Bird Conservation Nepal

Bird Conservation Nepal (Nepali: नेपाल पंक्षी संरक्षण सङ्घ) (BCN), also known as BirdLife Nepal, is a non-profit organisation founded in Nepal focusing on the conservation of birds.^[2] It was founded in 1982 and the first president was Harisaran Kazi.^[3][4] It has a membership of 912 people.^[1] It is a partner organizations of BirdLife International.

Bird Conservation Nepal was originally established in the 1970's by conservationists Kazi Dai and Karna Sakya as the Nepal Bird Watching Club.^[5] It was formally founded in 1982 as Bird Conservation Nepal.^[6] It was appointed as the Country Representative for Birdlife International in 1994.^[7]: 77

In 2006, the organization created Panchhi Sansar, a radio program in Nepal about bird conservation.^[7]: 77

In 2012, as part of International Vulture Awareness Day, the BCN ran a photography contest for Nepalese birdwatchers. The winning photograph was that of a snowcock.^[8]

In the 1990's, the BCN participated in attempts to prevent White-rumped vultures from being exposed to diclofenac, a drug sometimes used on livestock. In 2007, they created a series of "vulture restaurants", including the Jatayu vulture restaurant, to provide the vultures with carrion uncontaminated by diclofenac.^[9][10] To acquire clean food for the vultures, the BCN bought ill cattle from local villagers that had not been treated with diclofenac. They paid US$3 per animal, and then used culture-safe painkillers on them.^[11] Vulture nesting activity increased near the feeding stations.^[9] To increase tourism, viewing stations were set up near the stations^[9][10] and tourists were allowed to parahawk with the birds, the proceeds of which BCN used to fund their activities.^[12] In 2008, they created a vulture breeding centre^[13] in Chitwan National Park. BCN originally planned to stock the centre with 10 breeding pairs of white-rumped vultures and Slender-billed vultures captured during the early spring.^[14] In 2017, released the first set of captive-born vultures into Nepal and tracked them. After a year in the wild, none of the birds had been killed by diclofenac.^[10]

In the mid 2000's, the BCN worked with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to give Nepalese farmers alternatives to diclofenac.^[11]

BCN maintains a database of tagged vultures in Nepal.^[15]

The BCN conducts an annual census of migratory birds living in nature reserves in Nepal. It also regularly surveys birds near Kathmandu, Pokhara,^[16] as well as in Important Bird Areas^[7]: 74 and bird habitats near major infrastructure projects.^[16] In 2005, they performed the first local survey of pheasants in the Pipar Pheasant Reserve.^[17]

In 2022, BCN created the birdwatching app Chhimeki Chara (Nepali: छिमेकी चरा), which allowed its users to submit data on birds they saw in Nepal for a bird count modeled after the Great Backyard Bird Count.^[18][19]

• Pheasant Conservation Action Plan for Nepal (2019-2023), 2022 ^[16]
• The State of Nepal's Birds 2010, Indicators for our changing world, 2011.^[6]

• BirdLife International
• List of birds of Nepal

• Official website
• Bird Conservation Nepal on The Himalayan Times

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