‘Milestone achieved in conservation of critically endangered Great Indian Bustard’

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav on Saturday announced a significant milestone in the conservation of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB).

Gujarat witnessed the birth of a chick after a decade, in Kutch, through a novel conservation measure known as the Jumpstart Approach. The effort was planned a year back which was coordinated by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, along with the State Forest Departments of Rajasthan and Gujarat and the Wildlife Institute of India.

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This is the first inter-state jump start initiative of the GIB in the country, that was successfully executed in Gujarat. It is important to mention that in Gujarat only three female GIBs are surviving in the grasslands of Kutch, leaving no possibility of having a fertile egg in the wild.

It took an arduous 770km road journey to transport an incubated egg to the desired nesting site in Kutch, which was undertaken without a break by creating a halt-free corridor from Sam (Rajasthan) to Naliya (Gujarat).

In the social media post, Yadav noted that Project GIB was envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2011 to conserve the Great Indian Bustard in its natural habitats, including Gujarat, and was formally launched in 2016. He stated that the project has been making steady progress in strengthening conservation and recovery efforts for the species.

The minister informed that the number of birds in conservation breeding centres at Sam and Ramdevra in Rajasthan has reached 73, with the addition of five new chicks during the current breeding season. He added that India is now moving ahead towards the rewilding of birds in the near future as part of long-term conservation planning.

Giving further details on the path-breaking initiative, Yadav said the female GIB tagged in August 2025 laid an infertile egg in Kutch, where the local population had lost all its males long ago. In a major trans-state conservation effort, a captive-bred GIB egg from the conservation breeding programme in Rajasthan was transported by road for over 19 hours in a handheld portable incubator and was successfully replaced in the nest on 22nd March.

The minister stated that the female completed the incubation of the fertile egg and successfully hatched the chick on 26 March, with the field monitoring team observing the young chick being reared by its foster mother in its natural habitat. He described this as a significant achievement in the recovery of the critically endangered species.