Demise of Great Indian Bustards

The Great Indian Bustard (GIB), scientifically called ardeotis nigriceps, appears to be on the verge of extinction, with barely around 110 of these majestic birds left in the entire country.

Just 50 years ago, India was home to over 1,000 of them. The GIB, one of the heaviest flying birds of Indian grasslands, is endemic to India, with some occurrence in the bordering areas of Sindh and Cholistan in Pakistan, where it is hunted.

Currently, these birds are scattered around in a few fragmented pockets. Rajasthan has the biggest population, while the rest are distributed in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

In 1994, GIB was listed as an endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. However, the tag could not protect it. Time seems to be running out for the GIB, a bird that is often compared to the ‘flying fortress’ heavy bomber planes of the 1930s and 1940s.

“The GIB today survives in large human-dominated landscapes. So, while developing conservation action plans for the GIB, it is necessary to factor in the needs of the traditional farmers and protection of pasture lands so as to ensure co-existence of humans and GIBs. This is not just the responsibility of the government and a few NGOs, but of all 1.3 billion Indians,” says Kedar Gore, Director, the Corbett Foundation, and a Member of IUCN Species Survival Commission, Bustard Specialist Group.

The Supreme Court order asking Gujarat and Rajasthan to lay all low-voltage power lines underground in the GIB habitats has highlighted the plight of these birds.

Read | Wildlife experts welcome SC order on Great Indian Bustard

“This is perhaps the finest judgement of the Supreme Court for the long-term protection of the GIB, but we must see that the ruling is strictly followed by the power companies and the governments,” says Dr Asad R Rahmani, former director, Bombay Natural History Society and Scientific Adviser to The Corbett Foundation, who has worked on the GIBs for almost three decades.

The male GIB is about one-metre (3.3-ft) tall, with a long neck and long legs. The females are considerably smaller. Irrespective of the size, GIB faces several threats. The species normally lays one egg in a year, or sometimes every two years, depending on rainfall and insect abundance.

A male bird lives for about 15 years and female for 12 years. The birds reach sexual maturity around 3-4 years of age. This lifecycle itself is a great threat to the bird’s multiplication. Exponential growth in the population of stray or community-owned dogs is a grave threat for GIBs. Dogs disturb them and affect successful breeding. In addition, the GIB faces threats from its natural predators such as wolves, foxes, jackals, jungle cats, monitor lizards, crows, coucals and Egyptian vultures.

Much of the bustard habitat in India lies outside the purview of protected areas, and comes under the category of “revenue wasteland”. These areas, especially in the last decade, have seen a boom in the renewable energy sector in India—especially the Thar region of Rajasthan and Kutch region of Gujarat, the last promising abodes of bustards. These birds have low frontal vision and at least 10 of them have officially died because of collision with power lines, including two tagged ones, according to a study by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).

The Supreme Court, in its order, gave a timeline of one year, and ordered that all the future power lines must go underground in the areas identified in the order. Installation of bird-diverters on the power lines is another step suggested by the court.

Also Read | Govt rejigs panel for conservation of Great Indian Bustards

For power lines that cannot go underground due to technical reasons, the installation of bird diverters has been made mandatory.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2013, when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, during his visit to Kutch District, called the bird “a unique gift of nature to the district” and said his government would protect it.

Ironically, between the years 2013 to 2021, the population of GIB declined heavily in Kutch. The two documented deaths of GIBs between 2014 and 2018 due to the collision with the overhead power lines were a testimony to the threat these power lines pose to the safety of the critically endangered species.

Since 2018, no male GIBs have been traced in Kutch. Researches by the Wildlife Institute of India have shown that nearly 18 GIBs are estimated to be dying every year due to collisions with power lines in Thar, Rajasthan. With most of the surviving GIBs inhabiting
Rajasthan’s Thar landscape, the power lines would deal a death knell for the magnificent bird species, if not mitigated quickly.