Bengal Florican "EMPOWER IAS"

 

In news:

• Environmentalists have recently written to the Assam government on the urgent need to prevent land-use changes at Kokilabari Seed Farm in the state to protect Bengal floricans and other species.

 

 

 SHAPE  \* MERGEFORMAT ​

Bengal Florican

• The species has two disjunct populations, one in the Indian Subcontinent, the other in South-East Asia. The former occurs in Indian Subcontinent mainly in India (Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.) and terai region of Nepal.
• It inhabits lowland dry, or seasonally inundated, natural and semi-natural grasslands, often interspersed with scattered scrub or patchy open forest.
• It has a very small, rapidly declining population largely as a result of widespread loss of its grassland habitat.

 

Conservation status

• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• CITES: Appendix I
• Wildlife Protection Act of India, 1972: Schedule I

 

Threats:

​​​​​​​The populations are in decline and threatened by habitat loss through drainage, conversion to agricultural land and plantations, the invasion of alien species, and dam construction.