Found in India, Bangladesh, and parts of Southeast Asia, this once more common species has undergone dramatic declines the past decades. Still common and widespread in India about twenty years ago the world population is now estimated at less then 10000 birds! By the late 1990's, many dead and dying vultures were found across many areas of the Indian subcontinent. It took five years of intensive research, to determine that the cause of the decline was the veterinary drug, diclofenac, which became available in India aroud 1994. The species has a very wide distribution, ranging form the west-Himalayas and the majority of the Indian subcontinent, going eastwards over Birma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodja till Vietnam and southwards till Singapore and Malaysia. In South_east asia the entire population is thought to be less then a few hundred individuals.
The species is classified by IUCN as critically endangered.
Kaziranga still holds a small popualtion of this species.