Dugongs (Dugong dugon), commonly called “sea cows”, are marine mammals found in shallow coastal waters. They are the only surviving species of the family Dugongidae, with all other relatives now extinct.

Dugongs are herbivorous animals and graze exclusively on seagrass. In doing so, they help keep these underwater seagrass meadows, healthy. This in turn supports several other marine life and enhances carbon sequestration.

In India, dugongs are typically found in Marine Protected Areas, a designated section of the ocean where human activity is restricted. These include Tamil Nadu’s Dugong Conservation Reserve and Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park (MNP); the Rani Jhansi MNP and Mahatma Gandhi MNP in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; and the Gulf of Kutch MNP, Gujarat. Globally, dugongs roam the coasts of 37 Indo-Pacific countries, from East Africa to Australia.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the dugong is listed as vulnerable due to population declines driven by human activities. The estimated global population is 100,000, though regional numbers vary widely. In India, around 270 are estimated in Tamil Nadu, with limited data for other regions. With this small population, dugongs receive the highest level of legal protection under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Yet, these gentle swimmers face multiple threats to their lives, mainly because the seagrass habitat they depend on to survive is being lost to coastal developments and trawling, pollution, illegal hunting, fishing net entanglement, boat strikes, and heavy metal bioaccumulation. Their long lifespan, going up to 70 years or more, and slow reproduction make population recovery especially difficult.

In an earlier story that Mongabay-India published in 2025, Elrika D’souza, Scientist (Ocean and Coasts) at Nature Conservation Foundation, said, “There is more work that needs to be done to eliminate localised threats in the form of entanglement, overfishing and rare cases of illegal poaching to the dugongs in Indian territorial waters, where the marine mammals cling to their last pockets of precarious existence.”

Read more about the dugong in our stories on heavy metal contamination, community-led conservation, and the need for cross-border conservation efforts.

Banner image: Image by Vardhanjp via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Gujarat welcomed its first great Indian bustard chick after a decade of experimentation, the Union Environment Ministry announced on March 28. Programmes to revive the dwindling population of the great Indian bustard (GIB) have raced against time, particularly in Gujarat where three lone female birds were left in the wild.

Birthing the chick in Kachchh was made possible through what the government has called a “jumpstart approach” to conservation: a captive, incubated egg from Rajasthan’s GIB conservation breeding centre was transported over 770 kilometres to Gujarat, where it was nested by a female GIB in the wild.

The female had laid an infertile egg in August 2025, in the absence of a male counterpart. The infertile egg which was replaced by the incubated egg on March 22, and hatched on March 26.

The attempt was successful after several years of negotiations between both states. Transporting the egg made way for a halt-free corridor between Sam in Rajasthan and Naliya in Gujarat. In a press release, the government said the effort was a year in the making, and included guidance from the Wildlife Institute of India, apart from coordination between the state wildlife authorities and the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.

Minister Bhupendra Yadav congratulated all the scientists involved in the conservation experiment. “We are keeping our fingers crossed for the survival of the chick. At the same time we remain committed to leaving no stone unturned to make the endeavour successful,” he wrote in a post on X.

There are fewer than 150 GIBs left in the wild, the vast majority of which are located in the Thar desert in Rajasthan. The Bustard Recovery Programme, launched in 2016 employs a range of activities to boost the GIB population, including artificial insemination of eggs, conservation breeding, and planned release into the wild.

There are now 73 birds in conservation breeding centres, with five new chicks born this season. However, threats to the GIB’s wild populations abound, particularly overhead power lines, collisions with which are responsible for killing an estimated 18 birds per year.

Banner image: Representative image of a great Indian bustard. Image by Shiv’s fotografia via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Species File: Exploring India’s biodiversity, one species at a time.

Last month, 53 gharials were released into the river at Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, as part of the state’s efforts to conserve the species. Previously, captive-bred gharial juveniles have been released into Ganga and Chambal rivers, to restore its historic range and strengthen wild populations.

The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) is a reptile found primarily in deep, fast-flowing rivers. It is known for its slender snout containing sensory cells that help detect vibrations in water, an adaptation for catching fish.

Gharials play a crucial role in keeping the river ecosystem healthy and conserving its biodiversity. In India, the species is typically found in the Chambal, Girwa, Son, and Ganga river systems, while outside India, it is also found in Bangladesh and Nepal.

Globally, the gharial population has declined by more than 94% since the 1950s, placing the species in the critically endangered category in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. A survey, conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India, between November 2020 and March 2023, recorded 3,037 gharials across the Ganga river basin, with the most numbers in Chambal.

In India, the species is protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. However, it faces pressures such as sand mining and hunting. Intense river modification, unsustainable fishing practices, and human disturbance continue to threaten its long-term survival in the wild.

In a story that Mongabay-India published in January 2026, Tarun Nair, a member of the IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group, said, “One disease outbreak or major infrastructure project could threaten most of the [gharial] species.”

Read more about the gharial in our stories on how rising temperatures could change the species’ future and why its conservation efforts should extend to unprotected rivers.

Banner image: A gharial and its offspring on the Chambal river. Image by Goodfriend19 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Jammu and Kashmir’s hangul population registered a slight increase in the latest census in 2025, which recorded 323 individuals. An encouraging rise from 289 in 2023, hope is renewed for the survival of this species found only in the Kashmir Valley.

