Amid growing fears of the Indian house sparrow fast disappearing, a Wildlife Institute of India’s study has raised hopes on conservation and presence of house sparrows in Uttarakhand. Popularly known as “gouriya” in Hindi, “guora” in Nepali, “chakli” in Gujarati, “chot charai” in Bengali, “angnadi kuruva” in Malayalam and “ge kurulla” in Sinhala, the number of house sparrow has been dwindling for the past many years. Uttarakhand, where house sparrow was once a common sight, too has shown the same trend. Their sighting has reduced considerably. The bird is believed to be a victim of high-rise constructions, excessive usage of pesticides and climate change. The Wildlife Institute of India, that carried out a detailed study to garner information on the ecology and current status of house sparrows in Uttarakhand, asserts that efforts to sensitise society towards the dwindling number of house sparrows has started revealing positive results with the bird registering a wide distribution in the areas surveyed. The study looked into density and distribution of house sparrows in urban and rural areas of various districts of the state. While the WII team encountered maximum sightings in Rishikesh, the least number of sparrows were sighted in Rudraprayag district. In Rishikesh, the WII team came across a flock of 30 house sparrows. VP Uniyal, a senior scientist, who led the survey, expressed happiness over the wide distribution of sparrow revealed in the survey. He said people’s attitude towards house sparrows was very positive and most of them were aware of the dwindling number of house sparrows. Interestingly, while many perceived house sparrows to be common in their vicinity, a few could differentiate between house sparrows and russet sparrows. The survey, in particular, covered Dehradun, Bageshwar, Rudraprayag and Chamoli districts to take the overall projection of house sparrow population in the state. A questionnaire was put before the people in order to assess presence and absence of house sparrows and the people’s attitude towards the bird. The survey was conducted between December 2012 and May 2013.