15 thoughts on “Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius)”
Firstly, I have been misquoted. My referred article was on a large gathering of the bird at one place rather than Assam as a whole. Yes, there are community conservation in Bihar and at one site in Assam. The Bihar population is encouraging and outside Assam, at least one viable breeding population.
But outrightly bringing it down to NT would be sort of a ……….., not appropriate. There is always threat to nesting trees – from owners and nature (cyclone, wind, etc). The trees near Kolong bridge, Nagaon of 1990s are all gone. Mandakata nesting trees have almost gone. Many other nesting trees around Nagaon and Sivasagar, two strongholds are mostly gone. Roosting trees in Dibrugarh are not to be seen. Islampur kabrstan in Guwahati city where my maximum count of roosting birds was 83, now no birds roost. Ulubari market haunt is also gone. Except undivided Kamrup, Nagaon, Darrang and Sivasagar districts, elsewhere only stray or small numbers occur.
Then there are reported and unreported deaths at the dumping ground of Guwahati owing to suspected poisoning.
I suggest status quo maintained.
There appears to be massive confusion in the preparation of this account. Even if the Assam population is now over 1,900, it is not clear how the Great Adjutant, which is declining or extirpated from most other historical locations, can be down listed to Near-threatened (or Least Concern).
Even the woolly-necked stork, whose (carefully estimated) population is over 2,50,000 with an increasing population in several locations, has been placed in Near-threatened (though it should likely be correctly classified as Least Concern).
How then can a species that is estimated to be barely 3,500 individuals be classified as Near-threatened (or Least Concern)? Several aspects of the justification that is written suggest great uncertainties, with several instances of confident extirpations of populations. Expert comments are also uniformly indicating that this species is not one that can be considered to be out of danger (except perhaps in one or two locations).
I am told that more people will contribute to this discussion and few field experts believe that this species is out of danger to the extent suggested by a down listing to Near-threatened (or Least Concern), or by the estimated population size presented for the species in the revised assessment. It seems unnecessary and incorrect at this time to consider a change of status for the Greater Adjutant.
The species has undergone significant recovery in the Prek Toal colony of Cambodia due solely to direct protection by local community members and government from egg and chick harvesting. However, unlike a number of the other large waterbird species in Cambodia breeding Greater Adjutants have not disbursed to form new colonies and it is now solely confined to the one colony. The Prek Toal colony is far from safe and faces a multitude of current, and potentially catastrophic, threats, including avian influenza, fire, development, and the long-term disruption of the whole Mekong – Tonle Sap flood regime. The colony and the species should not be regarded as secure in Cambodia in any way.
To ensure consistency within and across taxonomic groups, Red List assessments must adhere to the IUCN Red List Guidelines; thus evidence must be provided in the context of the thresholds of the Categories and Criteria. Other metrics, including the IUCN Green Status of Species (see Grace et al. 2021), are able to quantify the extent to which a population is depleted from historic baselines and its continuing dependence on conservation action; an assessment of the present species against those Criteria would address the concerns raised in the comments. However, the proposal here deals only with the species’ IUCN Red List status.
Although the population size of Greater Adjutant is estimated to be small (as noted by K S Gopi Sundar; and it is on this basis that it is proposed to be listed as Near Threatened), there is no evidence to suggest a continuing decline (despite depletion). To the contrary, robust monitoring data from both subpopulations show the trend to be increasing, thanks to concerted conservation action. As it stands, the species’ global extinction risk is therefore considered to be low according to the IUCN Red List Criteria. If evidence of a continuing decline in one or both subpopulations was to emerge, this would prompt a re-evaluation of the species’ extinction risk and would likely precipitate a re-assessment to a higher extinction risk category. However, an increasing population trend means the species cannot qualify as threatened under Criterion C (small population size, population structure, and population trend). The species has a relatively large range that does not meet (or approach) the thresholds for listing under Criterion B, and under Criterion D, it is assessed as Near Threatened (as per the proposal).
We seek feedback and recommendation on how the species might be assessed against Criterion A given the long three-generation length and recency of recovery suggest that the current population size is smaller than that three generations ago. Roughly how much larger the population was 38 years ago will determine if the species approaches or meets thresholds under Criterion A1.
References
Grace, M. K. et al. 2021. Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact. Conservation Biology 35(6): 1833-1849.
The moot question here is to assess if the population of Greater Adjutant though at present very small and restricted to two places in India and Cambodia respectively, has declined over 3 generations globally i.e. between 1985 and 2023. If so, to what extent? That will be factored into determining the current listing of the species as per IUCN Red List Criteria. According to me, since there is no concrete evidence available about the population 3 generations ago, the rate of decline to (increased) present population level can not be definitely assessed, as such it will be prudent to maintain the status quo till the evidences are gathered.
