Context
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In a major discovery, the longest in-country migration route of lesser floricans, the endangered birds of the bustard group, has been tracked for the first time from Rajasthan to Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district.
Key Details
- The extensive study on lesser floricans’ migration has been launched as part of the bustard recovery programme, which is a conservation initiative for the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard and the endangered lesser florican.
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Credit: Wikipedia The WII is implementing the project in partnership with Forest Departments of several States and the International Fund for Houbara Conservation.
- Unprotected agricultural fields in Shokaliya are the strongholds of lesser florican’s breeding population, which forages on insects amid the grass and crops of amenable heights.
About Lesser florican
- Lesser florican, taxonomically classified as Sypheotides indicus, is a small and slender bird species belonging to the bustard group, found in tall grasslands, for which Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has launched a recovery programme.
- The endangered bird is observed in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and some other regions during the monsoon season, when it breeds and later disappears with its chicks to unknown places.
- The bird is listed as “critically endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species and its population has been identified as “decreasing”.
- The only similar species is the Bengal florican (Houbarobsis bengalensis) which is larger and lacks the white throat, collar and elongated plumes.
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