Anwaruddin Choudhury (born 1959 in Shillong, Meghalaya) is an Indian ornithologist, mammalogist, and wildlife conservation specialist mainly focused on North-East India. His work includes decades of research, field studies, and policy advocacy.BBC News on sighting of Manipur bush-quail, June 2006 He has served in various governmental roles, including being the Deputy Commissioner in Assam and as Secretary in the state government, and ultimately retiring as the Divisional Commissioner of Barak Valley in August 2019.Dictionary of International Biography (1987). "Choudhury, Anwaruddin" International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, UK.Reference Asia (1991). "Choudhury, Anwar Uddin". Rifacimento International, New Delhi, India.The Sentinel Mélange (2006). "Among the Woods (Interview of Anwaruddin Choudhury)". The Sentinel, 6 February 2006. Guwahati, India.BirdLife International (2006). "Bush-quail makes unexpected reappearance". BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK. http://www.birdlife.org/nes/news/2006/06/manipur.html. Retrieved in 2007.Teresa Rehman (2001). "The Jungle file: Away from his desk, a bureaucrat documents the Northeast’s wildlife". The India Today. http://www.indiatoday.com/itoday/20010820/offtrack.shtml . Retrieved on 2009-06-09.
Choudhury is also the Honorary Chief Executive and a trustee of the Rhino Foundation for Nature in North-East India. Born into an academically oriented family, Choudhury was raised in Shillong and finished his matriculation in 1974. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in geography, followed by a master's degree from Gauhati University, where he also received a gold medal for his academic performance. He completed his PhD in primate studies in 1989 and DSc in 2008 on a review of mammals of North-east India, both from Gauhati University.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2001). A systematic review of mammals of north-east India. DSc thesis. Gauhati University, 209 pages
Choudhury's public service career began in 1983 as an Assam Civil Service officer, transitioning to the Indian Administrative Service in 1999. Throughout his tenure, he undertook various administrative roles, leading projects aimed at rural development, environmental protection, and wildlife conservation.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (1990). Checklist of the Birds of Assam. Guwahati: Sofia Pub. p. 72 pages.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2000). The Birds of Assam. Guwahati: Gibbon Books & WWF. p. 240 pages. .Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2003). A Pocket Guide to the Birds of Nagaland. Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation. p. 48 pages. .Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2006). A Pocket Guide to the Birds of Arunachal Pradesh. Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation. p. 109 pages. .Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2008). A Pocket Guide to the Birds of Mizoram. Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation. p. 122 pages. .A Pocket Guide to the Birds of Meghalaya. Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation. p. 160 pages. .
Early and service life
Anwaruddin Choudhury, born in Shillong, Meghalaya, in 1959, is the eldest among four siblings born to Alauddin Choudhury and Hena Mazumder. His early education took place at various institutions, including Public High School, Hailakandi, Government Boys High School in Mawkhar, Shillong, and Government Victoria Memorial High School, Hailakandi, where he completed his matriculation in 1974 with second-division honors.
Choudhury initially pursued science in college, but later obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in Geography from B.Borooah College, Guwahati, securing a first-class position in 1981. He continued his academic journey at Gauhati University, earning a Master of Arts degree in geography in 1985, also achieving first position with a gold medal. In 1989, under the guidance of Mohammed Taher, he earned his PhD focusing on the primates of Assam. Notably, he became only the second person to receive a DSc from Gauhati University, awarded for his systematic review of mammals in North-East India in 2008.Experts. India Biodiversity Portal. Indiabiodiversity.org/page/8811705 In 1994, Choudhury married Bilkis Begum Mazumdar, with whom he has a daughter Dona and a son named Dino. His maternal grandfather, Abdul Matlib Mazumder, was a prominent freedom fighter and served as a Cabinet Minister in Assam from 1946 to 1970.
Choudhury's dedication to ornithology began in the early 1980s, leading to the publication of over 175 scientific articles and 135 popular articles on birds. He has contributed significantly to the study of birds in North-East India, rediscovering species such as the Manipur bush quail after a 75-year absence from records. His research efforts have also included comprehensive surveys and conservation initiatives for migratory birds, particularly the Amur falcon.Choudhury, A.U., Goswami, A.K. and Luitel, D. (2020). Three years of monitoring of the Amur Falcon Falco amurensis at a roosting site in Assam in North-east India. The Newsletter & Journal of the Rhino Foundation for nat. in NE India 10: 63–75. In mammalogy, he has published 88 scientific articles and 82 popular articles since 1981. His research has led to the identification of several new species of flying squirrels and a subspecies of hoolock gibbon. Choudhury's work on the wild water buffalo stands out as a notable contribution to the field.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2010). The Vanishing herds: the wild water buffalo, Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation (supported by COA, Taiwan, and CEPF/ATREE)
Success in art He had his first exhibition in Guwahati in 1975, which was held jointly with noted artists Manabendra Baruah and Ajan Barua. Choudhury has published his artwork in various Indian and international journals, magazines, and periodicals, including the cover of the Oriental Bird Club Bulletin published from U.K.Oriental Bird Club Bulletin 13. Bedfordshire, UK.
