The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) is yet to catch up with the ground reality of the number of species of critically endangered birds in the country. When environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan released a book on Tuesday, which updates the list of birds facing a threat of extinction in India, it perhaps escaped her mind that the ministry’s official list is outdated.

The Sewri mudflats in Mumbai, home to a rich biodiversity, including flamingoes, is under threat from a development project.

Rajkot: A nationwide netbased survey on house sparrow has been launched by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Mumbai, from April 1. Bird Conservation Society, Gujarat (BCSG), which is one of the 10 partnering institutions in this two-month long survey, has appealed to the people to contribute their data to this important study. BCSG has been working for the promotion of bird watching as a hobby and creating awareness about the importance of conservation.

Bombay Natural History Society ropes in citizens for online survey

In an effort to document the population and distribution of sparrows and compare it with the situation in the past, nature and conservation organisations across the country have joined efforts with the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) to launch an online survey titled “citizen sparrow”.

Finance Minister K.M. Mani’s announcement during his Budget speech in the Assembly that the biodiversity-rich wetland area of Munderikadavu here will be developed into a bird sanctuary has been greeted by bird lovers in the region with a note of caution that the proposal should envisage the protection of the entire Kattampally wetland ecosystem that is facing threat from large scale reclamation.

Act now or it will be never! Three species of south Asia’s vultures are critically threatened with extinction in the near future. Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE), a group of international experts — in its first meeting on saving the endangered raptors has strongly recommended legislations to stop the production of injectable human diclofenac in vials or ampoules larger than 3ml. India with its highest number of vulture population so far is to lead in this initiative.

A report of Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE), a consortium of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and UK-based Royal Society for Protection of Birds (RSPB), launched by the union environment ministry, has reiterated that the size of human diclofenac vials must be reduced through support from both the government and industry to save the raptors.

Diclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) given to treat ailing livestock and is responsible for the decline in the vulture population of South Asian countries like India, Nepal and Pakistan, as they scavenge on the carcass of these animals.

Sets aside objections of wildlife expert panel; IIT Roorkee to conduct study. Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan has set aside objections of a wildlife expert committee and given the go-ahead to the 1,750 MW Demwe Lower Hydroelectric project on the Lohit River in Arunachal Pradesh. The project is a joint enterprise of Athena Demwe Power and the Arunachal Pradesh government.

A two-day marathon exercise to count the migratory birds descending on the wetlands of Pong Dam lake near here will commence on Monday.

The annual census of migratory and local birds at Maharana Pratap Sagar (an artificial lake) takes place towards the end of January and beginning of February every year to note the trend of arrival of migratory birds from Siberia and South Asian countries.

Itanagar, 6 Jan: Black-necked crane (file photo), a rare bird species found in high altitude, has been spotted at Zemithang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh by the Indian chapter of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for the first time. So long there were only reports of the bird's sighting in the valley in Twang district, located at an altitude of 2,000 metres above sea level near the China border, but no photographic evidence.