Over 1,000 bird rescue calls received during Uttarayan in city

Surat: This Uttarayan 62 deaths of birds were recorded in the city compared to 73 last year. Majority of the birds killed were pigeons and crows. The centres set up for the treatment of the injured birds had received 1,072 calls during Uttarayan.
The number of injuries and deaths of birds in 2018 is 20 per cent less than last year. Eagles, owls, kite and sparrows were among the birds injured in 2018. Many of these birds were treated and handed over to the forest department for their safe release.

Punnet Nayyar, deputy conservator of forest, Surat said, “The number of bird rescue calls from some areas had decreased by as much as 50 per cent. This is mainly due to increased social awareness campaigns run by us and non-government organizations. We ran an aggressive campaign against the use of Chinese and synthetic manja and this had helped. Till last year, we used to get large number of birds that suffered injuries from Chinese manja. This year, their number is low.”

Darshan Desai, a volunteer of Prayas, an NGO, said, “Though we received 350 calls about injuries to birds, only 153 of them were actually injured. The other birds had been rescued safely. Compared to last year’s 300 injuries, the number has come down by half. This shows that people are getting more aware.”

Iqbal Kadiwala, president, Nursing Association of Surat, said, “This year we tended to 147 bird injuries as against last year’s number of 250. The awareness has helped saving the lives of many birds.”