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A fieldguide to the | I 
Dragonflies 
^ 0 / South Africa I 
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IN TH^ 
BOOkS from the 
Nature Kenya office 
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, IVarwidc & Michile 
I farbofon 
A fieldguide to the Dragonflies of 
South Africa 
Warwick A Michele Tarboton 
KSH1500 
£ 
• •• 
Nairobi Arboretuon 
- the place ef trees 
...for nature 
..for people 
Nairobi 
Arboretum 
Guide Book 
KSH 350 
Continued from page 1 
Beautifully illustrated with 275 colour 
photographs; covers all South African 
dragonflies, most of which have ranges 
extending to Kenya; a very useful section on 
What to look for when identifying Dragonflies 
Updated and Reprinted; 
East Africa Safari Quiz Book 
Bogdan and Stefan Rozwadowski 
KSH 550 
Contains 500 questions (and answers) on all 
aspects of plants and animals, geography and 
history and peoples of East Africa, 
Taxonomy Without 
(too many) Tears 
Leonard E Newton 
now selling at KSH 140 
Plant taxonomy and some related topics in 
a style that can be understood by anyone 
without botanical training. 
In the Indian caste system, the 
Chambar caste does the skinning of 
dead livestock and sells the skins to 
tanneries. The carcasses are left for 
vultures, which eat the meat leaving 
the bones. Bone collectors then gather 
the bones for processing to such end 
products as animal feed, poultry grit 
and toothpaste abrasives. Livestock 
that die soon after being treated with 
diclofenac, contain sufficient residues 
to cause kidney failure and death in 
vultures that feed on these dead 
carcasses. It has been demonstrated 
that if less than 0.4 %, or one out of 
every 1000 carcasses, is contaminated 
with diclofenac, it is sufficient to cause 
declines in vultures observed over the 
last decade. 
The recovery of vulture populations in 
south Asia is only possible if exposure 
to diclofenac is prevented. Vultures 
have a very important ecological niche, 
and the loss of vultures would have a 
huge impact to the environment and 
increase the risk of disease that 
threaten human life. At the moment, 
the areas most affected are Nepal, 
India and Pakistan. But this family of 
vultures is also found in Africa, Europe 
and the Middle East. 
\ 
This is the first known case of a 
pharmaceutical causing major 
ecological damage and as a matter of 
priority, Governments and 
manufacturers of diclofenac need to 
ban the use of this drug for veterinary 
medicine to save these species from 
extinction. The Peregrine Fund and its 
partners organized a Summit Meeting 
in Kathmandu in February this year to 
present this evidence to South Asian 
governments and get them to commit 
to restore vulture populations and 
control the veterinary use of diclofenac. 
Without this commitment, the vultures 
are sure to go extinct. Fortunately, this 
drug is not used for the treatment of 
livestock in East Africa. 
Dr. Munir Virani of The Peregrine Fund 
coordinated the Asian Vulture Crisis 
Project comprising a team of field 
biologist, veterinarians and 
diagnosticians that led to the discovery 
of diclofenac as the primary cause of 
vulture mortalities. The Peregrine Fund 
was founded in 1970 and is one of the 
world',s leading organizations in the 
conservation of birds of prey. 
To get full details visit 
www.peregrinefund.org/ 
conserv_vulture/html 
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