The clearest documented decline among Maharashtra’s grassland birds is the Great Indian Bustard. Historical counts from the Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary show a steep local fall, and a 2025 assessment estimates a continuing negative annual trend for the species in Maharashtra. These are different measures, however: the old figures are sanctuary-area counts, while the newer figure is a state-level model estimate—not a current census. Evidence on the Lesser Florican points to its presence in north-western Maharashtra, but does not establish a current state population.
What the figures say about Maharashtra’s Great Indian Bustard
Two records describe the bustard’s decline at different geographic scales and dates. They should not be read as one continuous count series or combined into a single population total.
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| Evidence | Figure | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary, historical counts; Narwade and Rahmani, Indian Birds, 24 August 2020 | 50–60 birds in the 1980s; about 30–40 during 2000–2006; 13 in 2010; five in 2015; one bird seen in 2016 | Historical local counts in and around the sanctuary, not present-day statewide abundance. |
| Maharashtra factsheet; State of India’s Birds, 2025 update | Estimated current annual trend: −6.17% (confidence interval −9.58 to −2.77); estimated distribution range: 586 sq km | A modeled state-level trend estimate and range estimate. The factsheet marks the long-term trend as insufficient data; the annual estimate is not a census. |
| Global estimates; Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Project Great Indian Bustard: Annual Update Report 2024–25 (2025) | Approximately 140 Great Indian Bustards and 800 Lesser Floricans | Approximate global estimates, not Maharashtra-only totals. |
The historical sequence is alarming, but its last figure is from 2016. The newer annual trend estimate signals a modeled decline in Maharashtra; it does not tell readers how many birds are currently in the state.
What is known about the Lesser Florican
The Lesser Florican (Sypheotides indicus) is another bustard associated with grassland. A Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change release dated 1 October 2009 identifies north-western Maharashtra as part of its breeding range and describes dry grassland habitat. The available evidence cited here does not establish a current Maharashtra abundance estimate, so old national population figures should not be treated as current.
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In that 2009 release, the Ministry stated: “Besides loss and degradation of its grassland habitat, the population fluctuations are directly correlated with breeding season rainfall patterns.” This is a historical statement about the Lesser Florican, not a new finding or a quantified explanation of present-day Maharashtra trends.
Why grassland birds are under pressure
Narwade and Rahmani’s 2020 study describes more than one pressure on the Great Indian Bustard in Maharashtra. In some areas, conservation faltered because of poor habitat management in protected areas; outside them, land-use change affected habitat. The authors also describe overhead wires, roads, industries and canals as infrastructure that altered habitat at a landscape scale.
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The study records an adult male Great Indian Bustard killed in a power-line collision at Nannaj in September 2015. That documented incident illustrates a direct infrastructure hazard, but it does not establish how many birds have been lost to collisions overall.
For the Lesser Florican, the Ministry’s 2009 release links population fluctuations to breeding-season rainfall as well as grassland habitat loss and degradation. The evidence therefore supports a multi-pressure account, not the claim that shrinking grassland alone explains every decline.
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What can—and cannot—be concluded about other birds
The Maharashtra field study covers a broad bird community in the Solapur–Osmanabad region, but the evidence cited here does not provide current state trend estimates for every declining grassland bird. The Great Indian Bustard’s trend should not be generalized to all grassland species, and the available figures are not enough to rank Maharashtra’s declining grassland birds by current rate of decline.
WII frames recovery of both the Great Indian Bustard and Lesser Florican as important to biodiversity in India’s arid and semi-arid open natural ecosystems. That wider ecological importance is a reason to protect these habitats, but it does not make the two species’ population evidence interchangeable.
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Sources
- State of India’s Birds, “Great Indian Bustard—Maharashtra” factsheet, 2025 update.
- Wildlife Institute of India, Project Great Indian Bustard: Annual Update Report 2024–25, 2025.
- Narwade and Rahmani, “Great Indian Bustard: Range, status and conservation in Maharashtra,” Indian Birds 16(3), 24 August 2020.
- Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, “Saving The Great Indian Bustard,” 1 October 2009.
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