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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

03/12/22 21:29 PM IST

Project GIB

In News 
  • The Supreme Court, while hearing a plea to protect the Great Indian Bustard (GIB), floated an idea of a “Project GIB”, in line with the Project Tiger.
About GIB 
  • The Great Indian Bustard (GIB) is a large bird species mainly found in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
  • The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categorized this species as critically endangered.
  • While the majority of the Indian subcontinent was the historic range of GIBs, the population is currently found only in 10 per cent of the subcontinent.
  • GIBs, being one of the heaviest birds with flight, are found in grasslands. They spend most of their time on the ground, feeding on insects, lizards, grass seeds etc.
  • Their presence is seen as an indicator of the health of grassland ecosystems.
  • The GIB is currently on the verge extinction, with just 50 to 249 of these birds being present.
Threats 
  • The population is being mainly threatened because of the overhead power transmission lines.
  • Due to their poor frontal vision, these birds cannot spot the power lines from a distance and are too heavy to change the course when they are close to the power lines. Therefore, these heavy birds collide with the cable and perish.
  • According to the data from Wildlife Institute of India (WII), 18 GIBs die each year in Rajasthan after colliding with overhead power lines.
Conservation Efforts 
  • The Supreme Court in April 2021 ordered that all overhead power transmission lines in coreand potential GIB habitats in Rajasthan and Gujarat should be made underground.
  • Supreme court has suggested the installation of bird diverters (reflector-like structures strung on power cables) in priority areas.
  • It also asked them to assess the total length of transmission lines that need to go underground in the two states.
  • In 2015, the Centre launched the GIB species recovery programme. Under this, the WII and Rajasthan forest department jointly set up breeding centres where GIB eggs harvested from the wild were incubated artificially.
Source- The Hindu 

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