize how and where a thermal exists on a day like this.
How many times have these amazing animals showed me a thermal? Showed me where the core is or how far away from a hill a small bubble is triggering? As I've learned to fly in the Himalayas my instructors have mostly been vultures, in the first few years I can estimate a third of my flights I was saved from bombing out because a bird showed me where the climb was. Now I'm able to stay up on my own because I've learned from my flawless instructors, I understand where the climbs are by studying the terrain and the clouds but I've noticed something other than just how thermals work. I've noticed there are less vultures. And this is the point, in three days of riding across 1400 km of road from Nepal to India I saw one column of vultures and not a lot of individuals either. I'm observing the sky and the clouds all the time, don't worry Mom I pay attention to my driving first! This is an area where millions of birds used to scavenge and now the sitings are becoming rare. Recently a road transect survey was released to confirm my unscientific observations. The numbers are staggering. "Results of a major road transect survey in India reveal the shocking news that numbers of Oriental white-backed vultures have decreased by more than 99.9% in the past 15 years and that this species continues to decline at over 40% each year. The other two threatened species (long-billed and slender-billed vultures) have decreased by close to 97% over the same period." And they are backed up by more than one study please check out the recently updated www.vulturerescue.org to find out more. There are links to recent articles about this problem at www.parahawking.com.
I've known about the problem for a few years but in this recent trip to Bir I can say I've really seen a difference, though I often shared the sky with Himalayan Griffin Vultures (HGV's) I never saw large groups as I have in the past and I saw no White Backed vultures.
More needs to be done toward conserving these animals before they are gone. And I'll get to a solution that could be implemented by us selfish paragliders soon!