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HIMALAYAN GLORY ENGLISH SEC.

SCHOOL
Sahid Simriti Khel Maidan-15
Bhaktapur



A REPORT ON
GIANT PIED HORNBILL





Submitted To:
Tulsi Bati(Teacher)
Environment, Population and Health


Submitted By:
Samjhana Kilambu
Class = 10
Roll No. = 7


2014
Giant Pied Hornbill
(Bucerus Bicornus)

Local name: Dhanesh Chara
Scientific name: Bucerus Bicornus
Status: Endangered
Length/Height: 0.9 metre
Weight: 3 to 5 Kg.
1. Introduction
The Giant Pied hornbill (Buceros bicornis) also known as the great Indian
hornbill or great pied hornbill, is one of the larger members of the hornbill family. It is
found in South and Southeast Asia. Its impressive size and colour have made it
important in many tribal cultures and rituals. The great hornbill is long-lived, living for
nearly 50 years in captivity. It is predominantly frugivorous, but is an opportunist and
will prey on small mammals, reptiles and birds.
The great hornbill is a large bird, 95130 cm (3751 in) long,
with a 152 cm (60 in) wingspan and a weight of 2.154 kg
(4.78.8 lb). It is the heaviest, but not the longest, Asian
hornbill. Females are smaller than males and have bluish-
white instead of red eyes, although the orbital skin is pinkish.
Like other hornbills, they have prominent "eyelashes".
The most prominent feature of the hornbill is the bright
yellow and black casque on top of its massive bill. The casque
appears U-shaped when viewed from the front, and the top
is concave, with two ridges along the sides that form points
in the front, whence the Latin species epithetbicornis (two-
horned). The back of the casque is reddish in females, while
the underside of the front and back of the casque is black in
males.
The casque is hollow and serves no known purpose, although it is believed to be the
result of sexual selection. Male hornbills have been known to indulge in aerial casque
butting, with birds striking each other in flight.
[3]
The male spreads the preen gland
secretion, which is yellow, onto the primary feathers and bill to give them the bright
yellow colour. The commissure of the beak is black and has a serrated edge which
becomes worn with age.
The wing beats are heavy and the sound produced by birds in flight can be heard from a
distance. This sound has been likened to the puffing of a steam locomotive starting up.
The flight involves stiff flaps followed by glides with the fingers splayed and upcurled.
They sometimes fly at great height over forests.
The hornbill figures in The World Conservation Unions 2003 Red List as one of Nepals
most critically endangered species.
2. Habit habitat:
Gaint pied hornbills are found in the forests of Nepal, India, Mainland Southeast
Asia and Sumatra. The distribution of the species is fragmented over its range in South
and Southeast Asia. In South Asia they are found in a few forest areas in the Western
Ghats and in the forests along the Himalayas. Their distribution extends into Thailand,
Burma, Malaya, and Sumatra. A small feral population is found in Singapore. Their
habitat is dense old growth (unlogged) forests in hilly regions. They appear to be
dependent on large stretches of forest, unlike many of the smaller hornbills.
In Thailand the home range of males was found to be about 3.7 km during the breeding
season and about 14.7 km during the non-breeding season.




3. Food:
Great hornbills are usually seen in small parties, with larger groups sometimes
aggregating at fruit trees. A congregation of 150 to 200 birds has been recorded in
southeastern Bhutan. In the wild, the great hornbill's diet consists mainly of fruit.Figs are
particularly important as a food source. Vitex altissima has been noted as another
important food source. Great hornbills also forage on lipid-rich fruits of the Lauraceae
and Myristicaceae families such as Persea, Alseodaphne and Myristica. They obtain the
water that they need entirely from their diet of fruits. They are important dispersers of
many forest tree species. They will also eat small mammals, birds, small reptiles and
insects. Lion-tailed macaques have been seen to forage alongside these hornbills.
They forage along branches, moving along by hopping, looking for insects, nestling birds
and small lizards, tearing up bark and examining them. Prey are caught, tossed in the air
and swallowed. A rare squirrel, the Travancore flying squirrel (Petinomys fuscocapillus}
has been eaten, and Indian scops owl (Otus bakkamoena), jungle owlet (Glaucidium
radiatum) and Sri Lanka green pigeon (Treron pompadora) have been taken as prey in
the Western Ghats.
4. Use:
Tribals threaten the Great Indian Hornbills with their desire for its various parts. The
beaks and head are used in charms and the flesh is believed to be medicinal. The squabs
are considered a delicacy. Tribesmen in parts of northeastern India and Borneo use their
feathers for head-dresses, and their skulls are often worn as decorations. Their flesh is
considered unfit for eating by the Nagas with the belief that they produce sores on their
feet as in the bird. When dancing with the feathers of the hornbill, the avoid eating
vegetables as it is also believed to produce the same sores on the feet. Conservation
programmes have attempted to provide tribes with feathers from captive hornbills and
ceramic casques to substitute natural ones.

