On the Edge: Saga of the Great Indian Bustard

“The great Indian bustard is officially extinct in the wild” might be a newspaper headline in 2030, if the threats to this species persist in India. Post-independence, only the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) has been declared officially extinct in the wild. Perhaps, in those days, conservation science was not developed enough to prevent this, but the case of the great Indian bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) is surely different. Since decades, ornithologists and conservation biologists have been raising an alarm. Will the GIB still meet the same fate?

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 unfortunately hunted. Currently, less than 150 individuals of these birds survive in a few fragmented pockets of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

GIB’s Past Imperfect

In the pre-Independence era, the GIB was abundantly found in grasslands and scrublands across 11 Indian states, from Punjab to Tamil Nadu and from Odisha to Gujarat, but was hunted mercilessly. In 25 years (1808-1833), Colonel Robert Mansfield shot as many as 961 bustards near Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. Wherever bustards occurred, hunting was considered fair game. By 1947, GIB was considered a “rare bird” over most of its former range.

The GIB prefers agro-pastoral landscapes in semi-arid areas, grasslands and open scrublands. Agro-pastoral landscapes are a mosaic of patches where you have some large patches of village pasture adjacent to agriculture fields. During winters, the GIB would shift to such agriculture fields as the grasslands would dry out and majority of food resources still remained available in standing crops or harvested fields. Post-independence, much of the bustard habitats in India were lost to intensive agriculture. Use of pesticides, changing crop pattern, land-use conversion to industrial use, worsened the situation.

In the 1960s, renowned ornithologist, Salim Ali, recommended the GIB to be declared as the “National Bird of India”. However, his suggestion was turned down as it was feared the word “bustard” may be mispronounced, and thus we lost our chance to save the species as well as the grasslands it lives in.  In 1969, the population assessment of the GIB done by R. S. Dharmakumarsinhji, erstwhile prince of Bhavnagar, revealed that the population was down to 1,260 individuals. By 1978, the population had dwindled down to 745, which further reduced to 600 by 2001. An assessment by Dr Asad Rahmani in 2006 reported less than 300 birds. Thus, between 2001 and 2006, half of the population vanished. In 2010, the Wildlife Institute of India’s (WII) scientist, Sutirtha Dutta, studied the conservation biology of GIB and based on this research, the IUCN declared GIB as “Critically Endangered” in 2011. By now the bird had been wiped off from 90 per cent of its former range. Alarm bells were rung occasionally, but fell on deaf ears.

Grasslands are Not Wastelands

Meanwhile, in 1972, the seminal Wildlife (Protection) Act came into force. The Act provided legal protection to several species including the GIB. It was placed in Schedule I of this Act offering it the highest degree of protection. Few protected areas were created — Nanaj Bustard Sanctuary in Maharashtra, Karera Bustard Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, and Gaga Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary and Kutch Bustard Sanctuary in Gujarat among others. But, while the sanctuary in Nanaj was as large as 8000 sq km, the sanctuary in Kutch was hardly 2 sq km in size. Unfortunately, India’s wildlife management policies are “forest-centric” which means they tend to ignore the needs of non-forest habitats and the species therein. The GIB, along with other animals that thrive in grasslands, have suffered because of this treatment.

Bustards, because of their choice of habitat, have been living closely with the local communities, often visiting their fields for feeding. This relationship has helped farmers as bustards keep a check on agricultural pests by feeding on them. For several years, the bustard and the communities around its habitat lived in harmony. However, recently in some areas, stringent measures put in place to protect bustard habitats tried to restrict  domestic use in private farms. The restrictions were meant to protect the bird’s dwindling habitat, but they backfired.

Suddenly, bustards were seen as an impediment for the local people’s development. It sowed the seeds of dissent among the local communities against these birds. This dissent resulted in retaliation and bustards vanished from some of these areas rapidly. If this was not enough, some areas also saw plantation of “tree species” in bustard habitats in a misguided effort to “forest” seemingly empty grasslands. Such well-intended but ill-informed actions further added to the bustards’ plight. Their populations kept declining.

The species normally lays one egg in a year, or sometimes every two years, depending on rainfall and insect abundance. Exponential growth in the population of stray or community-owned dogs is also a grave threat. Dogs disturb the GIB thus affecting the successful breeding of this species. In addition, the GIB also faces a threat from its natural predators such as wolves, foxes, jackals, jungle cats, monitor lizards, crows, coucals and Egyptian vultures.

Power Lines of Death

Much of the bustard habitat in India lies outside the purview of protected areas network, 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 in Thar region of Rajasthan and Kutch region of Gujarat, the last promising abodes of bustards.

In the last decade, 10 bustards have died due to collision with power lines in India. Out of these, two GIBs were fitted with satellite tags and thus their movement has been clearly mapped criss-crossing the power lines over its habitat. Despite several requests by ornithologists and birdwatchers, the power lines near the Kutch Bustard Sanctuary were not made underground and in a period of three years, two GIBs died due to collision with the same line. These lines are still standing tall against the future of the species.

Bustards have a narrow frontal vision and they cannot detect power lines ahead of them from afar. By the time they detect the powerlines, they fail to manoeuvre effectively due to their heavy bodies and the collision turns fatal. According to the WII, 18 GIBs likely die every year due to power line collision in Thar region of Rajasthan. Such high mortality rates are unsustainable for this species. If we want to prevent the extinction of GIB, we must bury the power lines over critical areas and install bird diverters on power lines over semi-critical areas. The WII has already mapped such areas in Rajasthan and Gujarat. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) is being heard in the Supreme Court of India on the conservation of GIB and especially on the power lines issue.

A Ray of Hope

After much deliberation and delay, the Conservation Breeding Programme of the great Indian bustard was initiated in 2019. The WII, in collaboration with the government of Rajasthan and the International Fund for Houbara Conservation, Abu Dhabi, is implementing this ex-situ conservation initiative. So far, this facility, set up in Sam village near Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, has successfully hatched nine bustard eggs collected from the wild. So, hopefully, the GIB will not be extinct, at least in captivity. However, a successful reintroduction is only possible if we ensure that all in-situ conservation measures — as specified in the Bustard Recovery Programme Guidelines issued by Ministry of Forest, Environment and Climate Change — are in place; especially a secure habitat for the GIB in its former range states that need to be free of power lines. Now India has to demonstrate its ecological will power as it has done in the case of tigers. The Thirteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS COP13), which India hosted in February 2020, adopted the Government of India’s proposal to include the great Indian bustard in Appendix I. This raises further hope for this species, especially in addressing the trans-boundary conservation issues for bustard that migrate over the borders of India and Pakistan.

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, protection of pasture lands so as to ensure a co-existence of humans and GIBs. And this is not just the responsibility of the government and a few NGOs, but of all 1.3 billion Indians. It will be a shame and disappointment if India is unable to prevent the extinction of the great Indian bustard. We cannot and should not let the great Indian bustard become the modern-day dodo.