Ornithology Casual bird watching took a serious scientific approach in the early 1980s. Choudhury pioneered long-term ornithological works in North-East India that are now nearly five decades old. He started writing for popular magazines and started a regular weekly column as ‘Birds of Assam’ in an English daily The Sentinel published from Guwahati. The publications in local newspapers in the 1980s brought him recognition in the field of ornithology across Assam, but his writings in international scientific journals and his books made that recognition global in nature. He has written 175 scientific articles and 135 popular articles on birds. Choudhury undertook systematic bird surveys in different pockets of North-East India. He rediscovered a rare galliform species, the Manipur bush quail, in Assam, after its last record 75 years ago. He has made several new country records for India and Bhutan. He coordinated the Asian Mid-Winter Waterfowl Census for Assam and is also the coordinator for North East India.State Coordinators (2007). http://www.bnhs.org/bo/documents/awc_2007/AWC_national_coordinators_new. Retrieved in 2007. He is also the State Coordinator of the Indian Bird Conservation Network.IBCN (2009). "IBNC State Coordinators". Indian Bird Conservation Network. http://www.ibcn.in/state_list.asp . Retrieved on 2009-06-09.
He has done pioneering path-breaking studies on the endangered White-winged wood duckBirdLife International (2001). "Threatened Birds of Asia". BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (1996). Survey of White-winged Wood Duck and Bengal Florican, Guwahati: Rhino Foundation. P. 82 pages. and Mrs Hume's pheasantChoudhury, Anwaruddin (2002). Survey of Mrs Hume's Pheasant in NE India. Report No. 5. [final report to OBC, UK]. Guwahati: Rhino Foundation. P. 30 pages. to reveal their accurate range and status in India. He also campaigned for the conservation of migratory Amur falcons in Assam from 1994 onwards, in Manipur starting in 2001, and in Nagaland in 2004. He carried out detailed monitoring of the roosting population of this falcon in 2017–19 in Karbi Anglong that revealed a lot of new information on the species including the annual fluctuation of population.
Mammal research Choudhury pioneered long-term primate research in North-East India in the mid-1980s, nearly four decades ago. To date, he published 88 scientific and 82 popular articles on primates starting from 1981. In 1986, he traveled to North Cachar Hills (renamed Dima Hasao district) to start a two-decade-long research on primates that covered the entire North-East India in later years.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (1989). Primates of Assam: their Distribution, Habitat, and Status. Ph.D. thesis. Gauhati Univ. 300 pages.Anon. (1990). The Return of the Monkeys - A Primate Conservation Project. Spirit of Enterprise, the 1990 Rolex Awards. pp.350-352. Buri International, Berne, Switzerland.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2001). A systematic review of the mammals of North-East India with special reference to the non-human primates. D.Sc.Thesis. Gauhati Univ. 209 pages. Little was known about the life of these simians in the wild until he started his writings on them. He has made several country records for India and Bhutan. But the most significant is the discovery and description of three flying squirrels, relatively new to science, in 2007, 2009, and 2013. The three new flying squirrel species that were described by Choudhury in 2007–2013 are:
Mechuka giant flying squirrel, Petaurista mechukaensis Choudhury, 2007 (type locality: Mechuka) Mishmi giant flying squirrel, Petaurista mishmiensis Choudhury, 2009 (type locality: Mishmi Hills) Mebo giant flying squirrel, Petaurista siangensis Choudhury, 2013 (type locality: Upper Siang District)
The holotypes of these flying squirrel species are in the collection of the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.
He also discovered a new species of primate but identified it as a subspecies of Macaca thibetana.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (1998). Pere David’s Macaque was discovered in India. The Rhino Foundation for nat. in NE India Newsletter 2: 7, plate. This was later on described by other scientists as Macaca munzala.Sinha, A., A. Datta, M. D. Madhusudan and C. Mishra (2005). Macaca munzala: a new species from western Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India. International Journal of Primatology 26: 977–989. Recently he described a new subspecies of hoolock gibbon, which he named the Hoolock hoolock mishmiensis.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2013). Description of a new subspecies of hoolock gibbon Hoolock hoolock from northeast India. The Newsletter and Journal of the RhinoFoundation for nat. in NE India 9: 49-59, plates. He also revealed for the first time that the stump-tailed and pig-tailed macaques are restricted by the Brahmaputra towards the west of their range.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (1988). Priority ratings for conservation of Indian primates. Oryx 22: 89-94. His authoritative works on the wild water buffalo have been published recently as the first monograph on this endangered species.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2010). The Vanishing herds: the wild water buffalo, Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation (supported by COA, Taiwan, and CEPF/ATREE). His 432-page The Mammals of North East India, published in 2013, is the most comprehensive and authoritative coverage of any part of India.Choudhury, Anwaruddin (2013). The mammals of North East India, Guwahati: Gibbon Books & Rhino Foundation (supported by COA, Taiwan).