Ahmedabad, April 30 -- A month-old chick of the Great Indian Bustard, hatched in the wild in Gujarat's Kutch through a first-of-its-kind inter-state egg transfer, has been missing since April 18, with forest officials not ruling out predation and experts questioning whether adequate habitat safeguards were in place for its survival.

The Great Indian Bustard, the state bird of Rajasthan, is among the heaviest flying birds of Indian grasslands, standing about one metre tall. Once distributed across 11 states, the national population has fallen from an estimated 1,260 birds in 1969 to possibly fewer than 150 individuals today, with more than 90% of the surviving birds concentrated in Rajasthan.

Classified as critically endangered by the In...