REPORTFEBRUARY 10, 2026
03Bengal Florican and the Siang Grasslands
Why Arunachal Pradesh and Pasighat Matter: The Bengal Florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) is the rarest bustard on Earth and one of the most evolutionarily distinctive birds anywhere. It belongs to a single-species genus, which makes its branch on the tree of life unusually isolated: if it disappears, there is nothing quite like it to take its place. Globally the species is classified as Critically Endangered, with a total population likely under a thousand mature individuals, split between South Asia and Cambodia (with a faint historical footprint in Vietnam and Bangladesh). The steep decline is driven by the loss and degradation of seasonally flooded grasslands, woody encroachment when fire and grazing patterns change, disturbance in the breeding season, and (in parts of its range) hunting and snaring. (BirdLife DataZone, EDGE of Existence) This report explains—in plain language but with research depth—why Arunachal Pradesh, especially the grassland archipelago around Pasighat and Daying (D’Ering) Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary, is vital to the Florican’s survival, what we know about its ecology and movements in the Siang floodplain, what’s threatening the bird and its habitat, and how conserving it is inseparable from conserving the ecology, culture, and identity of Northeast India’s riverine grasslands. Rather than a “project plan,” what follows is a reader’s guide to the species and landscape: the big picture, the local picture, and the cultural picture—stitched together with the best available sources. Meet the bird: a specialist of floodplain grasslands: If you stood on a Pasighat river island (a chapori) in late spring, just as the monsoon hints at arriving, you might—if lucky—see a male Bengal Florican lift vertically above the grass with a sudden flutter, black-and-white wings flashing, crest upright, and then drop back into invisibility. That display, repeated at intervals, is how males advertise territories. Everything about the species is tied to grass structure and seasonality. It needs: ●Open sightlines for males to display (short-to-medium sward height in patches). ●Dense, concealing tussocks for females to nest and brood. ●Invertebrate-rich foraging among lightly disturbed swards and damp edges. ●A natural flood pulse that periodically resets woody growth and creates a shifting mosaic of islands and grass stands. Across its range, the Florican is not a long-distance migrant like geese or cranes. Instead, it makes short, seasonal movements—often a few to a few dozen kilometers—tracking flooding and grass height. In the Brahmaputra–Terai system and around Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap, birds occupy open breeding grounds in the dry season and then retreat to safer cover as monsoon waters rise; some individuals in Nepal have been tracked moving up to ~30 km, even slipping across international borders for seasonal refuge. For Pasighat, that means the bird’s year is lived within a network of chapori grasslands, not a single site. Protect the network, and you protect the bird. (Mongabay, Charles Sturt University Research Output) Why Pasighat–Siang is a cornerstone: Daying (D’Ering) Ering Memorial Wildlife Sanctuary lies just 13–25 km from Pasighat, spread over roughly 190 km² of river-created islands between the Siang (the Upper Brahmaputra) and the Sibya. About 80% of the sanctuary is grassland, with the remainder riverine and secondary forest—textbook Florican country when managed with seasonal sensitivity. BirdLife International recognizes D’Ering as an Important Bird Area (IBA) precisely for floodplain specialists, including the Florican and the endemic Swamp Grass Babbler. The sanctuary’s chaporis, remade each year by erosion and deposition, deliver the habitat heterogeneity—short swards here, taller stands there—that the species’ breeding and brood-rearing require. (BirdLife DataZone, Roundglass Sustain, Wikipedia) Yet the very dynamism that sustains these grasslands is now tilted against them. New analyses and reportage indicate that D’Ering lost ~55.9 km² of grasslands between 2012 and 2022— a massive contraction in one decade—driven by altered flood regimes, riverbank erosion,siltation patterns, and a suite of human pressures (from unseasonal burning and cutting to encroachment). For a bird that lives by the square kilometer of suitable sward, that loss is existential. (Mongabay-India) The threats explained: It’s easy to assume “grass grows back.” Floodplain grasslands, however, are not lawns. They are intricate systems shaped by water timing, sediment, fire, and grazing. Damage the rhythm, and the system flips. ●Hydrology out of tune. Flood pulses that linger too long scour and drown islands; pulses that arrive too erratically let woody plants take over. Either way, you lose the patchy openness males need for display and females need for safe nesting. The Siang’s recent patterns—erosion in one set of chaporis, silt burial in another—show up vividly in remote-sensing assessments and in ground reports from D’Ering. (ResearchGate) ●Ill-timed fire and cutting. Fire and mowing are not inherently bad. In fact, well-timed, light burns before breeding can restore open display arenas, and post-breeding rotational cutting can prevent shrubs from taking over. But late fires (March–August) cook nests and expose chicks; blanket cutting destroys heterogeneity. Nepal’s 2024– 2033 Florican plan and case studies from Cambodia lean heavily on seasonal grass management for this reason. (National Parks and Wildlife, Mongabay) ●Invasive and woody encroachment. Where fire is suppressed and grazing changes, woody clumps and exotics can fill in. The result is a “too-tall, too-dense” structure— bad for display, awkward for ground-nesting birds, and risky in monsoon. (This is a general grassland phenomenon, but it has particular bite for Floricans.) (Roundglass Sustain) ●Disturbance and hunting. In parts of Southeast Asia, hunting has been devastating. In the Indian and Nepali context, disturbance during the breeding season—including dog predation on ground nests—can be a big, invisible killer. Even occasional hunting pressure magnifies risk when a population is tiny to begin with. (Mongabay) ●Land conversion at the margins. Floodplains worldwide are magnets for agriculture. Where chaporis stabilize, they are tempting to convert; where they stay dynamic, they’re hard to govern. A sanctuary boundary helps, but a bird that moves seasonally among multiple islands needs friendly practices outside the boundary as well. (BirdLife DataZone)
