GUWAHATI: An endangered Pallas’s fish eagle, tagged in Mongolia, has been recorded at Assam’s Kaziranga National Park for the fifth consecutive year.
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“The endangered Pallas’s Fish Eagle, tagged in Mongolia, has made Kaziranga its breeding ground for 5 straight years, putting Assam on the map of epic bird migrations,” Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently posted about the bird on X.
Scientists from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) also confirmed the development, as the latest sighting of the bird, named Ider, was made on March 16.
Ider, a male eagle with ring number A25, was first tagged at Buuntsagaan Lake in Central Western Mongolia on 21 August 2020 by the Wildlife Science and Conservation Centre (WSCC). Since then, the bird has consistently returned to Kaziranga during the breeding season, exhibiting a rare form of reverse migration.
The bird was tagged in Mongolia | @CMOfficeAssam on X
Pallas’s fish eagle (Haliaeetus leucoryphus) is listed as “endangered” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Once locally common across central and southern Asia, its population has seen significant decline since the 20th century, especially from former strongholds like the Caspian region and Kazakhstan.
As per BirdLife International, the bird’s global population is now estimated at between 2,500 and 9,999 mature individuals.