IWN Report — Thursday, 22 October 2026
India is working through a formal extinction-risk check of every bird that turns up in the country year after year, a process that should show which species are slipping towards trouble before they become rarities.
The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a conservation organisation, said on 19 October that the Zoological Survey of India, the Centre for Species Survival India–WTI and the State of India’s Birds partnership are assessing 1,211 bird species against IUCN Red List methodology. WTI is itself a partner in the exercise, so the account comes from a participant, although the project’s own forum page and species list match its main details. The work draws on the global expert network of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
The commission’s chair said in WTI’s release that Red List assessments are fundamental to identifying extinction risk and setting conservation priorities, and that the bird exercise shows how a wide community of experts can build a fuller picture of biodiversity.
A Red List category needs data on at least one of three things: a species’ geographic range, its population size or its population trend. According to WTI, trend data in India has mostly existed for threatened birds such as vultures and bustards, while citizen-science records have let the State of India’s Birds team estimate trends for many common species. Population size estimates are still missing for most birds.
To fill those gaps, the partners have set up a National Red List Assessment of Birds Forum, where ornithologists and conservationists share evidence and help build estimates. Before a final threat category is set, the forum collects regional data, recent sightings, population trends and what Red List assessors call the rescue effect, which is the chance that birds from outside India can top up a declining population. WTI said more than 100 species have been assessed and posted so far for expert input.
The forum page describes the exercise as a national assessment of India’s flora and fauna that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is leading with the Botanical Survey of India, the Zoological Survey of India, IUCN India and the Centre for Species Survival India–WTI, and says it will be completed by 2030. The species list, posted on 10 March 2026, counts the 1,211 as regularly occurring species. It leaves out 142 vagrants, assesses 10 of 29 historical species and 9 breeding or visiting populations, and trials assessments of 13 insular subspecies.
The bird work sits inside the National Red List of Flora, Fauna and Fungi of India, Vision 2025–2030, which the Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change unveiled at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in October 2025, according to All India Radio. That roadmap aims to produce national Red Data Books for flora and fauna by 2030, and WTI says its first phase targets 11,000 species of plants, animals and fungi. The Centre for Species Survival India, which WTI says was established in 2023, is described as the first such centre in South Asia.
The most recent State of India’s Birds report, from 2023, assessed 942 species using more than 30 million eBird observations from over 30,000 birdwatchers, sorting them into low, moderate and high conservation priority.
Sources: Wildlife Trust of India · State of India’s Birds — National Red List forum · State of India’s Birds — species list · State of India’s Birds · CSS: India–WTI · All India Radio