From Suda to Tony, a seed of life for Great Indian Bustards

Context: Pokhran
Rajasthan’s Thar Desert landscape is imprinted in India’s history for the
nuclear weapon tests. Now, another milestone, linked to the seeds of new life
for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB), has lodged itself in
Pokhran’s history with the birth of the first bustard chick through artificial insemination
last week. Suda, a three-year-old male bustard at the Ramdevra captive breeding
centre in Pokhran, in the eastern part of Jaisalmer district, was chosen for
the experiment. He was trained to “mate” with a dummy bird, and his sperm was
transported to the Sam captive breeding centre in western Jaisalmer, about
three hours away, to impregnate Tony, a five- year-old female bustard there.

Key
points

·       Overview: Recently,
the Supreme Court (SC) has constituted an expert committee to balance the
conservation and protection of the endangered Great Indian Bustard bird
population with the country’s international commitments to promote Renewable
sources of energy.

·       Great Indian Bustard: The Great
Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps), the State bird of Rajasthan, is considered
India’s most critically endangered bird. Its population is confined mostly to Rajasthan
and Gujarat. Small populations occur in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh.

·       Steps taken for conservation: Species Recovery Programme- It is kept
under the species recovery programme under the Integrated Development of
Wildlife Habitats of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change
(MoEFCC).

Firefly Bird Diverters- Firefly
bird diverters are flaps installed on power lines. They work as reflectors for
bird species like the GIB. Birds can spot them from a distance of about 50 meters
and change their path of flight to avoid collision with power lines.

Artificial Hatching- The conservation breeding
programme started in 2019 by collecting eggs from the wild and artificially
hatching them. The first chick hatched on 21st June 2019, and was named ‘Uno’.
Eight more chicks were hatched that year and raised and monitored. A total of
29 GIBs have been housed in the two breeding centres in Rajasthan.

Conservation Breeding Facility- MoEF&CC,
the Rajasthan government and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) have also
established a conservation breeding facility in Desert National Park at
Jaisalmer in June 2019.

Project Great Indian Bustard- It has
been launched by the Rajasthan government to construct breeding enclosures for
the species and develop infrastructure to reduce human pressure on its
habitats.

·       Benefits of artificial
insemination: It is useful in two ways- One, natural mating has its
limitations, as the male and female bustard can be in their breeding phase, or
in heat, during different periods of time. On an average, a female bustard lays
eggs only once or twice and the survival rate is poor, at around 60 per cent.

Second,
with the help of artificial insemination and an additional tool will help
increase genetic diversity. This will help them eventually when they are
released in the wild.