Captive breeding alone cannot save the Great Indian Bustard without parallel habitat and infrastructure reforms. Critically examine.

Q. Captive breeding alone cannot save the Great Indian Bustard without parallel habitat and infrastructure reforms. Critically examine. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

The Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps), Critically Endangered with barely 100–150 birds left in the wild [4], survives today largely because of Project GIB. Yet a captive stock is an insurance policy, not a recovery — release is meaningless if the Thar habitat that killed the wild population remains unchanged.

Achievements of the captive-breeding approach - Demographic rescue: captive stock crossed 94 birds in June 2026, with 26 chicks hatched in the fourth breeding season alone through artificial insemination, natural breeding and wild-egg collection [1]. - Technology transfer: incubation and hand-rearing protocols adapted from Houbara bustard work with IFHC and Reneco, Abu Dhabi, under a ₹33.85 crore/5-year outlay, with centres at Kota and Sam, Jaisalmer [2]. - Range expansion: trans-state egg translocation produced a GIB chick in Gujarat after a decade, reducing single-population risk [3]. - Cooperative federalism: MoEFCC funds, WII supplies science, and Rajasthan and Gujarat forest departments execute [2].

Why it is insufficient without habitat and infrastructure reform - Power-line collisions remain the principal anthropogenic mortality factor identified in India's own CMS Appendix I proposal (COP-13, Gandhinagar, 2020) [5]; released birds would fly into the same grid. - Infrastructure conflict is unresolved: in M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (2024), the Supreme Court set aside its 2021 blanket undergrounding direction as costly and technically difficult, referring the balance to an expert committee while recognising a right against adverse climate effects under Articles 14 and 21 [6]. - Habitat degradation: grassland is classified as "wasteland" and diverted to solar parks, canal irrigation and plantations; Desert National Park is the sole significant in-situ refuge. - Genetic and behavioural limits: a fourth-year founder base risks inbreeding, and hand-reared birds need soft-release trials before survival is assured [1].

Captive breeding has bought time; habitat security must convert it into recovery. A calibrated path — bird diverters and selective undergrounding in priority corridors, community-led grassland management, and phased soft releases guided by the expert committee — would reconcile India's renewable-energy commitments with SDG 15, making the Godawan a test of sustainable development rather than a casualty of it.

(~330 words)

Sources: 1. Project GIB Adds Three Chicks, Taking Captive Stock to 94 Birds (PIB, 14 June 2026) — 94 captive birds, 26 chicks in the 4th season, breeding methods 2. Protection of Great Indian Bustards (PIB, MoEFCC) — ₹33.85 crore outlay, Kota and Sam centres, international technical partners, implementing agencies 3. Trans-state Conservation Effort leads to hatching of GIB chick in Gujarat after a decade (PIB) — Gujarat hatching via egg translocation 4. Project GIB Captive Breeding Programme enters 4th Year with Two New Chicks (PIB) — Critically Endangered status and wild population estimate 5. Proposal for Inclusion of the Great Indian Bustard in Appendix I, UNEP/CMS/COP13/Doc.27.1.4 — power-line collisions as principal mortality factor; Appendix I listing 6. M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, Supreme Court, 21 March 2024 — modification of the 2021 undergrounding order, expert committee, climate right under Articles 14 and 21