TrendingVideosIndiaWorldSports
State | Himachal PradeshPunjabJammu & KashmirHaryanaChhattisgarhMadhya PradeshRajasthanUttarakhandUttar Pradesh
City | ChandigarhPatialaBathindaAmritsarLudhianaJalandharDelhiShaharnama
Opinions | CommentEditorialsThe MiddleLetters to the EditorReflections
Diaspora
Features | Time CapsuleSpectrumIn-DepthTravelFood
EntertainmentLifestyle
Business | My MoneyAutoZone
UPSC | Exam ScheduleExam Mentor
Advertisement

Decade on, govt forms panel to locate ‘missing’ state bird of Punjab

A decade after declaring Northern Goshawk or ‘baaj’, closely associated with Guru Gobind Singh, as the state bird of Punjab, the government has finally come to terms with the fact that it has to do better to ‘locate the missing...
Source: Punjab Wildlife Department
Advertisement

A decade after declaring Northern Goshawk or ‘baaj’, closely associated with Guru Gobind Singh, as the state bird of Punjab, the government has finally come to terms with the fact that it has to do better to ‘locate the missing bird, preferably in pairs’.

Finally, after years of ignorance, the Punjab Government has planned to form a special committee to locate the bird, which it has not been able to do so in the past 10 years.

Advertisement

In 1989, the state government had wrongfully declared ‘Eastern Goshawk’ as the state bird, only to rectify it in 2015 to Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), but in both cases never recorded any ‘sighting’ nor had any bird for display.

There is ‘no record of any sighting’ of this bird in the state, nor serious efforts made to procure these birds. Associated with Guru Gobind Singh, the ‘baaj’ has been rarely sighted in Punjab, with ‘no recorded sighting available’ with the Wildlife Department in the past decade.

The department now plans to form a special committee to locate the bird and take steps to get its pair(s).

Advertisement

“Requisite permissions from the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Central Zoo Authority to capture a baaj from the wild will be taken once it is located or sighted by experts. We are making serious efforts to procure it in pairs so as to enable the residents to see this rare bird, which has historical and religious significance,” said Chief Wildlife Warden Dharminder Sharma.

“We also appeal to anyone with pictures or any relevant sighting of this raptor to approach us,” he said.

Experts said other than dwindling hunting grounds, the bird has shifted to the upper Himalayan region primarily due to poaching and habitat destruction.

“The bird was earlier sighted in the foothills of Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand but its recent sightings have been very rare. This bird is kept in captivity in the Middle East and some east European countries,” said Jaskaran Sandhu, former member, State Board for Wildlife, and an avid wildlife photographer.

Punjab has a falcon breeding centre at the Chhatbir Zoo but it has no ‘baaj’. In July 2011, the department drafted a proposal to exchange creatures with the Lahore Zoo. However, the plan failed to materialise due to diplomatic issues.

Sikh scholars confirm that the bird finds a mention in many books on Guru Gobind Singh. “It (baaj) is a symbol of power and strength. Thus, it is important that the coming generations are shown and made aware of this bird. The government, the SGPC and all Punjabis who can contribute to help the state get this bird should come forward,” said former SGPC chief and Sikh scholar Kirpal Singh Badungar.

In 2015, the government had issued a notification declaring Northern Goshawk as the state bird, correcting the anomaly in the notification dated March 15, 1989. The latter had earlier named Eastern Goshawk as the official bird, which as per ornithologists had no relation with Punjab.

Advertisement
Show comments
Advertisement