Mystery of the ‘missing’ Great Indian Bustard chick not such a mystery, say officials: ‘It had learnt to fly’

The infertile egg laid by a Great Indian Bustard in Kutch was then swapped with this fertile egg for incubation. The chick’s birth was the first time this “jumpstart method” had been successfully deployed for the Great Indian Bustard.

Gujarat has only three surviving Great Indian Bustards in the wild, all of them female. Hence, their eggs are all infertile.

Sources admitted that the death of the chick would be a major setback for the effort to conserve the endangered bird. The next egg-laying is not expected before the monsoon ends, and officials said the “jumpstart method” may be tried again to ensure hatching.

There are only around 150 Great Indian Bustards in the wild across the world, mostly in Rajasthan. The large bird, a key indicator species of the grassland habitat, has been impacted over the years due to hunting, habitat loss and, in recent years, due to impact with energy transmission lines.

A top source in the Forest Department said: “The chick was being monitored intermittently, as it was also necessary to ensure that it was not disturbed… We are trying to locate it, but suspect it could have been eaten by a predator.”

The official added that while around 50 forest guards had been deployed mainly to keep feral dogs, jackals and foxes etc away from the area – which is a notified forest and a natural habitat for the Great Indian Bustard – “humanly it is a bit difficult to cover the vast terrain”. Given that it was very tiny still, the chick had not been geotagged.

A senior forest officer at Kutch said: “The bird had started taking small flights, so it has not come into observation for the past few days. Area scanning is the only way to trace it now, and that we are doing. But, it is a vast expanse.”

The officer noted: “The bird was not in an enclosure or any captive facility, nor was the newly born tagged. So, if one understands how a bird behaves, it is difficult to contain it… And this is an open area, with predators.”

The forest officer added that their only intervention in the exercise was swapping of the eggs, and that the bird had then been left alone, “in total wilderness”. While the area has CCTV surveillance at points, it is virtually impossible to use it to track birds.

Officials said that the learning will help, even if the chick is found to have died. “We have already tagged another female Great Indian Bustard bird. We will do it (swapping of non-fertile eggs with fertile ones) when the opportunity arises… The females lay eggs twice a year in normal circumstances, and now we know how to do it and when to do it.”

For now, the same 50-odd people once keeping a watch for it on the ground are now scouring the 1,600 hectares for signs of the bird. “We have not lost hope,” an official said.