20 gm bird braves human invasion, climate change

BANGALORE: It’s the mass of humanity against a frail bird, weighing all of 20gm. The bird’s home in high-altitude grasslands has been made fragile by ruthless development. This, coupled with climate change, are posing a threat to the Rufous-bellied shortwing and White-bellied shortwing, two species found in ‘sky islands’ –high-altitude forest patches in the Western Ghats, 1200m above sea level.

With their hilly habitats fragmented, these tiny birds are already on the endangered list in the country.

A study conducted by a team of researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS ), Bangalore, found that increased patchiness and fragmentation of hill stations, through plantations and other human activity, is threatening the population of these birds.

VV Robin, a team member, told TOI that a combination of adverse factors has affected the survival rate of these birds. “Though the density of birds has not been affected much, the survival span appears to be impacted. Every year, we visit these places, but don’t see the same birds at a particular habitat.

In Karnataka, the population of shortwings has shrunk in places like Bababudangiri in Chikmagalur, he added.

Robin was speaking on the sidelines of the Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS ) at IIS c.

Pooja Gupta, another researcher, said a smaller population of these birds would mean their extinction in the long run. “We’ve also found asymmetric movement of these birds between sky islands, which could be due to fragmentation,” she added.

As part of the study,11 sample sites were chosen across the length of the Western Ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. DNA studies were also done on the birds.