Sangareddy: Bird’s death sparks online debate

Scaly Breasted Munia, a mother of four chicks, hit a wall when some neighbours burst noisy crackers in the vicinity and died, said environmentalist Shiva Kumar Verma

Sangareddy: A city birder, who spotted a female Scaly Breasted Munia dying in front of his eyes, posted the picture of the little bird on his Facebook page, which has since gone viral on social networking sites and sparked a discussion across the globe too.

Birder and environmentalist Shiva Kumar Verma told Telangana Today that the Scaly Breasted Munia, a mother of four chicks, hit a wall when some neighbours burst noisy crackers in the vicinity. She died on the spot.

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“The bird had recently built a nest in a room in my house. Since the Munia was living with four day old chicks, we had refrained from disturbing the bird’s family,” he said, adding that it was unfortunate that the mother bird should meet with such a tragic end on Saturday when she flew helter-skelter with the bursting of noisy fire-crackers.

To sensitise people how birds get affected with fire-crackers, Verma posted a message on his Facebook timeline, which went viral.

While most of them vowed not to burst crackers and requested people too to follow suit, some of them criticised him for discouraging people from bursting crackers on a Hindu festival day. “I replied to all of them patiently. Unable to respond to all of them, I was forced to disable the sharing option,” he said.

With the mother bird dead, Verma is worried about the survival of the chicks, and is keeping a close watch on the nest. The father of the four chicks fed them on Sunday morning.
Meet Ashar, Associate Manager at PETA (People for Ethical Treatment for Animals), Emergency Response Team, also shared it on Facebook.

Pradeep Nair, Animal Welfare Conservation Society (AWCS), said loud and abnormal sounds create terror among all wildlife. He said that a street dog which hid under a rock, got stuck under it on Saturday. Following information, they rushed to the spot and rescued it after an hour-long effort.

“Sounds like WWII. I am worried for my house birds, the bulbuls and green warblers, the mynahs… It seems very little to do with much except making a lot of noise and the air stinks of smoke”, commented Debrah Huber from Japan.

Carola Lahnstein from USA commented, Horrific! Stop Fireworks and another user Sinna Filldoni from Paris commented Very Sad.

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