I have been following this species for more than 30 years now in Assam and there is an increase of population in Assam, India. The Kamrup population of Assam has increased considerably due to community conservation efforts and the breeding colony in Dadara-pacharia-Singimari (an IBA Site) with more than 250 nests, is probably the largest breeding colony of this species. But some other breeding colonies e.g Nagaon and Sivasagar have suffered a set back with almost 90% decrease than we used to see in mid nineties. Last year we observed some new nesting colonies in these districts, though the numbers are still not comparable to its mid nineties population. But it also brings hope that bird has started coming back to these areas again.
Numbers has increased but the main threat on the habitat (tall nesting trees of specific tree species with wide canopy cover) remains. Though the villagers in Kamrup mainly have stopped felling nesting trees, the development pressure on the locality is a big threat and it is being intensified slowly. Same with the other breeding colonies and many other areas.
It takes almost 30-40 years to mature a tree to become a nesting tree. So planting new nesting trees will also take considerable time to be used by the bird after plantation.
As said earlier, the number of birds has increased mainly because of not disturbing the bird and not felling any nesting trees in its biggest nesting colony in Kamrup.
I am pretty sure that development pressure will slowly act and the threat on the bird population will also get intensified naturally.
For a species like Greater adjutant, which is a restricted range species now with just three distinct breeding population with just 2500 odd birds (in Assam and Bihar in India and Prek Toal Cambodia) and far away from its historical distribution ranges, its too early to justify the change of its Red list status from “Endangered” to “near threatened”. It’s still a threatened species. No doubt about that.
I strongly suggest maintaining the status co of the species in the current evaluation as “endangered” with a remark of “increasing trend of population” in last 10 years’ time. Please re-evaluate the status evaluation of species with more robust information. We are happy to help on this.
The 17 years population trend (authenticated with GPS records) of Greater Adjutant since its first record of breeding in Bihar that indicates almost a declining trend in recent years. The increasing human population, roads, electricity, transport, business, marketing, fishing and cutting of trees including the suspected poisoning cases, the threats are increasing day by day in Kosi Kadwa diara of Bhagalpur district in Bihar which more or less is the single breeding colony existing now. Most of such threat posing developments are inevitable. The realistic assessment by Dr. Anwaruddin Choudhury is really worrying that the population in Assam is wiped out from its past wide breeding range. In recent past, 26 of these storks were found dead in Deepor Beel of Assam and the cause is unknown. A single colony can be wiped out at any time. Once the rhythm of community conservation is lost, it will be impossible to bring them back in conservation. If the direct money is involved in community for conservation, it will not sustain for long. We should be extremely cautious in downgrading the threatened status of Greater Adjutant. I agree with Gopi Sundar that the justifications being mentioned have great uncertainties. Colin Poole has rightly suggested that the colony at Prek Toal Cambodia should not be regarded as secure and similar is the fact with its population in Bihar. In Bihar, where the second largest population of the world breeds, the trend shows a decline. Choudhary and Abdullah suggest 100-125.active nests between 2019-21 seems to be hypothetical where the fact is that there were 71 active nests in 2019-20, 68 in 2020-21 and 99 in 2021-22 with a declining trend compared to last 17 years data with GPS locations that I have gathered. The highest population estimate was 580 in 2018-19 which has come down to approx 494 in 2022-23. These records are there with the state forest department also. Such figures might be coming from other sites too. Unless the authenticated records are there, we should not think of changing the threatened status of Greater Adjutant from endangered category.
The birds have left Ganga river floodplains after breeding there for four years from 2007-08. The population seems not secured and stable unless there are multiple colonies formed.
The below references may be sighted:
1. Deshwal, A., Barman, P. D., & Mishra, A. (2022). Ecology and Religion Walk Hand in Hand to Conserve Greater Adjutants in India (pp. 250-257), Routledge. In Religion and Nature Conservation, Global Case Studies Edited By Radhika Borde, Alison A Ormsby, Stephen M Awoyemi, Andrew G Gosler.
2. Mishra Arvind and Jai Nandan Mandal (2009). Discovery of a breeding ground of the Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) and their conservation in the floodplains of Bihar, India, Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. 106 (2), August 2009.
