- Nepal has launched a 10-year conservation action plan for the Bengal florican to recover and restore the population of the critically endangered bird to the country’s grasslands.
- The plan focuses on habitat expansion, captive breeding, and raising awareness among communities living in the bird’s range.
- These approaches aim to tackle the key challenges of grassland management, habitat conversion, poaching, and insufficient research.
- Conservationists have welcomed the plan, but warn it faces difficulty securing funding, given that much of the resources for wildlife conservation in Nepal go toward charismatic species such as tigers and rhinos.
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s government has launched a new action plan for the conservation of the critically endangered Bengal florican, a bird whose population is declining amid mounting challenges across its range in the Indian subcontinent.
The 10-year plan proposes for the first time conservation in captivity of the Bengal florican, also known as the Bengal bustard (Houbaropsis bengalensis), such as in zoos or nurseries, in a bid to build up and restore a viable population of the bird. The plan also calls for expanding its habitat and gaining a better understanding of its ecology to reduce threats.
“We came up with the action plan following several rounds of discussion,” said Mohan Bikram Shrestha, a co-author of the action plan and senior researcher with the NGO Bird Conservation Nepal. He added the highlight of the action plan is its focus on raising awareness about the importance of conserving the species in those parts of its range that fall outside protected areas.
The duck-sized bustard, best known for the male’s signature mating display of flapping its wings and throwing itself into the air as though jumping on a trampoline, can be found in the Terai grasslands of southern Nepal and northern India from early spring until the monsoon sets in around June or July. After that, they’re difficult to trace. Another distinct population is found in Cambodia’s seasonally flooded Tonle Sap region.
According to estimates by the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, the bird’s population may have declined rapidly over the last three generations, with each generation lasting for around 10 years. It’s considered possibly extinct in Bangladesh, and its status remains uncertain in Vietnam. The total global population is estimated at fewer than 1,000 mature individuals, with fewer than 100 in Nepal.
“Although we haven’t given a concrete proposal on how to carry out ex-situ conservation, it could look something like the program in place for critically endangered vultures,” Shrestha said of the conservation action plan. Under its captive-breeding program from 2008-2022, Chitwan National Park in Nepal raised 18 chicks of various vulture species and released them into the wild to supplement the wild population.
According to a 2023 survey, the highest number of Bengal floricans in Nepal are found in and around Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve in eastern Nepal, near the border with India. Twenty-four of the birds were recorded there last year, compared to just two in Chitwan and five in Shuklaphanta National Park farther west.
“This is an encouraging sign as there were no sightings of the bird in the area between 1990 and 2007,” Shrestha said. “Our community-based awareness programs could be one of the reasons for this.”
Although raising awareness could help to some extent, grassland management remains key to saving the species, various studies have shown. But managing grasslands to meet the needs of the Bengal florican has been a challenge. The bird thrives on seminatural grasslands that are shaped by various factors, according to ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral. “They prefer grasslands that are not very tall,” he said.
In Nepal’s Terai protected areas, authorities cut or set on fire to the grass just ahead of and after the monsoon. In the past, this coincided with the breeding season of the bird. However, following the introduction of new habitat management guidelines, burning is now carried out before the pre-monsoon breeding season begins, Shrestha said.
As the monsoon sets in, the grass inside the protected areas grows tall again thanks to the rain, and the landscape becomes unsuitable for these terrestrial bustards. The birds move to areas outside the of national parks to their non-breeding habitats, where they’re exposed to dangers such as poaching and agrochemical poisoning.
The action plan acknowledges a litany of other hurdles to conservation of the Bengal florican: lack of sufficient knowledge and research, conversion of grasslands into forests, proliferation of invasive species, unsustainable logging, feral cattle and illegal livestock grazing and human encroachment.
It identifies several ways to address these challenges, including better management of grasslands outside protected areas to create a win-win situation for grassland birds, including Bengal floricans, as well as for local communities who can get quality grass for their livestock. Similarly, promoting bird-watching tourism could open new livelihoods for local communities. The plan also calls for more community engagement and expansion of habitats, especially in Koshi Tappu, the Bengal florican’s stronghold. And it proposes technology such as drone-based monitoring and satellite telemetry for monitoring the birds.
“We have been saying for a long time that the population of Bengal floricans in Nepal is less than 100,” Shrestha said. “We hope that after the implementation of the plan, we get to say it’s at least above 100. That could be a possible metric for restoration of population.”
Ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katuwal, who wasn’t involved in drawing up the conservation action plan, said it looks good on paper as it addresses the major challenges faced by the species in Nepal. However, he said, implementing the plan will be challenging due to changing nature of farmlands outside protected areas in Nepal’s plains where the bird is believed to live during the non-breeding season.
Katuwal added that unplanned urbanization in the Terai region also remains a major concern for grassland birds, including Bengal floricans. Also, it is difficult to secure funding, given that much of the resources for wildlife conservation in Nepal go toward charismatic species such as tigers and rhinos, said Shrestha.
Banner Image: A Bengal florican flies off after being tagged and released in Pilibhit National Park, Uttar Pradesh, northern India. Image courtesy of Dhritiman Mukherjee, BNHS.
Abhaya Raj Joshi is a staff writer for Nepal at Mongabay. Find him on 𝕏 @arj272.
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