A Great Indian Bustard (GIB) chick was born in Gujarat’s Kutch after a decade through the the jumpstart approach, a novel conservation initiative, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav announced on Saturday (March 28, 2026).
This is the first such inter-State initiative in the country. Execution of the initiative in Gujarat, which had no possibility of having a fertile egg with only three female GIBs surviving in the grasslands of Kutch, took an arduous 770-kilometre-long, halt-free road journey to transport an incubated egg.
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In a major trans-State conservation effort, a captive-bred GIB egg from the conservation breeding programme in Rajasthan was transported by road for over 19 hours in a handheld portable incubator and was successfully replaced in the nest of a female GIB on March 22. The female GIB, which was tagged in August 2025, had earlier laid an infertile egg.
The female completed the incubation of the fertile egg and the chick successfully hatched on March 26, the Minister said. The field monitoring team is observing the young chick being reared by its foster mother in its natural habitat. Mr. Yadav described this as a significant achievement in the recovery of the critically endangered species.
