Environment › Species in news
Birds
India's birds, above all the threatened ones: their status and habitat, the drugs, power lines and lost grassland that kill them, captive breeding and release, and the counts of migratory and resident birds. Prelims has asked about Desert National Park.
Showing 2 of 5 subjects, those that changed from 1 to 15 July 2026.Show all
Indian skimmer
Copy link to Indian skimmerPrelims and Mains
The Indian skimmer (Rynchops albicollis) is an Endangered fish eating waterbird whose lower mandible is longer than the upper, which lets it skim the water surface in flight. It nests in shallow scrapes on sandbars exposed in mid river during the low water season, so it depends on a natural flow regime and is exposed to dogs, jackals and cattle.
What changed
13 Jul 2026New subject
- A nest guardianship programme run with local people and the forest department has taken numbers in the Chambal from 420 in 2022 to more than 1,000, and is being extended to the Ganga and Yamuna confluence at Prayagraj.
- The work won a 2026 Whitley Award, given by the Whitley Fund for Nature to six grassroots conservationists a year.
Vultures
India's vultures
Copy link to India's vulturesPrelims
- The vultures hit hardest in India are the three Gyps species, the White-rumped, the Long-billed and the Slender-billed.
- All three are Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
- The Red-headed vulture is also Critically Endangered, and the Egyptian vulture is Endangered.
- They are listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Act's strictest protection.
- They nest on cliffs and on trees across India's plains and peninsula.
- Diclofenac in the carcasses of treated cattle causes kidney failure in Gyps vultures, and is why the three are where they are.
- The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre at Pinjore in Haryana breeds all three with the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).
What changed
6 Sep 2026
4 Jul 2026Updatealso in news
- A white-rumped vulture bred at the Jatayu centre at Pinjore, radio tagged and released at Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, was electrocuted on a power line after being shifted to Mudumalai. Telemetry had already shown it was habituated to people and unfit for the wild.
Mains: captive breeding restores numbers only where the release landscape is safe, and power lines are an unmanaged cause of death.
The Hindu, 4 Jul 2026: Radio telemetry almost saved this vulture from death (opens in a new tab)
Also filed elsewhere
- Prosopis juliflora · on Invasive alien species
There is no point releasing a grassland bird into scrub, so the tree comes out before the bird goes in.