GUWAHATI: Assam’s State Bird, the White-Winged Wood Duck (Asarcornis scutulata), colloquially known as the Deo Hah, a wood duck with white wings is currently on the verge of extinction due to anthropogenic pressures causing their potential habitats to shrink. This was published in a first-ever study on the distribution of White-Winged Wood Duck (WWWD) in the Indian Eastern Himalayan region in the 2050s and 2070s.
Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Bangladesh and Myanmar are home to more than half (450) of the global population of White-Winged Wood Ducks (800), according to World Wildlife Fund.
The White-Winged Wood Duck was declared an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation Of Nature (IUCN) in 1994 and was declared Assam’s State Bird in 2003.
The study predicts that 436.61 sq km of the high-potential habitat of the White-Winged Wood Duck will be lost by 2070. The study says that climate change will cause the habitat of Deo Hah to shift from the eastern part of the region to the western part. Changes in the annual temperature range, precipitation in the wettest months (June to September) and precipitation decrease in the warmest quarter (October to December) would result in the loss of major habitats. The potential habitats will decline in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland and Tripura and will shift to the Bhutan and Assam border as the species requires an average annual precipitation of about 1000-1200 mm.
Assam has the highest potential habitat of Deo Hah in the Indian Eastern Himalayan region.