The two Jatayu have brought great hope for vulture conservation in India after they completed 15 months of settling in the forests of Madhya Pradesh
The two Jatayu were born on January 27, 2020 in the closed aviary at Pinjore and reared by their parents. Pics/BNHS/Manan Singh
Two individual Jatayu (Long-billed Vultures – Gyps indicus), which were hatched in the closed aviary in Pinjore of Haryana and brought to Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra in 2024 and later released into the wild have settled in Madhya Pradesh, officials said.
They have now completed 15 months in the wild successfully and have settled in the forests of Madhya Pradesh.
The two Jatayu have brought great hope for vulture conservation in India.
The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), which has been working on the conservation breeding of vultures in India for the last 25 years, recorded this success story. BNHS shared this remarkable achievement through a press release.
BNHS established India’s first conservation breeding centre at Pinjore in Haryana with support from the Haryana Forest Department, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
The two Jatayu were born on January 27, 2020 in the closed aviary at Pinjore and reared by their parents. They were brought to Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra in January 2024 along with 10 other Long-billed Vultures for release into the wild.
BNHS and the Pench Tiger Reserve administration trained the vultures for six months and released them on August 10, 2024.
BNHS Director Kishor Rithe provided further details on the post-release movements of the birds, saying that “it has brought great hope for vulture conservation in India”.
Biologist Manan Singh, who works with BNHS, deployed his team to monitor the released birds over the last 15 months.
“These birds were named N01 and N24. Following their release in Pench (Maharashtra), N24 demonstrated exceptional adaptability by locating and feeding on a tiger kill within Pench Maharashtra just 12 days after release. Since then, it has been observed feeding on both provisioned food and wild kills made by carnivores in Pench Maharashtra (MH) and Pench Madhya Pradesh (MP) on numerous occasions,” said Manan Singh.
Singh further stated that “N24 flew into Pench MP very early in its life in the wild and has since ventured into adjoining areas of Chhindwara and Balaghat districts, covering distances of up to 50 km. It currently resides in Pench MP and frequently roosts at sites such as Alikatta and Khawasa.”
N24 has also been observed roosting with another captive-bred vulture, N01, on several nights.
“We are waiting for the day when N24 may form a pair with N01,” said Manan Singh.
Although the remaining birds could not survive, the survival of these two individuals over the last 15 months has shown that captive-bred and parent-reared vultures can indeed survive in the wild, said BNHS Director Kishor Rithe.
“This is not the only story — BNHS has released 31 birds in West Bengal, 25 in Pinjore, Haryana, and 20 birds in Maharashtra.”
Several of these birds are surviving in the wild and learning to overcome threats such as transmission lines and scarcity of food, he added.
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