This Conservationist Is Saving One of the World’s Most Endangered Storks

Purnima Devi Barman remembers the day her life changed. It was 2007, and she got a call that a tree, home to a family of greater adjutant storks, was being chopped down in India’s Assam state, where she lives. When Barman arrived, a nest of endangered baby storks was on the ground. Shocked, she asked the man who cut down the tree: Why would you do this? He told her the bird is a bad omen, a pest, a disease carrier. The stork is locally known as hargila, or bone swallower, because of its tendency to be found near garbage dumps. Her neighbors were angry at her for questioning the man’s actions.

“Everyone surrounded me, started whistling at me,” the biologist and wildlife conservationist, 45, recalls. But all she could think about were her infant twin daughters. Like the storks, they were so small. Barman was compelled to rescue the birds. Feeling their heartbeats moved her. “For the first time, I felt the importance—the call of nature,” she says. “From that day, my mission started.”

At the time, there were an estimated 450 greater adjutant storks left in the region. In 2023, thanks to Barman’s work, the stork was moved from endangered status under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s classification to “near threatened.” Their population in Assam has soared to more than 1,800.

Barman could not have done this without her “Hargila Army”—a team of some 20,000 women who protect the birds’ nests and educate others about the beauty of these imposing, nearly 5-ft.-tall scavengers. The network is ever expanding, not just in Assam but also throughout India and now Cambodia. Schools as far away as France teach students about her work.

Today, Barman proudly dons her traditional dress and shawl decorated with images of the storks woven by members of the Hargila Army who are able to earn a living by selling such items. Be it clothing, songs, or celebrating baby showers for new chicks, says Barman, “this bird is now a part of our tradition and culture.”