Diversity and Conservation Status of Birds in Betana Wetland area Belbari, Morang, Nepal

Abstract

The study entitled Bird diversity and conservation status in Batana Wetland, Morang Nepal was conducted in between June 2014 to Dec 2014 an eastern part of Nepal named as Betana VDC of Morang district of Nepal. The objectives of study are to find out the species diversity of birds and explore the conservation status of birds in and around the study site. Fixed point count method and call count method was used for bird sampling between winter and summer seasons. Small and highly effective study site the Betana wetland covers 43 species of birds during two seasons. The highest species richness was found in order Passeriformes with 14 bird species and the family was Ardeidae and Dicruridae with 5 species. Maximum numbers of species were recorded in winter season. Number of species was found more in forest followed by corridor and settlement area. The Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test revealed that there was significant difference in species richness of birds between different habitats (P- value = 0.016, df =2, χ2=8). The diversity index of birds of Betana Wetland was determined which shows that high biodiversity. Local people should be know about potential income generating programs that can be brought to wetland area for its sustainable development and the economic up liftmen of local people, that would be very useful to conservation of wetland regarding bird species.