Why in news? Sundarban bird festival, first-ever festival was organised by the Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) division of West Bengal Forest Department, inside the Sundarban Biosphere Reserve.

Highlights

• The two day exercise spotted threatened bird species Eurasian curlew and Lesser sand plover.
• A publication by Zoological Survey of India, (ZSI) in 2021, had recorded 428 bird species in the Sundarbans which is one-third of all the avian species found in the country.
• The habitats face threats including plantation activity along the chars (river islands) which disturbs the birds, and illegal activities along chars and uninhabited islands.

About Sundarbans National Park

• It is a national park, tiger reserve and biosphere reserve in West Bengal, India.
• This park is part of the Sundarbans on the Ganges Delta and adjacent to the Sundarban Reserve Forest in Bangladesh.
• The delta is densely covered by mangrove forests, and is one of the largest reserves for the Bengal tiger.
• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site ,Ramsar site and World Network of Biosphere Reserve (Man and Biosphere Reserve).
• The park is composed of small islands and intersected by several distributaries of the Ganges river.