Pallas Fish Eagle

• Pallas Fish Eagle was sighted in the Chilika lake after a gap of about 10 years.

ABOUT PALLAS FISH EAGLE (HALIAEETUS LEUCORYPHUS )

• Pallas’s fish eagle, also known as Pallas’s sea eagle or band-tailed fish eagle, is a large, brownish sea eagle.
• It breeds in the east Palearctic in Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, China, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan.
• It is partially migratory, with Central Asian birds wintering among the southern Asian birds in northern India, and also further west to the Persian Gulf.
• Its diet consists primarily of large freshwater fish but they also regularly prey upon birds, especially water birds and other prey reportedly can include mammals, including leporids and rodents, frogs, reptiles, including snakes and terrapins, insects.
• The global population is estimated at less than 2,500 individuals.
• Threats– Direct persecution, habitat degradation, pollution, and draining or overfishing lakes.
• IUCN Red List status– Endangered.