After nine years of devotion, two bustards take flight again over the Thar

In the dunes of Sam, inside Rajasthan's Desert National Park, two male Great Indian Bustards stepped out of their carriers on Saturday morning and into the wild — the first releases of a captive-breeding program nearly a decade in the making. Fewer than 150 of the tall, stately birds survive in the wild. Scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India and the Rajasthan Forest Department — Dr Sutirtha Dutta, Dr Tushna Karkariya and Hrishika Sharma among them — watched with tears as years of round-the-clock work took wing. Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, who released the birds, said simply: no words of praise are enough for them.