13th Jan., 2018

New Delhi: On December 29, 2017, in a dry, desert near India’s western frontier, forest officials found the dismembered carcass of a large brown-and-white bird.

They quickly recognised it as one of the world’s largest flying birds, one of its most endangered species, and the bird most likely to be the first in the subcontinent to slide into extinction in 21st century.

With its distinctive bare, powerful legs, the dead great Indian bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps)–no more than 150 are believed to be alive worldwide, meaning in India and Pakistan–was found electrocuted the previous evening in the village of Khetloi near Rajasthan’s Desert National Park, which is twice the size of Mumbai and is India’s second-largest national park. The bustard lives on less than a third of the national park, where about 4% of park land is controlled by the forest department.

Now extinct across 90% of its original subcontinental range, the last stand of the bustard indicates the loss of the scrub land and grasslands where this ground-dwelling bird makes its home. Its retreat also indicates growing pressures on open land in India for mining, agriculture, grazing, power lines and other infrastructure.

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