ADILABAD: The rich green expanse of the Kawal Tiger Reserve is not only home to a few big cats, bears and deer, but this winter, people visiting the natural preserve in Jannaram mandal of Mancherial district were also able to see the bar-headed goose.
While it is not uncommon for the pale grey goose to migrate to peninsular Indian areas, it was one of the first times that they were sighted in the region. Indigenous to the central parts of India, the bar-headed goose usually migrates to the mountain lakes in the central part of Asia.A survey team of ornithologists comprising members of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Hyderabad Conservation Society along with forest officials sighted the bird first.
Experts say that it’s rare for the bar-headed goose to migrate to the region but the Kawal Tiger Reserve sees greater flamingoes, red-crested pochards, Caspian Terns, brown-headed gulls, small pratincoles and tufted ducks almost on a yearly basis. Speaking to TNIE, Imran Siddiqui, head of the Eastern Ghats programme, WCS-India, mentions that six teams covered forested areas in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, including the core areas and tiger corridor of the Kawal Tiger Reserve, apart from other nature preserves.
While the teams identified more than 60 species of birds and animals (aquatic and land), they also enumerated over 10,000 birds, he says, adding that most of the creatures were found in the Gandham lake, Maisampet kunta, Marathadi cheruvu and Bokki vagu.
WCS district coordinators A Venkat and R Tirupathi led the team which sighted the birds near the lakes of the Kawal Tiger Reserve. Only looking at the birds isn’t enough, identifying them and how they contribute to the local ecological balance is of paramount importance, they said.
“If birds are near agricultural fields, some eat the crop while others prey on insects and rats. So, seeing how they fit the local ecology is also important and people need to be aware of such things,” they add. Stressing the need for the conservation of rare birds, they mention that a few birds — such as the pink-headed duck, Jerdon’s Courser and lesser florican — are either endangered or extinct.
The government needs to identify land use patterns, and the concentration of waterbodies and agricultural fields and monitor the usage of toxic chemicals, they said. “The government needs to take measures for the conservation of birds as it has done for tigers,” they remarked.
Conservation important
The government needs to identify land use patterns, the concentration of waterbodies and agricultural fields and monitor the usage of toxic chemicals, officials said