The hornbills is called "homrai" in Nepal (giving the name of that subspecies) and
"banrao" both meaning "King of the forest".

A Great Hornbill by the name of William is the symbol of the Bombay Natural History
Society. Hornbill house is the name of their headquarters building.

Sir Norman Kinnear described William as follows in the obituary of Walter Samuel
Millard: Every visitor to the Society's room in Apollo Street will remember the great
Indian Hornbill, better known as the "office canary" which lived in a cage behind
Millard's chair in Phipson and Co.'s office for 26 years and died in 1920. It is said its
death was caused by swallowing a piece of wire, but in the past "William" had
swallowed a lighted cigar without ill effects and I for my part think that the loss of his
old friend was the principal cause."

The Great Hornbill is the state bird of Chin state in Myanmar, and Kerala and Arunachal
in India. So it is also used as symbol in different countries.

5. Cause of rareness:
Although the Giant hornbill (Buceros bicornis) is in the list of Nepal's protected species,
poachers commonly use hornbill beaks as signposts to sell their wares. Reportedly, the
price of the huge beak differs according to the species and size. Both the oil and beaks
are sold in the northern Terai region of Nepal as well as in the Kathmandu Valley.

Hornbill oil is said to be a cure for backaches, pain and gynecological disorders.

Human activities and vanishing habitat are the main threat to the species, which is fast
going extinct. Large Pied hornbill and Common Grey hornbill are getting fewer every
year because of extensive deforestation which destroys their nesting trees and feeding
sites

With hotels, lodges and resorts conducting jungle safaris inside the park, scores of
elephants trundle through it everyday. The pachyderms munch on the leaves of large
trees like Ficus glomerata (Gular), whose fruits form part of the hornbill's diet. The loss
of food sources directly impacts the hornbill population, triggering a decline.
6. Distribution/population in different countries
Buceros bicornis has a wide distribution, occurring in China (rare resident in west and
south-west Yunnan and south-east Tibet), India (locally fairly common, but
declining), Nepal (local and uncommon, largely in protected areas), Bhutan (fairly
common), Bangladesh (vagrant),Myanmar (scarce to locally common resident
throughout), Thailand (widespread, generally scarce but locally
common), Laos (formerly common; currently widespread but scarce and a major decline
has clearly occurred), Vietnam (rare and declining resident), Cambodia (rare),
peninsular Malaysia (uncommon to more or less common) and Indonesia: the species is
now uncommon on Sumatra where it has shown a significant decline following recent
devastation of the island's lowland forest (K. D. Bishop in litt. 2012).
The population has been estimated to number 3,500 individuals in west India. This only
constitutes 5-24% of the species's range, so a very preliminary estimate of the total
population is 10,000-70,000 individuals. It is probably best placed in the band 20,000-
49,999 individuals.
This species frequents wet evergreen and mixed deciduous forests, ranging out into
open deciduous areas to visit fruit trees and ascending slopes to at least 1,560 m
(Mudappa and Raman 2009). The abundance of this species tends to be correlated with
the density of large trees, and it is therefore most common in unlogged forest; indeed,
recent work has shown a significant nesting preference for larger trees, usually in old-
growth forest (James and Kannan 2009).

7. IUCN category
IUCN categorized it as a endangered species in world. So it is listed in the red list of
threatened species in accordance to IUCN.

8. Conservation efforts:
Due to habitat loss and hunting in some areas, the great hornbill is evaluated as Near
Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It is listed in Appendix I of
CITES. Declines in population have been noted in many areas such as
Cambodia. Molecular approaches to the study of their population diversity have been
attempted.
Monitor populations across its range to determine the magnitude of declines and rates
of range contraction. Campaign for the protection of remaining extensive tracts of
lowland forest throughout its range. Develop the existing captive breeding population
to support future reintroduction and supplementation efforts.
9. Sources:
1. BirdLife International (2013). "Buceros bicornis". IUCN Red List of Threatened
Species. Version 2013.2. International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Retrieved 26 November 2013.
2. BirdLife International. 2001. Threatened birds of Asia: the BirdLife International
Red Data Book. BirdLife International, Cambridge, U.K
3. Giant Pied Hornbill-an endangered birds in South Asia, Wikipedia, 2014
4. Kannan,R (1994) Ecology and Conservation of the Great Pied Hornbill (Buceros
bicornis) in the Western Ghats of southern India. Ph.D. Thesis, University of
Arkansas, Fayetteville.
5. Nepals Hornbill in Danger list, forest.org
6. Encyclopedia