DADARA, INDIA, August 15, 2016 (National Geographic): On a cloudy day in July, in a remote village in northeastern India, Charu Das excitedly imitates the awkward movements of a stork with her hands. In a few months, the greater adjutant stork–called hargilla, which means “swallower of bones” in Sanskrit–will descend on this hamlet, situated in Assam’s Brahmaputra Valley, to breed in large numbers. Garuda, Lord Vishnu’s mount, is a hargilla. They are a member of the stork family, but scavengers like the vulture.
Dadara and two nearby villages, Pasariya, and Singimari, are flanked by food-rich wetlands and brimming with tall trees perfect for nesting. The region has become a major stronghold for this homely creature: Due mostly to deforestation and widespread development of wetlands, only between 800 and 1,200 greater adjutant storks remain in India and Cambodia, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
But thanks to the efforts of the Hargilla Army, a conservation brigade of 70 local women, the region is now “the biggest greater adjutant nesting colony in the world,” says Purnima Devi Barman, a wildlife biologist with Aaranyak, a conservation nonprofit in Assam. Backed by the district administration and local conservation groups, the Hargilla Army has been so successful in reducing threats and protecting the habitat of the stork that the group won the United Nations Development Program India’s 2016 Biodiversity Award.
Not too long ago, however, the bird wasn’t quite as welcome. Many villagers considered the birds “filthy” because of their smelly droppings; harsh calls; and tendency to litter their food, sometimes collected from garbage dumps, Barman says. She organized small, informal meetings to talk about the bird’s role in the environment, such as scavenging and disposing of dead animals and its essential link in the food chain of the surroundings wetlands.
More of this very interesting report at “source’ above.