The main breeding population of breeding Greater Adjutant lies in the two states of India in Bihar and Assam. It seems to be a contrast that the Indian Government has raised the protection level of these birds by elevating the species from Schedule IV to Schedule I and on the other hand the species is being thought of bringing down to NT from EN category.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. We greatly appreciate the time and effort invested in commenting. The window for consultation is now closed and we are unable to accept any more comments until 26 June 2023. We will now analyse and interpret the new information, and we will post a preliminary decision on this species’ Red List status on this page on 26 June 2023, when discussions will re-open.
Based on available information, our preliminary proposal for the 2023 Red List would be to adopt the proposed classifications outlined in the initial forum discussion. We thank all those who have contributed valuable information, all of which has been incorporated into the updated Red List assessment. While we understand the concern of the revision proposed, all species must disinterestedly be assessed against the IUCN Red List Criteria to ensure consistency. The species cannot be listed as threatened under Criterion A3, B or C because of its increasing population trend. The catastrophic declines observed in this species occurred historically, outside the three-generation window, such that it cannot reasonably be thought to approach or meet the thresholds for threatened under Criterion A1. Under Criterion D, it is assessed as Near Threatened and its increasing population trend means that its extinction risk is currently considered relatively low. However, we acknowledge that this has only been possible thanks to concerted and dedicated conservation action in both North-east India and Cambodia. The updated account will be explicit in acknowledging that the species status has improved only because of these efforts, and future improvement in its status will continue to depend on this action. While the Forum is still open, we continue to solicit input on the parameters explored here, as well as additional information on the conservation action currently underway to protect this species.
There is now a period for further comments until the final deadline on 2 July 2023, after which the recommended categorisations will be put forward to IUCN.
The final 2023 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2023, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. We greatly appreciate the time and effort invested in commenting. The window for consultation is now closed and we are unable to accept any more comments. We will analyse and interpret the information, and we will post a final decision on this species’ Red List status on this page on 10 July 2023.
Recommended categorisation to be put forward to IUCN
The final categorisation for this species has not changed. Greater Adjutant is recommended to be listed as Near Threatened, approaching the threshold for listing as threatened under Criterion D1.
Many thanks for everyone who contributed to the 2023.2 GTB Forum process. The final 2023 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2023, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.
Firstly, I have been misquoted. My referred article was on a large gathering of the bird at one place rather than Assam as a whole. Yes, there are community conservation in Bihar and at one site in Assam. The Bihar population is encouraging and outside Assam, at least one viable breeding population.
But outrightly bringing it down to NT would be sort of a ……….., not appropriate. There is always threat to nesting trees – from owners and nature (cyclone, wind, etc). The trees near Kolong bridge, Nagaon of 1990s are all gone. Mandakata nesting trees have almost gone. Many other nesting trees around Nagaon and Sivasagar, two strongholds are mostly gone. Roosting trees in Dibrugarh are not to be seen. Islampur kabrstan in Guwahati city where my maximum count of roosting birds was 83, now no birds roost. Ulubari market haunt is also gone. Except undivided Kamrup, Nagaon, Darrang and Sivasagar districts, elsewhere only stray or small numbers occur.
Then there are reported and unreported deaths at the dumping ground of Guwahati owing to suspected poisoning.
I suggest status quo maintained.
I fully support Dr. Choudhury’s perspective.
There appears to be massive confusion in the preparation of this account. Even if the Assam population is now over 1,900, it is not clear how the Great Adjutant, which is declining or extirpated from most other historical locations, can be down listed to Near-threatened (or Least Concern).
Even the woolly-necked stork, whose (carefully estimated) population is over 2,50,000 with an increasing population in several locations, has been placed in Near-threatened (though it should likely be correctly classified as Least Concern).
How then can a species that is estimated to be barely 3,500 individuals be classified as Near-threatened (or Least Concern)? Several aspects of the justification that is written suggest great uncertainties, with several instances of confident extirpations of populations. Expert comments are also uniformly indicating that this species is not one that can be considered to be out of danger (except perhaps in one or two locations).
I am told that more people will contribute to this discussion and few field experts believe that this species is out of danger to the extent suggested by a down listing to Near-threatened (or Least Concern), or by the estimated population size presented for the species in the revised assessment. It seems unnecessary and incorrect at this time to consider a change of status for the Greater Adjutant.
The species has undergone significant recovery in the Prek Toal colony of Cambodia due solely to direct protection by local community members and government from egg and chick harvesting. However, unlike a number of the other large waterbird species in Cambodia breeding Greater Adjutants have not disbursed to form new colonies and it is now solely confined to the one colony. The Prek Toal colony is far from safe and faces a multitude of current, and potentially catastrophic, threats, including avian influenza, fire, development, and the long-term disruption of the whole Mekong – Tonle Sap flood regime. The colony and the species should not be regarded as secure in Cambodia in any way.
