The city’s only hospital catering to birds of prey — Wildlife Rescue — is running a ‘packed’ house these days. With the kite-flying season, which sees a lot of birds injured by the nylon and Chinese manjha , still a few months away, the birds landing up at the hospital are young and juvenile raptors.
They have either fallen off the nest, got injured in collisions or needed hospitalisation due to heat exhaustion.
“We have virtually no space left in the hospital. On May 11, we saw 60 birds being admitted in a single day which is the highest we have seen this season,’’ says Nadeem Shehzad, who started this charitable trust in 2003 in North Delhi.
“There isn’t even time to rest at night, these young ones need care round the clock,’’ he says. Rapid urbanisation, shrinking and unsafe nesting sites are the main culprits he notes. Summer heat, lack of shade and water adds to the woes of these birds.
“On Wednesday, only 10 birds were brought, which could be related to the improved weather conditions in the city,’’ says Nadeem.
Mohammed Dilawar, Nature Forever Society, adds that birds like kites survive on the growing dump yards at the periphery of the Capital and the city is seeing an increase in their population. “Limited carrying capacity of the city and the competition of nesting sites also work against the young ones. In the summer heat, many collapse due to the non-availability of water and extreme weather conditions,’’ he says.
Meanwhile, the Nature Forever Society has just concluded and published the country’s first survey on ‘Kite flying: Effect of Chinese manjha on birds in Bangalore, India’. The survey documented the effect and number of birds killed and injured due to the killer manjha .
“We want to carry out similar surveys in Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan where kite flying numbers are very high. We want the government to recognise this problem and bring in concrete measures to stop these injuries/deaths,’’ says Mr. Dilawar.
“Delhi sees as many as 1,000 birds killed due to this killer thread and most deaths happen during August, the kite flying season. There are an equal number of injured birds and besides birds of prey several other species are adversely affected,’’ says Nadeem.
