GIB chick’s death wakes up Guj to breeding plan it had

Ahmedabad: It took the death of a critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB) chick to finally shake the Gujarat govt out of years of neglect. The chick, born in March through the painstaking "jump start" technique at the Kutch sanctuary, is now dead — likely fallen to predators, despite 50-odd staffers deployed to protect it. And only now, after this entirely preventable loss, the state govt has scrambled to revive a breeding centre proposal that had been in bureaucratic limbo for years.The plan to establish a dedicated breeding centre with a high-fence predator-proof enclosure, modelled on a functional facility in Rajasthan, is not new. It had simply been put on a back burner and conveniently forgotten. In Oct 2022, Union environment minister Bhupendra Yadav directed Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka to submit proposals for GIB breeding centres. The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) was tasked with preparing a framework. But Gujarat failed to send the proposal in time, state forest department sources said. The plan gathered dust while the species teetered closer to extinction. "After losing the chick, the department has suddenly woken up. The proposal had been gathering dust for years," a senior officer said, acknowledging the conservation failure. The contrast with the govt's other wildlife priorities cannot be missed. A cheetah project in Kutch, proposed in 2023, moved with remarkable swiftness. But the GIB, a species so endangered that there can be virtually no room for error in its conservation, was allowed to languish. The state govt brought a precious egg all the way from Rajasthan, had WII scientists successfully hatch it using cutting-edge techniques, and then handed it over to a forest department that did not even bother to ensure a predator-proof fence in advance."The sending of the egg in the present situation seems unlikely, as the department would not like to risk another chick. The WII team ensured the egg was hatched, but the Gujarat forest department failed to care for the chick. I know it is difficult to prevent predators, but the fencing should have been done well in advance," said a senior forest official. The forest department now plans to build the long-overdue predator-proof enclosure and, once ready, bring two chicks and an adult male from Rajasthan to begin a captive breeding programme. The "jump start" method will also continue alongside habitat restoration. The govt, in a communication issued after the chick went missing, confirmed: "Simultaneously, habitat improvement measures such as Prosopis juliflora removal, strengthening of fenced enclosure, predator translocation, and water management are being undertaken by the forest department to maximise the survival chances in future attempts."Notably, Gujarat and Rajasthan have earlier locked horns over a male GIB. Rajasthan refused to transfer the male bird to Gujarat, particularly after the last male in Kutch's GIB sanctuary went missing in Dec 2018. Whether Rajasthan will now trust Gujarat with more birds remains an uncomfortable question.
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