GIS Mapping and Distribution of Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) in India by Using Citizen Science Data

The Indian peacock or Blue peafowl (Pavo cristatus.), the largest of the pheasants commonly called Mor orMayur, is a bird species recognized for its beauty. Pavo cristatus (Indian peafowl) has been justifiably declared asthe National Bird of India in 1963. In India, it is given the ultimate protection by its inclusion in the Schedule I ofWildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The main objective is to encourage citizen participation in generating baselineinformation using sight records and enable long-term monitoring of Indian peafowl in India. The present studydeals with the status and distribution of Indian peafowl in India and the data used is taken from the citizen sciencedatabase of eBird. The complete dataset of Indian peafowl from 2001-2017 was used to prepare the distributionmaps in different years as well as to obtain information on the species' location, and the number of a social group inIndia. Some potential reported sites were verified during 2013–2017 by visiting the distinct locations. From 2001 to2017 we found 71,632 records from 15,151 contributors across 26 states/union territories of India. Percentage ofindividuals observed was 38% (in 2017), 27% (in 2016) and 16% (in 2015) whereas 0% was recorded in 2002,2006 and 2007. The citizen science data obtained thus has the potential for increasing our understanding of currentpeafowl distribution patterns, and for categorizing important sites for conservation/protections and to performoccupancy and habitat modeling of Indian peafowl species in India.