The SCOPE Foundation has been actively working to safeguard the Endangered Pallas’s Fish-eagle in Bangladesh—one of the last strongholds for the species globally. With a small and declining global population and increasing threats to freshwater wetlands, urgent conservation action is essential.
Through its research and conservation initiatives, SCOPE Foundation led large-scale community-based surveys across the freshwater wetlands of north-east Bangladesh to identify nesting sites, assess threats, and develop science-based conservation interventions. Extensive fieldwork and interviews resulted in the identification of dozens of nests, highlighting the region’s importance for the species.
The work revealed key conservation challenges, including nest tree cutting, persecution linked to predation on domestic poultry, and high mortality of nestlings during pre-monsoon storms. To better understand feeding ecology, researchers also monitored nests and documented the types of prey brought to chicks, providing new insights into the species’ breeding ecology.
Building on these findings, SCOPE Foundation initiated practical conservation interventions, including a nest-guardian scheme in local villages. Communities were engaged and trained in nest protection and chick rescue, while awareness workshops highlighted the ecological importance of wetlands and the conservation significance of the Pallas’s Fish-eagle. Many nest tree owners voluntarily agreed not to cut nesting trees following these initiatives.
SCOPE Foundation plans to expand this work across additional landscapes, strengthen monitoring of breeding success, and develop long-term conservation strategies for the species and its habitats. These efforts aim to secure the future of the Pallas’s Fish-eagle in Bangladesh while reinforcing community-based conservation at the landscape scale.
