The Hindu : Front Page : Courser’s habitat under threat again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 19, 2007
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Courser’s habitat under threat again

M. Sai Gopal

— Photo: SIMON COOK/www.birdlife.org

AWAITING RIGHT COURSE: The Jerdon’s Courser at its habitat in the Sri Lankamalleswara sanctuary, Kadapa.

HYDERABAD: The last known habitat of the critically endangered and enigmatic bird of Andhra Pradesh — Jerdon’s Courser (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) — could once again come under threat. The bird is not found anywhere else in the world.

The Irrigation Department’s latest realignment plans of the Telugu Ganga Canal project, has the potential to wipe away 89 hectares of shrub jungle, typical habitat of the bird, near the sites where the bird was spotted in the recent years at Sri Lankamalleswara Sanctuary, Kadapa, a recent report from Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) says.

The proposed realignment plans for the canal, if implemented, would cut across the scrub jungle habitat, says the report. “The realignment is precariously close to the boundary of the Sri Lankamalleswara Sanctuary, Kadapa, as well as the sites where the Courser’s presence was recorded regularly between 2000-06,” the report says.

The report goes on to add that “canal alignment has to be shifted so that it would border the scrub jungle habitat without actually changing the length of the canal, which is 2.2 km. The canal alignment may be shifted so that the only place of this bird can be saved for posterity.”

“The new alignment being pushed by the Irrigation Department, during the course of our negotiations, would further risk the habitat of the Courser. We have already given an alternative proposal of alignment and we feel that our proposal would protect the bird’s habitat. If the matter is not solved, then we will have to submit our report directly to Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of Supreme Court,” S. Ashok Kumar, who is holding talks with the Irrigation Department on behalf of the BNHS in Andhra Pradesh, told The Hindu.

Thanks to the intervention of the CEC earlier this year, the Department had agreed to re-route the canal, to protect the last known habitat of this bird, the numbers of which hover between 20 and 80. The CEC had directed the stakeholders, including the BNHS, wildlife officials and the Irrigation Department, to chalk out a ‘via media’ to save the bird and its habitat.

“It is sad that we have to fight so much to conserve this rare bird which should be considered the ‘Pride of Andhra Pradesh’. However, I am sure, if all the stakeholders sit together once again to discuss, we can save this beautiful bird,” says BNHS researcher P. Jeganathan.

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