The second iteration of State of India’s Birds (SoIB) is nearing its completion and we do not have any trend information for Greater Adjutant.
The species did not meet the required data criteria for long-term and current analyses.
Greater Adjutant continues to be restricted in range within India and lacks the data for a current trend analysis across its range.
To ensure consistency within and across taxonomic groups, Red List assessments must adhere to the IUCN Red List Guidelines; thus evidence must be provided in the context of the thresholds of the Categories and Criteria. Other metrics, including the IUCN Green Status of Species (see Grace et al. 2021), are able to quantify the extent to which a population is depleted from historic baselines and its continuing dependence on conservation action; an assessment of the present species against those Criteria would address the concerns raised in the comments. However, the proposal here deals only with the species’ IUCN Red List status.
Although the population size of Greater Adjutant is estimated to be small (as noted by K S Gopi Sundar; and it is on this basis that it is proposed to be listed as Near Threatened), there is no evidence to suggest a continuing decline (despite depletion). To the contrary, robust monitoring data from both subpopulations show the trend to be increasing, thanks to concerted conservation action. As it stands, the species’ global extinction risk is therefore considered to be low according to the IUCN Red List Criteria. If evidence of a continuing decline in one or both subpopulations was to emerge, this would prompt a re-evaluation of the species’ extinction risk and would likely precipitate a re-assessment to a higher extinction risk category. However, an increasing population trend means the species cannot qualify as threatened under Criterion C (small population size, population structure, and population trend). The species has a relatively large range that does not meet (or approach) the thresholds for listing under Criterion B, and under Criterion D, it is assessed as Near Threatened (as per the proposal).
We seek feedback and recommendation on how the species might be assessed against Criterion A given the long three-generation length and recency of recovery suggest that the current population size is smaller than that three generations ago. Roughly how much larger the population was 38 years ago will determine if the species approaches or meets thresholds under Criterion A1.
References
Grace, M. K. et al. 2021. Testing a global standard for quantifying species recovery and assessing conservation impact. Conservation Biology 35(6): 1833-1849.
The moot question here is to assess if the population of Greater Adjutant though at present very small and restricted to two places in India and Cambodia respectively, has declined over 3 generations globally i.e. between 1985 and 2023. If so, to what extent? That will be factored into determining the current listing of the species as per IUCN Red List Criteria. According to me, since there is no concrete evidence available about the population 3 generations ago, the rate of decline to (increased) present population level can not be definitely assessed, as such it will be prudent to maintain the status quo till the evidences are gathered.
I have been following this species for more than 30 years now in Assam and there is an increase of population in Assam, India. The Kamrup population of Assam has increased considerably due to community conservation efforts and the breeding colony in Dadara-pacharia-Singimari (an IBA Site) with more than 250 nests, is probably the largest breeding colony of this species. But some other breeding colonies e.g Nagaon and Sivasagar have suffered a set back with almost 90% decrease than we used to see in mid nineties. Last year we observed some new nesting colonies in these districts, though the numbers are still not comparable to its mid nineties population. But it also brings hope that bird has started coming back to these areas again.
Numbers has increased but the main threat on the habitat (tall nesting trees of specific tree species with wide canopy cover) remains. Though the villagers in Kamrup mainly have stopped felling nesting trees, the development pressure on the locality is a big threat and it is being intensified slowly. Same with the other breeding colonies and many other areas.
It takes almost 30-40 years to mature a tree to become a nesting tree. So planting new nesting trees will also take considerable time to be used by the bird after plantation.
As said earlier, the number of birds has increased mainly because of not disturbing the bird and not felling any nesting trees in its biggest nesting colony in Kamrup.
I am pretty sure that development pressure will slowly act and the threat on the bird population will also get intensified naturally.
For a species like Greater adjutant, which is a restricted range species now with just three distinct breeding population with just 2500 odd birds (in Assam and Bihar in India and Prek Toal Cambodia) and far away from its historical distribution ranges, its too early to justify the change of its Red list status from “Endangered” to “near threatened”. It’s still a threatened species. No doubt about that.
I strongly suggest maintaining the status co of the species in the current evaluation as “endangered” with a remark of “increasing trend of population” in last 10 years’ time. Please re-evaluate the status evaluation of species with more robust information. We are happy to help on this.
