As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday 12 January 2017

The Poor Bustard! Court Order Protecting Endangered Bird Flouted

Manon Verchot
Yesterday, 12:27 pm

Two new windmills have popped up near Desert National Park despite a court order for construction to stop.

The turbines, built not far from Jaisalmer, are in the flight path of the Great Indian Bustard, a critically endangered species with around 200 individuals left. Construction was supposed to be halted until an Eco-Sensitive Zone was demarcated.

The Great Indian Bustard was almost poached to extinction over the past four decades. Though the birds are still hunted for sport in Pakistan, a hunting ban in India has managed to protect 140 bustards in Rajasthan.

The government set up a Rs 12 crore project to save the bustard, which they launched in 2015. Late last year, 11 chicks successfully hatched in Dessert National Park, bringing the number up to 151.

But the new windmills threaten to undo this progress. Conservation activists say the bustards could be killed by the windmill blades, and that the noise made by these mills disturbs the birds. 
 

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