The State of India’s Birds 2020 (SoIB 2020) is a first-of-its-kind collaborative effort that evaluates the overall conservation status of the most regularly occurring bird species in India. SoIB 2020 was formally released in February 2020 at the 13th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, and involved a collaboration between the following 10 institutions:
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology & the Environment
Bombay Natural History Society
Foundation for Ecological Security
National Biodiversity Authority
National Centre for Biological Sciences
Nature Conservation Foundation
Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History
Wetlands International – South Asia
Wildlife Institute of India
Worldwide Fund for Nature – India
Over 10 million observations uploaded by close to 15,000 birdwatchers to the eBird platform form the backbone of this assessment. This makes SoIB the first regional status assessment of birds that is entirely based on semi-structured citizen science data.
Many findings in the report are worrisome. Raptors, grassland species, and migratory shorebirds appear to have especially declined over the past 25 years, making up a large proportion of the 101 species of High Conservation Concern. But some stories are encouraging such as that of the House Sparrow and Indian Peafowl. In news that has delighted Indian birdwatchers, the House Sparrow does not seem to be declining in the country as a whole despite the popular perception.
To know more about the 867 species assessed, visit https://www.stateofindiasbirds.in/
Good job
Very informative and interesting compilation