Migratory Species

Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding deterioration of Nayar river, Uttarakhand, 05/06/2025

Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Nayar river is vanishing - a yatra reveals conservation goes beyond science and policy" appearing in ‘The Down To Earth’ dated 03.06.2025. The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Nayar …

PRESERVE WATER BODIES

The forests and the environment minister of Bangladesh Sajeda Chowdhury, has urged the country's Jahangirnagar University authorities not to lease out its water bodies as it will disturb the habitat of migratory birds. Every year thousands of birds from Siberia and other parts of the world throng the varsity sanctuaries. …

Pesticides are wiping out cranes

Why have the Siberian cranes stopped coming to India? Since the mid-70s, about 12-15 per cent of the Siberian cranes coming to the Keoladeo Ghana National Park have been juveniles. This has meant excellent productivity. Last winter, the percentage of juveniles remained normal although the total number of cranes continued …

Lost birds

WILDLIFE officials fear that migratory birds will not come to the Sultanpur National Park, Haryana, because the lake that supports the park is rapidly drying up and even the artificial sources of water have been stopped. According to R D Jakati, chief wildlife warden of Haryana, widespread activities like industrial …

Accumulation Features of Polychlorinated Biphenyls and Organochlorine Pesticide in Resident and Migratory Birds from South India

Persistent organochlorines such as DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs), chlordane compounds (CHLs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were determined in whole-body homogenates of resident and migratory birds collected from South India. Organochlorine contamination pattern in birds varied depending on their migratory behaviour. Resident birds contained relatively …

To safer skies

COME winter and the debate over saving the Siberian crane intensifies. Even as the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, is preparing to welcome these rare birds, international crane experts are planning to build a new home for the cranes in islands on the Brahmaputra river in Assam. The Siberian …

Killed for pills

among the 30 to 40 species of seahorse identified worldwide, many face an uncertain future due to the increasing numbers claimed by traditional medicine, pollution and habitat loss. It is estimated that at least 20 million dried seahorses are sold every year for traditional Chinese medicine and as curios, while …

ARGENTINA

Thousands of broad-winged species of hawk known as Swainson's hawk, which make their appearance on the dry plains of Argentina every winter, may get a reprieve. Ciba-Geigy, the Switzerland-based chemical manufacturing group has agreed to recall monocrotophos, the pesticide which caused the hawks to die, from the markets surrounding the …

ERADICATING MEASURES

The new policy of the National Foot and Mouth Disease control programme in Bhutan lays down that migrating animals will now need to be compulsarily vaccinated and will be provided movement permits. The disease affects a number of livestock and reduces animal productivity to a large extent. According to J …

Following falcon flights

peregrine falcons have bewildered researchers by giving them the first-ever comprehensive account of their autumnal sojourns. The use of tiny satellite transmitters

A historic flight

BIRD-LOVERS will after all have a chance to gather more information about the highly, endangered wild Siberian cranes. After dragging its feet over the rnatter, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) recently permitted conservationists to install a satellite transmitter on the back of one of the cranes spending their …

Hunting curbs

MIGRATORY birds may not find their return journey to their homelands in Europe as hazardous as before. The European Parliament, after a heated debate, has finally agreed for the hunting season to close on January 31 each year. 'Environmentalists and anti-hunters won the day after the amendment to close the …

PAKISTAN

Once home to a rich variety of migratory birds from Russia, Siberia and Central Asia, Gamaghar Lake near Lahore, Pakistan, has been driven to the verge of extinction by an ill-planned irrigation system. Inadequate drainage systems had led to high levels of waterlogging and salinity in nearby agricultural areas. To …

The day of the birdwatchers

For an avid birdwatcher, the annual migration of birds from cold Siberia to warmer climes has all the ingredients of a of a high-tension drama."It's exciting," says a wide-eyed Iqbak Mullik, director of Shrishti, a NGO which espouses the avian cause. Shrishti organises bird counts across the country. It has …

When the birds come home...

A HANDFUL of people gathered together on a cold wintry evening in a remote Himalayan village in Arunachal Pradesh, seeking to conserve the only winter habitat of the blacknecked crane in India. They included two village elders, the headmaster and a teacher of a village school and the deputy director …

Flight to extinction

THE FAILURE of the Siberian cranes to pay their annual migratory visit, in mid-November, to the Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur is fuelling anxiety that these birds may be on the brink of extinction. The number of Siberian cranes coming to Bharatpur has declined steadily since 1969. In 1964, …

The broken mirror

KOLLERU lake is no ordinary wetland. Located in Andhra Pradesh, it is one of the country's largest freshwater lakes and a bird sanctuary, hosting 193 species of birds and a variety of flora and fauna, including medicinal plants. However, Kolleru today is threatened by economic and industrial development, expanding fisheries …

Short cut to disaster

EVER SINCE a 3-km straight-cut was dug into the Upputeru channel to speed up draining of water from Kolleru lake into the Bay of Bengal in 1972, soil erosion has plagued the tiny island of Chinna Gollapalem, situated where the lake waters meet the sea. The gushing waters of Upputeru …

The salt of the earth

EVERY DAY at 5 am, Sridevi picks up all the pots in her house in the Mandaveli slums of Madras city and places them at the end of the street, as she has been doing for the past 12 years. She must ensure that her pots are among the first …

Mega projects or mega flops?

IN APRIL 1983, the Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu governments signed the Telugu Ganga project agreement, under which Madras would get 15 tmc ft of water from the Srisailam reservoir between February and September. Government indifference and lack of funds delayed the project, but it has been revived recently. A …

The changing face of India`s lakes

CHILIKA LAKE, Orissa: Remote-sensing studies indicate the area of Chilika has shrunk from 2,200 square kilometers originally to about 915 sq km now. The northern mouth of the brackish lake, reported to be India's largest inland lake, has been choked by heavy siltation. Nearly 200 sq km of the waterspread …

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