Eight years after the manja thread used in kite-flying was banned, a five-year-old rare male Indian eagle is the latest victim to the sport. It lost both its legs to the thread a few days ago. Now the scavenger is under the care of the Madras Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Vepery. A surgery has been performed and now the bird is under convalescence. Raw meat is being fed and it cannot fly anymore. According to the veterinary medical team, led by R. Sokkalingam, the legs of the injured bird were cut sharply, suggesting that it came in contact with the thread. “The bird appears to have suffered the injury to its legs many days ago, because they look decayed,” said Sokkalingam. On Tuesday, S. Satish Kumar, saw the injured bird on the terrace of his two-storey building on East Cross Street in M.K.B. Nagar near Perambur in north Chennai, after his son alerted him about it. As the bird could neither move nor fly, Satish and his neighbours kept some fruits for it to eat. The effort was in vain as the bird was frightened.
“When my son told me about the bird, I rushed to the terrace along with my neighbours. The bird was completely wet and was hiding in the corner of the terrace where some unused materials were dumped,” he said.
Immediately, they altered the police who in turn informed SPCA. Subsequently, the SPCA team led by Sokkalingam rushed to the spot in an ambulance and rescued the injured bird. After an hour-long surgery, doctors removed the decayed legs and cleaned the entire portion. At present, the bird is under observation at SPCA and will be handed over to the Vandalur zoo.
“This is the first time in the organisation’s history that a rare adult Indian eagle has been rescued from the northern part of the city. The bird, which is around 100-cm-long, including its wingspan, and weighs around 3.5 kg is healthy and recovering fast,” said Sokkalingam. Wildlife experts said that the rare Indian spotted eagle is an endangered species under Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The eagle is broad-headed and light in colour. It is native to the sub-continent and is commonly found in Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh due to presence of large tracts of subtropical and tropical dry forests. In India, the bird is found Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Kotagiri, Mudumalai and Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu and Tumakuru in Karnataka. “The bird might have got hurt while it was flying to the shrub forest in the city’s outskirts,” said a forest official.
