GUWAHATI, Feb 14 — Felling of nesting trees and wanton destruction of mixed forests have been causing rapid shrinkage to natural breeding habitat of the endangered greater Adjutant Stork (called hargila in Assam) which have largest concentration of about 600 in Brahmaputra Valley. Earlier, widely distributed in South East Asia, this stork now has been confined only to India and Cambodia. In India, greater adjutant storks have been found in Assam, Orissa, Rajasthan, Nepal Terai and Gangetic plains, but it has now disappeared or become extremely rare in the whole of its distributional range. It has been established that the major stronghold of the greater adjutant stork is in Brahmaputra Valley where there are only 11 nesting colonies in five districts of Kamrup, Nalbari, Morigaon, Nagaon and Sivasagar.
These colonies are traditional and located in villages and semi-urban areas. For preservation of the greater adjutant stork, it has become essential to protect these nesting colonies with co-operation of the owners of the land on where those nesting colonies are located. In a bid to preserve the extremely rare greater adjutant storks, an wildlife NGO based in the State, Aranayak has launched a project in collaboration with Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) under Important Bird Area Programme to conserve the traditional nesting colonies of greater adjutant stork through awareness campaign. The project will focus on following objectives, to make the owner of the land where nesting colonies are located, aware of that greater adjutant stork is and endangered species, to educate students and common people around the nesting colonies to love and take care of the this stork in wild.
Wildlife experts feel that greater adjutant stork has an important role to play in our ecosystem. Moreover, the greater adjutant stork is also a scavenger bird which forage in the city garbage dumps, feeds on the inedible parts of fish and meat of nearby markets and butcher houses and thus keep the environment clean. Due to their gigantic size and long breeding season, this stork needs more food in the form of fish, amphibians, reptiles and sometimes birds. The greater adjutant storks make nests together in large trees forming colonies every year during September to April. These nesting colonies are usually traditional. It may be mentioned that out of the 20 stork species found in the world, nine species are found in Assam. The prominent stork species found in Assam are : greater adjutant stork, lesser adjutant stork, black stork, blacknecked stork, white stork, whitenecked stork, oriental stork, Asian openbill stork. The lesser adjutant stork is also as much a endangered species as the greater adjutant stork. They are found comparatively more in Assam that other parts of the country.