This post comes from the heart. The tale of the Pondicherry vulture is not a happy one. Once a species that numbered in the hundreds of thousands in less that 20 years the population has dropped to less than 10,000. This isn’t due to the common causing like poaching or nuisance killing, but is actually caused by a medication given to cattle that is toxic to vultures. When the cattle die and the vultures eat the cattle, they die. The Pondicherry vulture’s population has halved every other year.
This is my third time to Paris, and the last two times I visited I went to the natural history museum and it is by far my favorite museum in the entire world. Their collection of stuffed specimens is fantastic, and they even have a stuffed dodo bird. But every time I have wandered through those gardens that lead to the museum I never knew that there was a beautiful zoo just beyond the row of trees.
Endangered Living 