The 17 years population trend (authenticated with GPS records) of Greater Adjutant since its first record of breeding in Bihar that indicates almost a declining trend in recent years. The increasing human population, roads, electricity, transport, business, marketing, fishing and cutting of trees including the suspected poisoning cases, the threats are increasing day by day in Kosi Kadwa diara of Bhagalpur district in Bihar which more or less is the single breeding colony existing now. Most of such threat posing developments are inevitable. The realistic assessment by Dr. Anwaruddin Choudhury is really worrying that the population in Assam is wiped out from its past wide breeding range. In recent past, 26 of these storks were found dead in Deepor Beel of Assam and the cause is unknown. A single colony can be wiped out at any time. Once the rhythm of community conservation is lost, it will be impossible to bring them back in conservation. If the direct money is involved in community for conservation, it will not sustain for long. We should be extremely cautious in downgrading the threatened status of Greater Adjutant. I agree with Gopi Sundar that the justifications being mentioned have great uncertainties. Colin Poole has rightly suggested that the colony at Prek Toal Cambodia should not be regarded as secure and similar is the fact with its population in Bihar. In Bihar, where the second largest population of the world breeds, the trend shows a decline. Choudhary and Abdullah suggest 100-125.active nests between 2019-21 seems to be hypothetical where the fact is that there were 71 active nests in 2019-20, 68 in 2020-21 and 99 in 2021-22 with a declining trend compared to last 17 years data with GPS locations that I have gathered. The highest population estimate was 580 in 2018-19 which has come down to approx 494 in 2022-23. These records are there with the state forest department also. Such figures might be coming from other sites too. Unless the authenticated records are there, we should not think of changing the threatened status of Greater Adjutant from endangered category.
The birds have left Ganga river floodplains after breeding there for four years from 2007-08. The population seems not secured and stable unless there are multiple colonies formed.
The below references may be sighted:
1. Deshwal, A., Barman, P. D., & Mishra, A. (2022). Ecology and Religion Walk Hand in Hand to Conserve Greater Adjutants in India (pp. 250-257), Routledge. In Religion and Nature Conservation, Global Case Studies Edited By Radhika Borde, Alison A Ormsby, Stephen M Awoyemi, Andrew G Gosler.
2. Mishra Arvind and Jai Nandan Mandal (2009). Discovery of a breeding ground of the Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) and their conservation in the floodplains of Bihar, India, Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. 106 (2), August 2009.
The main breeding population of breeding Greater Adjutant lies in the two states of India in Bihar and Assam. It seems to be a contrast that the Indian Government has raised the protection level of these birds by elevating the species from Schedule IV to Schedule I and on the other hand the species is being thought of bringing down to NT from EN category.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. We greatly appreciate the time and effort invested in commenting. The window for consultation is now closed and we are unable to accept any more comments until 26 June 2023. We will now analyse and interpret the new information, and we will post a preliminary decision on this species’ Red List status on this page on 26 June 2023, when discussions will re-open.
Preliminary proposal
Based on available information, our preliminary proposal for the 2023 Red List would be to adopt the proposed classifications outlined in the initial forum discussion. We thank all those who have contributed valuable information, all of which has been incorporated into the updated Red List assessment. While we understand the concern of the revision proposed, all species must disinterestedly be assessed against the IUCN Red List Criteria to ensure consistency. The species cannot be listed as threatened under Criterion A3, B or C because of its increasing population trend. The catastrophic declines observed in this species occurred historically, outside the three-generation window, such that it cannot reasonably be thought to approach or meet the thresholds for threatened under Criterion A1. Under Criterion D, it is assessed as Near Threatened and its increasing population trend means that its extinction risk is currently considered relatively low. However, we acknowledge that this has only been possible thanks to concerted and dedicated conservation action in both North-east India and Cambodia. The updated account will be explicit in acknowledging that the species status has improved only because of these efforts, and future improvement in its status will continue to depend on this action. While the Forum is still open, we continue to solicit input on the parameters explored here, as well as additional information on the conservation action currently underway to protect this species.
There is now a period for further comments until the final deadline on 2 July 2023, after which the recommended categorisations will be put forward to IUCN.
The final 2023 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2023, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.
Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. We greatly appreciate the time and effort invested in commenting. The window for consultation is now closed and we are unable to accept any more comments. We will analyse and interpret the information, and we will post a final decision on this species’ Red List status on this page on 10 July 2023.
Recommended categorisation to be put forward to IUCN
The final categorisation for this species has not changed. Greater Adjutant is recommended to be listed as Near Threatened, approaching the threshold for listing as threatened under Criterion D1.
Many thanks for everyone who contributed to the 2023.2 GTB Forum process. The final 2023 Red List categories will be published on the BirdLife and IUCN websites in December 2023, following further checking of information relevant to the assessments by both BirdLife and IUCN.