Great Indian Bustards Released in Desert National Park

The correct answer is Sam, in the Desert National Park of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. The Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, freed two male Great Indian Bustards at that spot, with the Rajasthan Minister for Forest and Environment, Sanjay Sharma, and senior officers of the Union and State governments present. Tal Chhapar Sanctuary in Churu is wrong, because the release took place inside the Desert National Park and the announcement names no other protected area in Rajasthan for it. Ramdevra is wrong as a release site: along with Sam it houses the conservation-breeding facilities that between them hold the captive birds, and the two males were let out into open desert rather than kept at a centre. The Kachchh Bustard Sanctuary in Gujarat is wrong as well; Gujarat enters this story only through the jumpstart trial, in which two chicks hatched from captive-laid eggs placed in wild nests.

The correct answer is 97. The two conservation-breeding facilities at Sam and Ramdevra together hold 97 Great Indian Bustards, and that total is made up of two streams of birds. 40 is wrong on its own because that is only the count of birds that began as eggs collected from the wild, not the whole population at the centres. 57 is wrong for the mirror reason: it counts the birds hatched and raised in captivity, the second stream that makes up the same total. 86 is wrong because it is the number of birds held back for captive reproduction, which leaves 11 birds earmarked for release into the wild; the two males freed in the Desert National Park were drawn from those 11. Captive reproduction at these centres gave 24 live chicks in 2025 and 29 in 2026.

The correct answer is the Wildlife Institute of India. The Bustard Recovery Programme is a joint effort of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Wildlife Institute of India, with technical collaboration from the International Fund for Houbara Conservation and funding from National CAMPA. The Wildlife Institute of India also carries out the long-running telemetry work that identified the fenced grassland enclosures, covering roughly 200 sq km inside the Desert National Park, as the finest breeding habitat available to the species. The Botanical Survey of India is wrong because its work lies with plants, not with a bird recovery effort. The Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education is wrong as it is not named among the partners of this programme. The National Biodiversity Authority is wrong for the same reason, and it has no role in the breeding and rewilding steps described here.