Grass less green for Bengal florican at Assam’s Manas Tiger Reserve, the best of its last few habitats

Bengal florican in Manas National Park. Photo: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

GUWAHATI

A natural process of change in grassland type, hastened by human interference, is robbing the critically endangered Bengal florican of its hiding and mating spaces in the best of its remaining few habitats in India, a new study said.

Among the heaviest of the flying birds, the Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) is one of the four members of the bustard family found in India. It inhabits the tall, wet grasslands unlike the other three — the great Indian bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps), MacQueen’s bustard (Chlamydotis macqueeni), and lesser florican (Sypheotides indica) — that prefer the desert regions and the short grass plains.

Once distributed from the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh to the Himalayan foothills of Arunachal Pradesh through Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam, an estimated 350-400 Bengal floricans are now restricted to a few protected areas of the Brahmaputra Valley and the Dudhwa National Park in U.P. The big bird, however, is facing a survival challenge in western Assam’s Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve, the best of its last few habitats on earth.

The study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Threatened Taxa said the height of grass was the main factor behind the 40% decline in the population of the Bengal florican in Manas to about 50 in 2009 from the 80 estimated during a survey by the Bombay Natural History Society in 1989-90.

Bengal florican in Manas National Park. Photo: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

It also said that the wet alluvial grassland preferred by the Bengal floricans for breeding in the 500 sq. km Manas National Park bordering Bhutan reduced by 47% since the 1990s, “succeeding towards” savanna grassland.

“Wet alluvial grasslands tend to develop into a forest but the conversion process takes hundreds of years. Prolonged civil unrest in the region, encroachment, grazing, and other forms of human interference apart from natural factors fast-tracked this process saw Manas losing 60% of its area under grassland since 1973,” conservationist Bibhuti Prasad Lahkar, one of the authors of the study, told The Hindu.

The other authors are Miranda Thakur, Jonmani Kalita, Namita Brahma, Koushik Rajbongshi, Kangkanjyot Bhatacharyya, Amal Chandra Sarmah, Alolika Sinha, Deba Kumar Duta, and Dhritman Das.

“The wet alluvial type offers a mix of short and tall grasses for the Bengal florican. While the bird hides in the tall grasses to evade predators, it uses the short grasses for courtship and mating. A savanna grassland sports trees, which impact the height of the grasses that are neither tall enough for the birds to hide nor short enough to show off and mate,” Mr. Lahkar explained.

The authors of the study recommended some measures to save the sites preferred by the Bengal florican. These include the maintenance of a mosaic grassland that includes both tall and short grasses, comprehensive habitat restoration programmes to remove invasive species and native woody species, and stricter regulations against unauthorised land conversion, grazing, and burning.

They also emphasised the importance of engaging the local communities in conservation efforts through education, and providing incentives to them for sustainable practices.

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