There is a story of how this majestic and beautiful bird was sidelined by the Peacock as the national bird, because some feared that its name would be misspelt as a curse word. Ill fated with its name, the Great Indian Bustard continues to be neglected.
It has reached such a point where it may soon meet the fate of Sudan, the last male white rhinoceros that died in Nairobi a few months back. Now experts have suggested that there might only one male Great Indian Bustard left in Gujarat.
This bird is endemic to the Naliya region of Kutch, and its distribution in other parts of the Deccan has slowly vanished. And the villain in this tragedy is the renewable power projects in the region.
The installation of power lines in Gujarat was responsible for the decline in the bird’s population to a great extent. The bird has been a prey to some or the other calamity. Before independence it was hunted down by the British officers posted here. After independence, the changes in agricultural practices impacted their numbers. Power lines and projects seemed to be the last in this unfortunate series.
Now the experts blame the callousness and negligence of the government in conserving this endangered bird. And this concern moves far beyond one bird.
Conservation efforts are generally directed towards celebrity animals like lions, tigers and elephants. Due to lack of awareness and interest, other species receive less funding and attentions towards their protection. And this is exactly what happened with the GIB.
Image Credit: YouTube
It was relegated to the back of the conservation bogie, as it was not considered important till it was realised that we might be on the brink of no return. And this seems to becoming the standard template for many other species, pygmy hogs, red panda, and many other endangered amphibians and birds.
Extinction rates are alarming. We are losing species, some scientists say, up to 1,000 times faster than the normal rate in evolutionary history. Agreed that we cannot save everything, but we can examine alternate conservation paradigms instead of putting all the resources into rescuing one particular animal?
