The famous all-season attraction for tourists and bird watchers, the picturesque Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary is under threat. | |
| Poaching, agricultural operations and encroachment of forest land is threatening the sanctuary situated about 10 km from here, where the river Cauvery flows around a string of tiny islands, ideal for migratory birds from distant places. |
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| The nomadic 'hakki-pikki' tribal people are causing injuries and death to a number of birds with their regular operation to catch them for food. They trap the birds either with plastic wires or thin wires. After falling trap to their operation, generally during night times, the birds try to escape and suffer injuries. |
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| Environmental photographer Lokesh Mosale noticed a few days ago a number of birds like painted stork having suffered injuries in their beak or legs, some of them still oozing blood. |
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| Releasing the pictures of the injured birds and birds caught with wires at a press conference here, he expressed apprehension that this could cause irreparable damage to the migratory birds and ultimately to the sanctuary itself. |
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| If the trapping and injuring the different species of birds was a major threat, agricultural operations like after-harvest setting fire to sugarcane fields and burning of waste cane, use of chemicals by the farmers and operation of brick kilns near the sanctuary, known for its exquisite variety of birds, were other threats to the survival of the birds. |
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| These apart, some people had illegally encroached the wildlife department lands and cultivating them, Lokesh said. |
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| Urging the forest department to ban such activities around one km radius of the sanctuary, he also called upon the department, environmentalists, self-help groups and NGOs engaged in wildlife protection to take up environmental awareness campaign in the villages around the sanctuary, as the trapping of birds by the tribals was a social problem also. |
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