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Updated India Index Estimated a 71.3% Long-term Decline for Sirkeer Malkoha

Sirkeer Malkoha calling from a branch
Conservation · Population & status

The 2025 interim update to State of India’s Birds, published on Zenodo in May 2026, estimated a steep decline in the national abundance index for sirkeer malkoha (Taccocua leschenaultii). The updated long-term trend was −71.3%.

The current annual trend was estimated at −4.0% per year. Both updated estimates clearly supported a decline. The species’ estimated distribution range size in India was 716,269 km².

The interim update recalculated numerical distribution-range, long-term-trend and current-annual-trend values for 942 bird species using about 48 million eBird observations submitted across India through 31 May 2025. The trend values describe change in a reporting-based abundance index rather than a direct count of individual birds. The assessment categories from 2023 were unchanged in this numerical update.

In the State of India’s Birds assessment it remains in the High conservation-priority category despite being classified globally as Least Concern.

Sources and image credit

  1. State of India’s Birds Partnership. (2026). State of India’s Birds: Range, trends, and conservation status (Version 2) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20036633

Image: Tisha Mukherjee — wild Sirkeer Malkoha photographed in Saswad, Maharashtra, India, 4 August 2025; Wikimedia Commons Quality Image; representative species image; cropped to 16:9 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

About this content: This story was produced with AI assistance within an editorial workflow developed by Wildlife Vagabond. Editorial responsibility remains with Wildlife Vagabond.How AI is used

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