The Rajasthan government will set up a captive breeding centre for the great Indian bustard in an attempt to boost the wild population of the country's most critically endangered bird. The task of conservation will be taken up through two facilities in Kota and Jaisalmer districts.
This will be the first such facility in the country aimed at saving the bird, which is the State bird of Rajasthan. Its last remnant wild population of about 90 in Rajasthan accounts for 95% of the total world population.
The captive breeding centre will come up at Sorsan in Kota district, while a hatchery will be set up at Mokhala in Jaisalmer district in the next one year.
The Union Environment and Forest Ministry has sanctioned ₹33.85 crore to facilitate the two centres and authorised the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) to be its scientific arm.
State Chief Wildlife Warden G.V. Reddy told The Hindu on Monday that the eggs would be fetched from the wild breeding population in the Desert National Park in western Rajasthan and brought to the hatchery. A state-of-the-art egg hatching centre will be raised there.
For the breeding centre, the comparatively moist habitat of Sorsan has been selected. The region has better rainfall, besides forest land, and it was home to the bustards until two decades ago. After the chicks are raised, they would be transported to the desert for reintroduction in the wild, said Mr. Reddy.
Mr. Reddy said a memorandum of understanding for establishing the two facilities would be signed between the Union government, WII and the State government in about two months. The tasks under the MoU will include sourcing of eggs, transportation, rearing up of chicks and reintroduction in the wild with certain training inputs to young birds.
Experts from the Forest Department, WII and WWF-India deliberated on the modalities for establishing the two centres and discussed issues related to the remnant population of bustards, habitat management and anthropocentric pressure at a meeting here on Friday. State Forest Minister Gajendra Singh presided over the meeting.
Keith Scotland, who serves at the Emirates Bird Breeding Centre at Al Ain in United Arab Emirates, and Carlos Alonso from Spain elaborated on how captive breeding had succeeded with houbara and great bustard in these regions respectively.
Tourism & Wildlife Society of India honorary secretary Harsh Vardhan said it was a “milestone decision” in the avian annals of the country.
“We have been harping on it since the late 1970s,” remarked the wildlife enthusiast, considered an expert on the endangered bird species.
Mr. Vardhan said a female bustard, which lays a single egg in a season, was prone to lay a second time as well. If the scientific methods succeed in enabling her to lay more eggs once the earlier ones are picked up to be transported to the hatchery, a target could be set for getting five to eight eggs per female for the next 10 years.
