The Little Bustard, a pheasant-sized bird native to Asia and southern Europe, has reached a nesting population of around 1,900 individuals in Kyrgyzstan this year. This marks a remarkable recovery, as the species was nationally extinct in the country less than 20 years ago.
The Little Bustard was listed as extinct in the Red Book of Kyrgyzstan in 2006. However, recent ornithological surveys have discovered breeding populations in the Chuy and Talas valleys in the north of the country, thought to be between 1,400 and 1,900 individuals.
Signs of a wider recovery first appeared in 2009, with the discovery of four nests in the Talas valley. In 2019 a nest outside Bishkek suggested that Little Bustards were returning to the Chuy valley.
Once common throughout the country, the species’ decline was caused by the industrialization of Soviet Kyrgyzstan’s agriculture industry in the 1950s, which destroyed the birds’ natural habitat. By the 1970s only a few residual groups remained, in the non-cultivated steppe areas near the Kazakh border.
In recent years, surveys by the Ornithological Society of the Middle East (OSME) each spring have tracked their breeding activity, using listening points spaced through known and potential habitats.
While Little Bustards’ migratory and wintering patterns eastwards remain mostly unknown, recent observations suggest numbers in wintering areas may also be rising.
Despite the strong growth of its population, the bird remains vulnerable in Central Asia. Current threats to their habitats are a consequence of modern changes in farming, including increased use of pesticides, and the turning of traditional steppe into irrigated crops. Illegal hunting of Little Bustards is also a problem.
The species is currently classified in the national Red Book as Near Threatened. The Little Bustard is also considered Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
