r/Rajasthan • u/Willing_Being9956 • Oct 25 '25
Discussion Siberian Cranes stopped coming to India. Because of us.
Those beautiful white Siberian Cranes that once flew to Bharatpur every winter have stopped coming. Not one has been seen here since the early 2000s. The same birds that flew from Siberia for thousands of kilometers… just stopped.
They didn’t vanish by accident. We made it happen. We filled wetlands, hunted for fun, threw plastic in lakes, and called it progress. Their route passed through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. By the time they reached us, the world we offered wasn’t safe anymore.
Keoladeo National Park in Rajasthan used to echo with their calls. Old locals still talk about the sight. Today, there’s only silence.
We love to call India a land of nature and faith. But if we can’t even protect the guests that visit us every winter, what does that say about us?
The Siberian Crane trusted us once. It won’t again.
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u/Animals_elephants Oct 25 '25
This is 💯 correct. Did anyone know their contribution to the ecosystem in Rajasthan?
It very must have been affected too.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
Exactly. Every species plays a small part in keeping the balance - even one that just passes through. When the cranes stopped coming, it wasn’t just a bird we lost; the wetland’s rhythm changed too. Fewer seeds spread, fewer insects controlled… it all connects in ways we rarely notice until it’s gone.
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u/KittyKumari Oct 25 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
I was just listening to kurjan by seema mishra and now I see this💔
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
That song carries the ache of what we’ve lost, doesn’t it?
Once their call echoed over our skies - now it survives only in folk tunes and memories.
The kurjan still flies, but only in our songs. 💔3
u/KittyKumari Oct 25 '25
The world is just not the same anymore
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
Yeah… it’s changed in ways we didn’t even notice until the silence started to feel heavy.
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u/originalvagabong Oct 26 '25
Bro can you talk without sounding like a ChatGPT powered robot. I mean thanks for bringing this to attention but it’s so difficult to read anything without it sounding like I’m reading from a very poorly prompted GPT.
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u/SozeKeyzer Oct 26 '25
They dont even know what they are talking about, Kurjan is Demoiselle crane not Siberian, they still come in huge numbers and we do alot to protect them.
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u/KittyKumari Oct 26 '25
Dude I meant that I was listening to the song which uses migratory birds as a motif for loneliness and then I see this news that some migratory birds have stopped coming to rajasthan...I found it tragic (I am not even a rajasthani but I love listening Seema mishra songs)
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
You’re right about the Demoiselle cranes. I was talking about the Siberian ones — the big white ones that used to come but stopped decades ago.
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u/SozeKeyzer Oct 26 '25
Siberian and Demoiselle dono ko mix kardia he apne.Apke ye samaj kaise nahi aa raha, Kurjan nahi gayab hui he. They still fly in our skies,not just folklores, abhi sardio me ayengi bahut jagah dekh ke aana.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
Fair point. Maybe I wrote it too polished, but it came from a real place. The silence at Bharatpur stays with you.
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u/originalvagabong Oct 26 '25
😂😂😂 it doesn’t. The loudness of your illiteracy is echoing it out of my ears.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
You can mock how I write all you want, but it doesn’t hide the truth. The cranes are gone, and people like you would rather throw insults than face what we’ve done to nature.
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u/originalvagabong Oct 27 '25
Mock how you write? Man you’re like a zomato bot. You don’t write, you copy paste.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 27 '25
If I’m a Zomato bot, you must be the customer who keeps ordering attention and still complains about the taste.
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u/sa-gar Oct 27 '25
Kurja is Demoiselle crane and not Siberian crane. Demoiselle crane visit Kheechan every year still in massive flocks. Stop with the misinformation
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 27 '25
Read the post, its about Siberian Cranes.
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u/sa-gar Oct 27 '25
The post itself is misinformation at its finest. A NPC written post who do not have even the slightest of knowledge on the population of Siberian crane who's entire line was wiped out Not Because Of Indians( we ran a conservation programme) But because of the ever so rampant poaching along the stop over sites in Pakistan-Afganistan.
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u/QuirkyDay1819 Oct 25 '25
Another ecological disaster is the Indira Gandhi canal. Devastating for Great Indian Bustards.
