Known for its diverse bird population, the Okhla Bird Sanctuary, located on the Delhi-Noida border, has been witnessing a significant decline of more than 90 per cent in the arrival of winter migratory water birds in five years. As per the result of five years of international annual Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) of Birdlife International South Asia of the Okhla Bird Sanctuary, winter migratory waterbirds number and species arrival became lesser, marking a significant drop from 62 species in 2024 to 32 species in 202.
While the decline might be due to the impact of global climate change, AWC’s Delhi state coordinator TK Roy attributed the decline to mismanagement by the Gautam Buddha Nagar Forest Division which has turned the sanctuary into an entertainment tourism park. “It has become an unprotected sanctuary with extreme human disturbance to birds foraging and roosting.’
Spread in a four sq km area, this place was designated as a bird sanctuary by the Uttar Pradesh Government in 1990 under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Further, he added that other factors responsible for the drop can be decline, degradation and drying up of wetland. “The wetland dried up several times this year due to the mismanagement of the authorities,” he said.
Barring the period of 2020 to 2021, where the sanctuary saw a jump in the numbers of birds from 62 in 2020 to 72 in 2021, bird species of various diversities have decreased since 2021. The numbers saw a sharp decline, 47 in 2022, 36 in 2023 and 32 in 2024..
He said, “Due to the mismanagement by the Gautam Buddha Nagar Forest Division, this place has turned into an entertainment tourism park. It has become an unprotected sanctuary with extreme human disturbance to birds foraging and roosting. It is identified as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) site in NCR-Delhi. But due to the degrading habitat and disturbed sanctuary, birdlife species of various diversities have seen a decreasing trend. Earlier large numbers of Bar-headed Geese, Eurasian Coot and Northern Shoveler were recorded but now it has decreased,” he added.
These included species from threatened and restricted species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Convention of Migratory Species (CMS), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and Indian Wildlife Protection Act.
“It’s also that the ground habitat is almost barren without herbs and shrubs species except mainly some naturally grown useless trees like Subabul, Acacia species. They planted limited useful trees as well the wetland being covered with excessive floating water hyacinth started drying up and marshland area fully covered by Typha plants,” Roy stated.
