Skip to content

Updated India Estimates Put White-breasted Waterhen at +114% Long Term and +5.6% Per Year Recently

White-breasted Waterhen standing in shallow wetland vegetation at Joka, Kolkata, India
Conservation · Population & status

The 2025 interim update from State of India’s Birds reported updated national trend estimates for the white-breasted waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus) in India. The revised numerical values were released in May 2026 as part of a dataset based on citizen-science observations submitted to eBird.

The long-term trend was estimated at +114.2%, while the current annual trend was +5.6% per year. Both updated estimates clearly supported an increase. The species page still displays the carried-over 2023 categories Increase for the long-term trend and Trend Inconclusive for the current trend; these labels were not recalculated from the 2025 numerical estimates.

The update estimated the species’ Indian distribution range at 2,241,595 km². State of India’s Birds describes the white-breasted waterhen as a resident, non-specialist species and continues to show it in the Low conservation-priority category.

The interim release revised numerical distribution and trend estimates for 942 previously assessed Indian bird species using approximately 48 million field observations uploaded to eBird through 31 May 2025. The trend values describe change in a reporting-based abundance index rather than direct counts of individual birds. The conservation-priority categories themselves were not recalculated in this interim update.

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.20036633Primary 2026 dataset release created 6 May 2026. Version 2 updated the numerical distribution range size, long-term trend and current annual trend values for 942 previously evaluated species using approximately 48 million eBird observations through 31 May 2025; the assessment categories were unchanged.
  2. State of India’s Birds Partnership. (2025). State of India’s Birds factsheet: White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus).Species page displaying the 2025 national update: long-term trend +114.15% (+94.07 to +135.94), current annual trend +5.57% (+4.62 to +6.51), distribution range size 2,241,595 km² (2,241,151–2,242,039), retained categories Increase and Trend Inconclusive, resident status, non-specialized habitat use, non-endemic status, and Low conservation priority.

Image: Tisha Mukherjee / Wikimedia Commons — white-breasted waterhen at Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal, India, 20 July 2025; cropped to 16:9. Representative image for this story; not presented as an animal or scene from the reported study or event. · 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

Population & status

SPECIES IN THIS STORY

Species in this story

White-breasted Waterhen Amaurornis phoenicurus Explore species

Independent research and conservation news archive

Did you find this information useful?

Wildlife Vagabond is independently built and maintained. Voluntary support helps cover source verification, hosting and continued work on research and conservation news.

Support Wildlife Vagabond

The news archive will remain freely available.