The Great Indian Bustard, a bird that once dwelled across large parts of the Indian subcontinent, has now lost over 90% of its range. It is racing towards extinction, with the grasslands of the Thar Desert in Rajasthan being its last remaining home and hope. Even this landscape is now riddled with threats. Outside the Desert National Park, which is a protected area, the remaining Thar grasslands are facing rapid loss, degradation, and fragmentation. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) is working in this unprotected landscape to secure habitat for the Great Indian Bustards with the aid of the local stakeholders through the creation of secure grassland reserves.
The BNHS field base in the Thar is located near the tiny village of Khetolai, with the closest town being Pokhran in the Jaisalmer District of Rajasthan. Pokhran is famous as India’s first nuclear weapon testing site. Even today, a short distance from Khetolai, there is the Pokhran Field Firing Range (PFFR) of the Indian Army, a vital army base serving as a testing site for weapons and other military exercises. Surrounding the area is a mosaic of native open grasslands, farmlands, numerous small villages, etc.
Some of these villages, such as Khetolai, Dholiya, and Loharki, house a considerable population of members from the Bishnoi community known to be culturally inclined towards protecting nature. The PFFR and its surroundings are also home to the Great Indian Bustards and other Thar grassland species like the Indian desert cat, desert fox, chinkaras, Indian desert gird, Indian skink, several species of vultures, eagles, and much more.
Due to restrictions on civilian movements, the Great Indian Bustards usually take refuge in the relatively less disturbed PFFR. However, when military testing activities are at their highest in winter, the birds move out to the surrounding mixed-use landscape. This part of the Great Indian Bustard range is highly disturbed, one of the main reasons being the implementation of the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana project more than a decade back.
While the project ensured greater water availability in the Thar landscape through a network of canals. It drastically altered the area’s land-use pattern. Human settlements expanded, the availability of native habitat reduced, cropping practices changed, and invasive species were introduced. Thus, while hunting of Great Indian Bustards, the single biggest threat to these birds in the past, declined, new threats emerged.
The Many Threat To Great Indian Bustards In The Thar Desert Landscape
“Currently, intensive agricultural practices threaten the Great Indian Bustard habitat in the Thar landscape. These practices cause degradation of the native habitat and environmental pollution through the use of chemicals like pesticides and fertilisers,” mentioned Dr. Sujit Narwade, Deputy Director of BNHS and Coordinator of the BNHS Bustard and Florican Program.
In addition to growing crops, the Thar grasslands also support a large population of livestock like cows, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys.
“While controlled grazing by cattle helps keep the grassland ecosystem healthy, overgrazing, especially by animals like sheep and goats that move in large herds, can prove harmful if allowed unchecked,” informed Dr. Narwade.
Overgrazing deprives native wildlife like chinkara antelopes of their food resources. It also slows grassland regeneration times and erodes the topsoil, eventually causing the permanent degradation of the ecosystem. Grazing animals can also trample upon Great Indian bustard eggs, destroying them and slowing down the population growth of these birds.
Over the years, the renewable energy sector has also grown in leaps and bounds in the Thar landscape. Gigantic solar power plants have sprouted across the area, and windmills dot the grassland in hundreds. Solar panels and windmill turbines can cause bird mortalities through collisions, and their installations fragment and degrade the habitat.
“One of the biggest threats from these renewable energy installations is the high-tension lines associated with them. These power lines crisscross the Thar landscape. Due to their poor frontal vision, the Great Indian Bustards are unable to detect the presence of power lines while flying until they are very close to them. By the time they see the power lines, it often becomes too late. Being heavy-bodied, these birds find it difficult to manoeuvre their direction quickly, resulting in injury or death primarily due to collision with the power lines or electrocution in some cases,” Dr. Narwade described a major threat to the Great Indian Bustards.
“One of the ways to mitigate this threat include installing bird diverters and/or blinkers on the electric lines that warn birds of their presence. However, Dr. Narwade believes placing power lines underground is the most foolproof method for protecting birds.
Roads and railway lines also cut through the Thar grasslands, and their number and length are growing with time. These linear infrastructure intrusions fragment the grassland habitats, reducing the undisturbed space available for the critically endangered bustards to breed. With greater accessibility through these means of transport, human disturbance in such areas also increases.
“With the increase in human footprint in the Thar landscape, the free-ranging dog population has also gone up. These dogs are known to hunt in packs, often attacking and predating on Chinkara, chicks and eggs of the Great Indian Bustards,” said Dr. Narwade.
There is also the issue of invasive plant species like Prosopis juliflora. This invasive plant has replaced native vegetation in many areas as it outcompetes native grasses in growth rate.
Another major factor that towers above all the other major threats is the general apathy of the masses and policymakers toward grassland conservation. In India, grasslands have been designated as “wastelands” and are treated so. Thus, little record is kept of the loss of this ecosystem and its species.
What BNHS Is Doing
While each of the threats mentioned above can be battled with specific mitigation measures, the ultimate solution to save the Great Indian Bustards and other species of the Thar grasslands is the creation of habitats free from human interference of any kind. In that direction, the BNHS, the Indian Army, the Bishnoi community, and a network of Godawan Mitras have shown how local stakeholders can work together to create safe habitats for local wildlife in unprotected areas.
The BNHS has developed a model grassland reserve in Khetolai and secured a small patch of 35 hectares of grassland habitat in the area for the Great Indian bustards with the help of the local Bishnoi community, who gladly allowed BNHS to utilise their land for wildlife conservation.
The reserve has been fenced on all sides and has a single entrance. The fencing has been installed to check the entry of free-ranging dogs and wild boars, a major threat to the Great Indian Bustards. It also prevents the unregulated entry of livestock to graze in the reserve.
BNHS has also facilitated the clearing of the invasive Prosopis juliflora from the habitat to allow the regrowth of native vegetation to restore the habitat.
BNHS is also trying to change the overall outlook towards grasslands in India and is advocating for the labelling of grasslands as a type of “forest ecosystem” instead of “wasteland”. Also, BNHS has requested the government create a Grasslands Authority at the national and state levels to help maintain the sanctity of grassland ecosystems.
All these efforts led to developing a secure habitat for the Great Indian Bustards in their last remaining home in the world. These rare birds have been documented visiting the reserve on several occasions. Now, BNHS plans to create more such secure habitats in the Thar landscape.
While only around 100 of these birds are left in the wild, threats to them multiply. However, not all is shrouded in gloom. Places like the model grassland reserve in Khetolai act as the light at the end of the tunnel for the remaining Great Indian Bustards of the world.