EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Greater Adjutant:
Endangered Giant

Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius), Family Ciconiidae
Brahmaputra River, Assam, Northeast India

Explanation:  This is one giant bird.  It is a Greater Adjutant, a stork that reaches a bill to tail body length of up to 150 cm (nearly 5 feet) and a wingspan of 250 cm (well over 8 feet).  

We are boating along the massive Brahmaputra River in Kaziranga National Park of Assam, northeast India.  Greater Adjutants used to range widely in the millions through India and southeast Asia during the 1800s.  During the early 1900s, Greater Adjutants were still reported as common in villages.  

Now they are found as breeding populations mostly only in Assam and Cambodia, totaling perhaps less than one thousand individuals.  One point of good news is that a small breeding population has been recently discovered in the state of Bihar, India.  But Assam still holds about 80 percent of the world's population.  

They are now listed by IUCN Red List and Birdlife International as endangered, which is defined as having a 20 percent change of becoming extinct in 20 years.  Their loss has been attributed to habitat loss, contaminants, disturbance, hunting, and collection.  

Greater Adjutants occur around marshes, wetlands, lakes, and grasslands, and feed on carrion and small animals it can catch.  

Greater Adjutant in the marshlands of northeast India.