Switching drugs for livestock may help save critically endangered Asian vultures

Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.

Toxicity tests in animals are grounded on two main assumptions: first, the effects observed in laboratory animals can be extrapolated to humans, especially when adjusted for body surface area; second, high-dose exposure in animals is essential to identify potential human hazards from lower doses. This is based on the quantal dose-response concept, which faces the challenge of extrapolating results from relatively few test animals to much larger human populations. For example, a 0.01% incidence...