Order of the Supreme Court in the matter of M K Ranjitsinh & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 21/03/2024. The matter related to protection of Great Indian Bustard (GIB) and Lesser Florican. The SC order of April 19, 2021 imposed restrictions on the setting up of overhead …
DNA fingerprinting will now turn the screws on illegal trade in birds in the uk. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British police have joined hands to bring the technique to British courts. The specialists attempt to foil bird breeders who steal eggs from the nests …
The Japanese quail is at the epicentre of a row between the agriculture ministry and the ministry of environment and forests (MEF). The quails were introduced in India during the '70s and were being utilised as a rural development pursuit. But MEF has now thrown a spanner in the works: …
SOUTH African airforce personnel battled an Atlantic storm to fly in a helicopter and save penguins in Dassen Island, Cape Town, when they were endangered by oil from an old wreck. "This is certainly the worst oil pollution disaster we have ever had," said Allison Dehrmann, an official of the …
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 …
ON A cool, February morning, the mist hangs low over the harvested rice fields of Chinglepet district in Tamil Nadu. A peculiar, gurgling sound emanates from the haze, arousing your curiosity. The noise gradually gets louder - and suddenly, around a thousand quacking ducks emerge from the mist with their …
AFTER months of dithering, the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) has shot down the proposal of the National Airports Authority (NAA) to deploy falcons to curb the bird menace around airports in India. In India, on an average about 230 bird-hits on aircraft are reported every year -- among …
THE errant ways of humans have the most unexpected effects on ecosystems. Ecologists J Graveland and his colleagues at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology say that air pollution and the subsequent acid rain have had enormous impact on the reproduction of a common European bird -- the great tit (Nature, …
A MAJOR bird-smuggling racket was literally uncovered on the tarmac of New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. Just before four "abnormal" packages wrapped in gunny were loaded on to a Pakistan International Airlines flight for Dubai, curious customs officials pounced on them and found that they were packed with more …
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 …
A PARROT is a gloriously long-lived thing, often chalking up half a century -- but only in its own wild kingdom. Make an apparently brattish pet out of it and its life stalls and plunges to 5 years, says the United Kingdom's Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). The EIA has conducted …
SCIENTISTS at Delhi's Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) have identified five wheat varieties developed in agricultural universities and institutes that are resistant to damage by birds, especially parrots. However, these varieties failed at pre-release trials and breeders are now trying to incorporate the bird- resistant property into other high-yielding wheat …
IS RATIONALITY a solely human chartersistic ? Perhaps not, contend two evolutionary biologists who applied a decision making model similar to one used for social behaviour of a bird called the white-fronted bee-eater (Merops bulockoides). These birds, common to east and central Africa, live in joint families of five to …
A JAPANESE company has developed a device to discourage pigeons from perching on statues, temples and other buildings and control the menace of pigeon droppings. Called a "bird stopper", the device works on a recent discovery that the homing characteristics of pigeons are influenced by the earth's magnetic field (New …
The plans of the International Airports Authority of India (IAAI) to use trained falcons to scare away birds that pose a risk to aircraft near airports has run into rough weather. IAAI's move, based on a similar experiment conducted successfully at Heathrow a couple of years ago, seems to be …
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
IN THE Vaddi villages of Kolleru, life is almost totally monitered and controlled by a Kula panchayat. The panchayat is headed by a pedda vaddi (sarpanch), who is assisted by a maximum of seven peddalu or peddas (members), depending upon the population. The kula panchayat enjoys total power and can …
