From Near-Extinction To 12,981: A Walk Through Madhya Pradesh’s Remarkable Vulture Comeback

Just before sunrise on a winter morning along the Ken River, a small band of foresters, researchers, and volunteers climbs into position below a sandstone escarpment. Binoculars go up, GPS units are switched on, and notebooks come out. Somewhere overhead, a Red-headed Vulture circles once and settles onto a cliff ledge already crowded with nests. This is not a one-off expedition; it is a ritual repeated twice a year, in winter and summer, across seven landscapes in Madhya Pradesh, and it has just delivered one of Indian wildlife conservation’s more remarkable numbers: 12,981 vultures counted in the state in 2025, up from 10,845 the year before, a nearly 20 per cent rise in 12 months.

The bird itself has a difficult recent history. Vulture populations collapsed across the Indian subcontinent in the 1990s after the use of diclofenac in veterinary drugs turned out to be lethal to scavengers that fed on livestock carcasses. Against that backdrop, Madhya Pradesh’s current numbers and its position as India’s leading vulture landscape are worth examining closely. 

In an exclusive interview with Outlook Traveller, Ilayaraja T., IAS, Secretary to the Chief Minister, Secretary, Tourism, Government of Madhya Pradesh, and Managing Director of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board, spoke about what is driving the numbers, why Panna has become a hub for vulture diversity, and how local communities are being brought into the conservation effort.

A Census That Tells A Bigger Story

The headline number, 12,981 vultures counted in the 2025 statewide census against 10,845 in 2024, reflects a monitoring system that has grown more structured over the years. “Madhya Pradesh conducts two synchronised vulture censuses every year, typically one during winter and another during summer, to monitor seasonal distribution, breeding activity and population trends,” Ilayaraja said.

The counts are a multi-agency effort. Forest Department personnel work alongside the Wildlife Institute of India, WWF, researchers, volunteers, photographers and local citizens. Teams fan out simultaneously to nesting cliffs, roosting sites and feeding areas during the early morning hours, when vultures are most active, using direct visual counts, GPS mapping and standardised survey protocols. “In 2026, the state also introduced mobile app-based data collection for the first time, improving accuracy, real-time reporting and reducing manual errors,” Ilayaraja noted.

The population itself spans several species. Madhya Pradesh’s vultures include four resident species: the Indian Vulture (Gyps indicus), White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis), Red-headed Vulture (Sarcogyps calvus) and Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), alongside migratory visitors such as the Himalayan Griffon, Eurasian Griffon, and Cinereous Vulture, which arrive from breeding grounds far beyond India’s borders. Major habitats and breeding landscapes span Panna, Rewa, Satpura, Bandhavgarh, Kuno, Shivpuri, and the Gandhi Sagar landscape, among other pockets of suitable habitat.

Panna’s Cliffs: Why Seven Of Nine Species Call It Home

If there is a single landscape that anchors MP’s vulture story, it is Panna. The reserve hosts seven of India’s nine vulture species, a level of diversity few other landscapes in the country can match. Ilayaraja attributes this to a specific combination of geology and ecology rather than chance.

“Panna offers a unique combination of geological and ecological features that make it an ideal vulture habitat,” he said. “Extensive sandstone cliffs, deep gorges, escarpments along the Ken River, open dry deciduous forests, and relatively undisturbed nesting sites provide secure breeding locations for cliff-nesting vultures.”

The protected core of Panna Tiger Reserve, together with surrounding forest divisions and community-managed lands, sustains populations of wild and domestic ungulates that support the scavenging cycle on which vultures depend. It is the continuity of nesting cliffs across the landscape, combined with comparatively low human disturbance, that Ilayaraja credits for Panna’s standing as one of India’s strongest vulture breeding grounds. The scale extends beyond the reserve’s core, too: the first phase of the recent census recorded 1,127 vultures in the South Panna Forest Division alone.

What GPS Tags Are Revealing About A Bird On The Move

Some of the newer insights into Madhya Pradesh’s vultures have come from the sky rather than the ground. The Wildlife Institute of India has geotagged vultures with GPS transmitters, and the resulting telemetry data is changing how conservationists think about vulture ranges. “Tagged vultures from Panna recorded an average daily movement of around 132 kilometres, with remarkably large home ranges extending across thousands of square kilometres,” Ilayaraja said.

The finding carries practical weight. GPS telemetry has shown that resident vultures frequently use human-dominated landscapes beyond protected areas while travelling between nesting cliffs and feeding grounds, meaning their survival depends on what happens outside reserve boundaries as much as inside them. The data has also confirmed that migratory species such as the Himalayan Griffon travel across multiple countries between breeding and wintering grounds, pointing to the need for transboundary conservation rather than state or country-specific efforts alone. According to Ilayaraja, these findings are now helping identify priority nesting sites, feeding habitats, movement corridors, and threats such as power infrastructure and habitat disturbance.

Villagers, Guides, And Homestays: Conservation That Pays Forward

Madhya Pradesh has worked to bring local communities directly into the conservation effort rather than keep them at a distance from it. Villagers around nesting sites are trained to monitor nests, report disturbances, and adopt safe veterinary practices that avoid the drugs historically linked to vulture die-offs across India.

That involvement is increasingly paired with livelihoods. Young residents from surrounding villages are being trained as nature guides, wildlife interpreters, and ecotourism facilitators. “Community-led tourism initiatives, including Bagheli homestays, guided vulture walks, and Walk with Pardhi experiences, provide alternative livelihood opportunities while strengthening local stewardship of forests and biodiversity,” Ilayaraja said. 

Tourism experiences such as the Vulture Walking Safari in Rewa and Walk with Pardhi in Panna give visitors a way to engage with conservation beyond the conventional wildlife safari, through guiding, interpretation, hospitality, and community-run homestays. Ilayaraja noted that comprehensive impact assessments on livelihoods and long-term conservation outcomes are still underway, though early signs, greater local awareness, more consistent reporting of nesting sites, and community participation are encouraging.

That community model is also being extended geographically. Beyond Panna, landscapes including Rewa, Shivpuri, Satpura, Bandhavgarh, Kuno, Gandhi Sagar, and Halali are emerging as important vulture habitats in their own right. “The focus is increasingly on conserving entire landscapes, including forests, cliffs, river valleys and feeding areas rather than individual colonies,” Ilayaraja said. Conservation measures across these landscapes include regular censuses, protection of nesting cliffs and roosting sites, satellite telemetry, habitat protection, and sustained community awareness.

Twelve thousand nine hundred and eighty-one vultures is still a modest number next to what the subcontinent once held. But the state’s approach, tracking the birds season by season, mapping their movement across borders, and giving the people who live alongside them a stake in their survival, offers a working template for what recovery from near-extinction can look like on the ground.

Future censuses will show whether the current growth holds, but the mechanisms are already in place: two synchronised counts a year, GPS-tagged birds under active study, and villages from Rewa to Panna now built into the monitoring effort. For now, that is what Madhya Pradesh is pointing to as its vulture story.

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