Wildlife experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the viability of one species in particular. But for India's ancient Parsee religion the vultures' decline poses a more practical problem.
Parsees rely on vultures to dispose of their dead, and the bodies are piling up.
The Parsees have called in Western experts, and are considering sponsoring an unprecedented breeding programme to bring the birds back. If successful, the plan might save not just their faith, but also the vultures of India. Parsees are the religious descendants of the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia. They believe that earth, water and fire are sacred and must not be defiled by corpses. So they put their dead in funerary sites where hundreds of griffon vultures perform the disposal job.