The hangul (Cervus hanglu hanglu), also known as the Kashmir stag, is a subspecies of the Central Asian red deer. It was once widespread in the mountains of Kashmir, parts of Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh and Pakistan. Today, the hangul is largely found only in Kashmir’s Dachigam National Park and adjoining landscapes.

Hangul are recognised by their branched antlers and thick brown coats, well-suited to the cold winters. They migrate between higher and lower altitudes, shedding and growing a fresh set of antlers each year. Their return to lower valleys signals the rutting season, when males display their antlers and lock horns with rival males in a fight for mates.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Species, the hangul is listed as critically endangered, denoting an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. The hangul has the highest level of protection under the Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and is also protected under the J&K Wildlife Protection Act, 1978. The species has declined sharply over the decades due to multiple pressures. Livestock grazing in Dachigam encroaches on hangul habitat and reduces food availability, while poaching for meat, skin and antlers is also a threat. Populations are also affected by a skewed sex ratio, with significantly more females than males.

While the 2025 census shows an increase, conservationists caution that the population remains small and vulnerable. In an earlier story that Mongabay-India published in 2022, scientist Khursheed Ahmad, heading the department of wildlife sciences at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences, said, “There is a female-biased sex ratio – we have more females than males – which is not healthy. We also have a very low recruitment (addition of new fawns) in the population of hangul. These are the main ecological reasons why the population of hangul is not stabilising for the last two or three decades.”

In fact, 19 years of monitoring and a population viability analysis by conservationists concluded, in 2023, that the hangul population could potentially go extinct without interventions like monitoring calf survival and controlling free-ranging dog populations.

Read more about conservation efforts to help hangul population grow and threats faced by Dachigam National Park.

Banner image: A herd of hangul. Image by Tahir Shawl via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

A centrally-appointed committee should take over the interim decisions of state environmental impact bodies when their tenures lapse, or when they are non-functional, the Union Environment Ministry has said.

In a draft notification published on March 5, the Centre argues that such an arrangement would ensure “continuity” in decision-making as state bodies re-assemble between tenures. A centrally appointed standing body could also be responsible for “other tasks, as may be entrusted to it by the Central Government from time to time,” related to the environmental impact assessment process.

Under the Environmental Impact Assessment notification, State Environmental Impact Assessment Authorities (SEIAA) are tasked with granting environmental clearances for “category B” projects, such as leather tanning industries, small scale mining, and metallurgical processing. These authorities are advised and guided by State Expert Appraisal Committees (SEAC), with tenures of three years, extendable by one more year.

The members making up these bodies are required to have 15 years of experience in subjects like environmental management, risk assessment, life sciences, or sector specific knowledge.

According to the Centre, while the reconstitution of these bodies is normally initiated six months before the tenure ends, “delays occur due to late or incomplete submission of proposals from States.” Such delays lead to a “complete halt in the EC process,” since proposals are redirected to the centre, “leading to extended timelines and unwarranted delays in the appraisal of the projects, thereby impacting project timelines and investor confidence.”

As a counter measure, the centre has proposed extending the tenures of state bodies to four years, and setting up a centrally-appointed Standing Authority on Environment Impact Assessment (SAEIA), assisted by a Standing Committee on Environment Impact Appraisal (SCEIA), to take over clearance-related decision-making for six months – extendable by another six months.

The members of these committees are proposed to be “ex-officio Members as deemed appropriate,” by the central government.

The proposal follows several amendments to India’s environmental laws and regulations, in an attempt to cut down time taken to process clearances.

Banner image: A metallurgical furnace in Assam. Image by Don Vikro via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Species File: Exploring India’s biodiversity, one species at a time.

Flamingos are arriving late to Navi Mumbai’s wetlands this year, and researchers are linking the delay to erratic rainfall and habitat destruction.

Even so, these striking birds remain hard to miss when they do arrive. Flamingos are large wading birds, recognised for their vibrant pink plumage and long legs. They also have distinctive downturned bills that are adapted for filter feeding, which means they can feed by filtering out organic matter or nutrients suspended in water. The birds feed on organisms found at the bottom of the water body, such as crustaceans, insect larvae, and algae.

India has two primary flamingo species: the greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus roseus), and the lesser flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor). According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the greater flamingo is listed as least concern, which indicates species that are abundant and not at the risk of extinction. The lesser flamingo, meanwhile, is listed as near threatened, with population declines linked to pollution, human intrusion and disturbance. Flamingos are protected under Schedule IV of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which offers some protection to species that are not endangered and prohibits hunting.

In India, flamingos are found across both coastal and inland wetlands, with large populations in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

They are also annually seen in the creeks of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. The wetlands of Thane Creek serve as an important wintering ground, with tens of thousands of flamingos visiting every year. The birds have charmed city residents, who have spent years campaigning for legal protection of their habitats.

B.N. Kumar, director of NatConnect Foundation, a Mumbai-based not-for-profit organisation, told Mongabay-India in a 2025 story, “Flamingos tend to return to the same place year after year. If they don’t get the desired ecosystem on their usual roost site, they may become disoriented, which can lead to their death due to collisions on the road, hoardings, etc.”

Read more about flamingos in our stories on fluid dynamics behind their unique feeding behaviour, what a a flock of flamingos could indicate about the state of a wetland, and how Mumbai got a flamingo sanctuary as trade-off for the trans-harbour sea-link.

Banner image: A lesser flamingo in Mumbai. Image by Sujai.rajapaul via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).