Bhubaneswar, May 21: Wildlife lovers in State rejoiced as news about nesting of endangered Indian Skimmers on Mahanadi river bed spread.
This is for the first time that a flock of Skimmers chose Mahanadi bed for nesting though earlier they nested in Bhitarkanika, Nalabana in Chilka and Satakosia.
According to Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) Sidhant Das, the Indian Skimmers are a species which the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has put under the ‘vulnerable category’ of birds.
These birds are locally migratory and are generally found in the Indian subcontinent from Pakistan to Myanmar. Earlier, there were roughly 10,000 Indian Skimmers in India whose number has declined at a fast rate of about 30 percent every year. To sustain their population, the Ministry of Environment and Forests had developed a nesting site for them in National Chambal Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh.
The nesting was first sighted by an ornithologist Sumant Kumar Rajguru, Das said.
“Following information and inputs from him, instructions were given to the DFO, Chandaka Wildlife Division to take steps to provide adequate protection to the nesting sites. Besides, we had requested the Water Resources department to maintain the water level in the river to ensure that the sand bars of the riverbed on which these birds have laid eggs are not inundated,” he said.
Das said experts from Bombay-based Natural History Society BNHS) have already fixed rings on the 34 hatchlings. In all 64 nests were sighted along the sand bars in which the birds had laid 181 eggs.
Principal Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said there were 13 nests of River Tern birds with 30 eggs and one of Black-bellied Tern with six eggs.