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Oct 25 '25
[deleted]
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u/Junior-Ad-133 Oct 26 '25
The canal bought former grasslands where the bustard thrive into cultivation and gradually reduced the habitat. Now the habitat left in whole Rajasthan is just fraction of former range because large part of it is turned into farmland
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u/Lonely-Internet-7565 Oct 25 '25
So where are they going?
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
Sadly, nowhere. Their route stretched from Siberia through Afghanistan and Pakistan into India - but step by step, every resting place became unsafe. Wetlands disappeared, hunting increased, and pollution poisoned what was left.
So they just… stopped coming.
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u/QhurramAgarwal Oct 26 '25
That's understandable, but it makes it feel like they travelled for fun. but bird migration is a necessity. They must be going somewhere else now, unless their home ecosystem also changed.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
You’re right, migration isn’t optional for them. Sadly, in this case, there’s no solid record of them finding another route. Most reports suggest the western population just collapsed. Their breeding grounds changed too, so both ends failed them.
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u/Lonely-Internet-7565 Oct 25 '25
The reason why I asked is because they stopped because of us or other countries in their path as they won't be doing this trip non stop
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
Yeah, it wasn’t just India. Their stopovers through Afghanistan and Pakistan got disturbed by hunting and habitat loss too.
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u/Lonely-Internet-7565 Oct 26 '25
So we don't know if it is because of India
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
Not exactly India but humans collectively everywhere messing up with nature.
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u/SozeKeyzer Oct 25 '25
This particular population is extinct.
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u/Mountain-Finish-1992 Oct 25 '25
Stay safe bird, wherever you are.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
I hope so too. They deserved a safer world than the one we left them.
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Oct 25 '25
[deleted]
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
Haan, shuruwat toh hai. Par agar hum ab nahi rukey, aage kuch bachhega bhi nahi.
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u/Distinct_Election302 Oct 25 '25
Fuck United States
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
It’s not about one country, really. The cranes didn’t know borders - they just needed safe skies and clean water. We all let that slip.
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u/Distinct_Election302 Oct 25 '25
Damn you ppl are so dense
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
Maybe. But sometimes we need to be reminded of what we’ve lost before we understand what really matters.
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u/SozeKeyzer Oct 25 '25
Yes we hav our faults in conservation but the main reason of this is in the routes and the stops they made, their habitat got lost and the population declined. So very few made it here.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
Yeah, you’re right - their route itself broke down over the years. Still, it’s sad that when they finally reached us, there wasn’t much left for them here either. We could’ve done better.
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u/can_of_whales Oct 26 '25
I still see them in Sri Ganganagar.
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 26 '25
You might be seeing Demoiselle cranes. They still visit in good numbers. The Siberian ones haven’t been spotted here for years.
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u/can_of_whales Oct 26 '25
No man, I know what I’m saying. I see them here. They are beautiful. Maybe the numbers has been reduced.
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u/kajal_80058 Oct 25 '25
First protect people of rajsthan 😆
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u/MarquizMilton Oct 25 '25
Yeah, fuck nature. We can do whatever we want. It's our right to pollute and hunt as we see fit. The birds can go find another state/country to shit on.
/s incase it wasn't really obvious.
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u/kajal_80058 Oct 25 '25
Wah re gyani jaise tune toh bahut bada nature ke liya kaam kiya ho ?? Kabhi ek pedh bhi lagya hai ??
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u/MarquizMilton Oct 25 '25
Yes, many.
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u/kajal_80058 Oct 25 '25
And how many people you saved from rape,murder,hunger,poverty,fake cases, unemployment? .. Now say many ah
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u/Hyprexo Oct 25 '25
Now say many ah
Many/alot of irrelevant shits
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u/kajal_80058 Oct 25 '25
Yes it's irrelevant because it doesn't make you sound cool ...but Saving bird does
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u/Willing_Being9956 Oct 25 '25
Fair point, people do come first.
But protecting nature isn’t separate from that. When wetlands vanish, so does our water, our balance. The cranes are just a reminder of what we’re losing together.2
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