For decades the big and awkward looking carnivore and scavenging bird was the object of revulsion in its home in northeast India until a group of women took it upon themselves to save the endangered bird. 24, 2017, photo, a Greater Adjutant Stork scavenges for food at a garbage dumping site on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. We need to do more to save this globally endangered bird," said Barman. "The news of so many hargilas dying has cast a pall of gloom amongst us. Forensic testing is being done to learn the cause. In January more than two dozen greater adjutant storks were found dead in a neighborhood near Gauhati. "We are providing looms for the weavers and educational grants to children of tree owners in the area as they are going all out in protecting the bird," said Vinod Sachan, the local district magistrate. The critical period is the breeding season from August to April. The movement also found support from local government authorities, who have provided nets to protect young storks falling out of the nest during storms or windy days. "We have launched a pride campaign among the children and youth so they can proudly say their village is home to the hargilas," Barman said. In January more than two dozen Greater Adjutant Storks were found dead in this. They called themselves the hargila army, for the bird's name in the local Assamese language. 24, 2017, photo, Greater Adjutant Storks and other birds fly over a garbage dumping site on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. The locals now call Barman "hargila baideo," or hargila sister, after she organized and named the movement, now involving nearly 150 women. The future of the greater adjutant stork depends on individual tree owners who used to fell trees earlier to get rid of the nests," Barman said. "We had to involve the locals because the bird nests on trees owned by individual households. Nearly 150 local women now pray, sing hymns, weave scarves and other items on their handlooms with the motifs of the bird, to create awareness about the need to protect the species. 3, 2016, photo, a Greater Adjutant Stork, an endangered bird with a total population of 1,200 in the world, sits on a tree at Dadara village, west of Gauhati, India. "It was seen as a bird with an evil omen that brings in carcass and other rotten stuff," said Barman, who works with a local conservation group called Aranyak. The conservation movement wasn't easy to sell wildlife biologist Purnima Devi Barman needed almost eight years to convince locals the bird was crucial to the ecosystem. The other 400 or so greater adjutant storks are found in the eastern Indian state of Bihar and in Cambodia. Assam has about two-thirds of them, largely in three villages just northwest of state capital Gauhati. Only 1,200 of the large storks survive in the world, according to estimates from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. The women known as the hargila army, for the bird's name in the Assamese language, sing hymns and weave scarves and other items on handlooms with motifs of the bird to create awareness about the need to protect the species. Local women took it upon themselves early last year to form a conservation movement for the bird in Assam state, one of only three homes the species has left. The fortunes of the species may turn on local pride.
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