Save Nepal’s Critically Endangered Bengal Florican
Nepal’s Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve is one of the last viable habitats for the Bengal florican and the ecosystem threats are mounting. If the overgrazing and illegal hunting are not more actively prevented, then remaining grassland bird populations face local extinction. Donations will help Birds Nepal improve monitoring and conservation science.
Raised so far
$00% funded
APPEAL Snapshot
Partner
Location
Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal
Appeal Category
- Endangered Species
- Protected Area Management
- Scientific Research
Key Species
- Bengal florican (Critically Endangered)
- Swamp francolin
- Bristled grassbird
Partner Qualifications
The Challenges
The Bengal florican is one of the rarest birds in Asia—a small grassland bustard whose global population has collapsed dramatically over the past century. Once widespread across the floodplains of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the species now survives only in a handful of isolated grassland reserves, and Nepal’s Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve is one of its last viable habitats.
Koshi Tappu—a wetland and tall-grass mosaic along the Koshi River in eastern Nepal—faces three converging threats to its grassland bird community. Annual fires, set primarily for grazing management, destroy critical breeding habitat year after year. Overgrazing by livestock further degrades the tall-grass ecosystems the Bengal florican and other specialists depend on. And illegal hunting continues to pressure already-thin populations of the Reserve’s most vulnerable birds—including the Swamp Francolin and Bristled Grassbird, both of which share the florican’s narrow ecological niche.
Without intervention, the remaining grassland bird populations at Koshi Tappu face local extinction. The science needed to prevent it does not yet exist.
Urgent Solutions
Birds Nepal is launching a focused habitat monitoring program at Koshi Tappu to fill that gap. Donations to this appeal will directly support:
- Systematic monitoring and population surveys of the Bengal florican and other endangered grassland species at Koshi Tappu
- Documentation of grassland fire patterns, grazing pressure, and illegal hunting incidents across the Reserve
- Direct engagement with Koshi Tappu’s protected area managers and Nepal’s national park authorities to share findings as they emerge
- Co-development of a species action plan with reserve staff and government stakeholders—translating field data into binding protection measures
- Equipment, transportation, and team capacity for sustained year-round monitoring
Why Your Donation Matters
The Bengal florican will not survive in Nepal without urgent, evidence-driven intervention—and the protected area system that holds its last habitat will not act without the data to support it. That is the gap Birds Nepal is moving to close.
Your donation funds the field science, the stakeholder engagement, and the species action plan that together can turn Koshi Tappu from a passive refuge into an active conservation success story. Through Conservation Allies, 100% of every dollar flows directly to the project—to the rangers, biologists, and community members whose work in the field is the only thing standing between these birds and extinction in Nepal.
For one of Asia’s rarest birds, this work is the last opportunity to act before it is too late.