RAS question
WII's 2025 first systematic Pan-India vulture assessment found nesting was absent from approximately what share of historical nesting sites?
Correct answer: (C) 70%.
WII's first systematic Pan-India vulture assessment found that nesting was absent from nearly 70% of historical vulture nesting sites.
Explanation
The answer is 70% because the WII assessment explicitly reports that, although vulture nesting still persists across India, nesting was absent from nearly 70% of historical nesting sites. The same report frames this as the first systematic nationwide effort to document current nesting populations, using historical records, systematic nest counts and citizen-science inputs. Its finding is not just a count: it shows that current breeding populations are fragmented and highly localised. The report also notes that 54% of all vulture nests were in protected areas, which underlines why protected landscapes have become central to sustaining the remaining resident breeding populations.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) 90% is not the overall Pan-India figure; the report uses a near-90% disappearance figure specifically for the White-rumped Vulture's historic nesting range.
- (B) 30% understates the overall absence and instead resembles the report's species-specific note that the Indian Vulture no longer nests in 30% of previously known sites.
- (D) 50% is not supported by the WII assessment, which places absence from historical nesting sites at nearly 70% in the summary.
Concept
This tests biodiversity monitoring and species-conservation baselines, especially how historical range data are compared with current field assessment. It recurs in RAS because Rajasthan and neighbouring protected landscapes appear in questions on threatened species, protected areas and conservation planning.