Canal diverted to save India's rarest bird

NEW DELHI: The only known habitat of one of the world's rarest birds has been saved from destruction.

Thanks to a compromise between environmentalists, villagers and the Andhra Pradesh government, the 400km Telugu Ganga Canal, which will stretch from Srisailam in central Andhra to Chennai, will be diverted around the only remaining habitat of the Jerdon's courser, a striking, nocturnal bird, the size of a lapwing and found only in one region of Andhra Pradesh.

At the urging of the Bombay Natural History Society, an NGO, the state irrigation ministry has agreed to reroute the canal.

The government has agreed to add 3,000 acres of adjoining land to the courser's sanctuary. Thrilled by the development, Dr Panchapakesan Jeganathan, a scientist at BNHS who has been fighting the battle for the courser's habitat for the last eight years, said, "This bird is more threatened than the tiger. Now, there is a very good chance that it will survive."