Essay on great Indian Bustard in English
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The great Indian bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) or Indian bustard is a bustard found on the Indian subcontinent. A large bird with a horizontal body and long bare legs, giving it an ostrich like appearance, this bird is among the heaviest of the flying birds. ... It is protected under Wildlife Protection Act 1972 of India.
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Great Indian bustard, (Ardeotis nigriceps), large bird of the bustard family (Otididae), one of the heaviest flying birds in the world. The great Indian bustard inhabits dry grasslands and scrublands on the Indian subcontinent; its largest populations are found in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
Great Indian bustards are tall birds with long legs and a long neck; the tallest individuals may stand up to 1.2 metres (4 feet) high. The sexes are roughly the same size, with the largest individuals weighing 15 kg (33 pounds). Males and females are distinguished by the colour of their feathers. Feathers on the top of the head are black in males, who also possess a whitish neck, breast, and underparts, along with brown wings highlighted by black and gray markings. Males also have a small, narrow band of black feathers across the breast. In contrast, females possess a smaller black crown on the top of the head, and the black breast band is either discontinuous or absent.
Great Indian bustards are omnivores that feed opportunistically (that is, they feed on any palatable food in their immediate surroundings). They prey on various arthropods, worms, small mammals, and small reptiles. Insects such as locusts, crickets, and beetles make up the bulk of their diet during the summer monsoon, when rainfall peaks in India and the bird’s breeding season largely takes place. Seeds (including wheat [Triticum vulgare] and peanuts [groundnuts; Arachis hypogaea]), in contrast, make up the largest portions of the diet during the coldest and driest months of the year.
Adult great Indian bustards have few natural enemies, but they display considerable agitation around certain predatory birds, such as eagles and Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus). The only animals that have been observed to attack them are gray wolves (Canis lupus). On the other hand, chicks may be preyed upon by felines, jackals, and feral dogs. Eggs are sometimes stolen from nests by foxes, mongooses, monitor lizards, and Egyptian vultures and other birds. The greatest threat to the eggs, however, comes from grazing cows that often trample them.
In 1994 great Indian bustards were listed as an endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. By 2011, however, the population decline was so severe that the IUCN reclassified the species as critically endangered. An estimated 50 to 250 mature birds remain. The largest concentration of great Indian bustards, perhaps 175 birds, occurs in the state of Rajasthan.
Habitat loss and degradation appear to be the primary causes of decline. Ecologists have estimated that approximately 90 percent of the species’s natural geographic range, which once spanned the majority of northwestern and west-central India, has been lost, fragmented by road-building and mining activities and transformed by irrigation and mechanized farming. Many croplands that once produced sorghum and millet seeds, on which the great Indian bustard thrived, have become fields of sugarcane and cotton or grape orchards. Hunting and poaching have also contributed to the decrease in population. These activities, combined with the species’s low fecundity and the pressure of natural predators, have left the great Indian bustard in a precarious position.
In 2012 the Indian government launched Project Bustard, a national conservation program to protect the great Indian bustard, along with the Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis), the lesser florican (Sypheotides indicus), and their habitats from further declines. The program was modeled after Project Tiger, a massive national effort initiated in the early 1970s to protect the tigers of India and their habitat.