State of India’s Birds 2023 Report: Most species show dip, Indian Peafowl among those flourishing

Last Updated29/08/2023

According to The State of India’s Birds, 2023 report, there is a general decline in numbers in most bird species in the country.
Some recorded current decline while others projected to decline in the long term.
However, due to lack of information, conservation attention has been focussed on only a few species.

Several bird species such as the Indian Peafowl, Rock Pigeon, Asian Koel and House Crow are healthy in both abundance and distribution and are showing an “increasing trend”.
Raptors, migratory shorebirds and ducks have declined the most.
Bird species which are “specialists’’ i.e. restricted to narrow habitats like wetlands, rainforests and grasslands are rapidly declining.
The “generalist’’ birds that can live in multiple habitat types are doing well as a group.
Birds that are endemic to the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot have rapidly declined in India over the past few decades.

The report highlighted major threats including forest degradation, urbanisation and energy infrastructure that bird species face across the country.
Environmental pollutants including veterinary drugs such as nimesulide still threaten vulture populations in India.
Other concerns include the impacts of climate change, avian disease and illegal hunting and trade.

It has been carried out by 13 partner organisations, including the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).
Objective: To assess the conservation status of the majority of species that regularly occur in the country.
The assessments rely on three indices namely
- Change in abundance, long-term trend (change over 30 years)
- Change in abundance, current annual trend (change over past seven years)
- Distribution range size in India
Using these measures and information from the IUCN Red List of global threat status, this report places Indian species into Low, Moderate and High categories of Conservation Priority for India.