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 …
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 …
To the delight of bird lovers, the first census of birds in India was initiated in the second half of November. Bird lovers throughout the country volunteered their time to take a head count of forest birds, water birds and shore birds under a national project undertaken by the Bombay …
A BARREN hillock in Agali village in Kerala's Palakkad district is now verdant with forests worth lakhs of rupees, as a result of natural farming -- farming without any external inputs -- by two school-teachers, Vijayalakshmi and Balakrishnan. They have made 8 ha of degraded land cultivable through mulching, water …
THOUGHT the dodo was a lumbering, fat bird? You might be mistaken, says Andrew Kitchner, curator at the Royal Museum of Scotland, who has discovered that early illustrations of the dodo, which became extinct in the 17th century, reveal a distinctly thin bird, while later drawings showed the more familiar …
THE PACIFIC island-state of Nauru, once abundant in phosphates deposited by birds, now lies devastated and desolate. Most of the phosphate was mined by Australia and royalties made the Nauruans one of the richest people in the world. Now, they are left without any natural resources and only an investment …
THERE'S a maxim in Sanskrit that states peacocks in the forest are happy to see clouds in the sky. It's a pointer to the irrefutable fact of life that one cannot keep away from what is dear to one. Something similar happened to Madeleine Slade, popularly known as Mira Behn, …
HOW DID birds learn to fly? For over a decade now, this question has been at the centre of a debate about whether Archaeopteryx, the world's oldest bird-like creature -- found nearly 150 million years ago -- was a bird or a dinosaur. While ornithologists believe Archaeopteryx was a bird …
BIRDS are among the most fascinating of creatures. They tirelessly build exquisite nests and care for their eggs and nestlings. But even birds have their parasites, the most famous being the cuckoo, which never builds its own nest and spends no effort in incubating its eggs or caring for its …
IN US President Bill Clinton's nightmares, an endangered owl species must play a starring role, for he is trapped in the dilemma of protecting it or the jobs of thousands of loggers. The spotted owl once haunted his predecessor, George Bush, but Bush decided in favour of the timber interests …
THAILAND is literally a land of happy people for in the local language, thai means happy. The Thais are nature lovers and they are so fond of songbirds, they keep them as pets. Often, houses in Bangkok, the capital, have a decorated cage in which a bird coos melodiously. But …
It is perhaps a comment on how strident documentary film-making has become that one is puzzled by a film on a newsy, controversial subject that fails to make a point. After watching Chilika -- The Story of a Lagoon, one wonders what the film-maker set out to do. With an …
BIRD MIGRATION patterns can change dramatically over decades and scientists say global warming can increase the incidence of such changes. Drastic changes in climate and landscape during the ice ages led to many birds altering their migratory routes. Such changes occur at present as well, but too gradually to be …
IT WAS a strange case of politicians taking out their venom on snakes. Angry CPM workers in Kerala vandalised and set fire to the Parassinikkadavu Snake Park in Kannur. The reason for the wanton destruction of what was one of the finest snake sanctuaries in Asia, was the defeat of …
KAREN Perremans and her colleagues at the Zoological Institute at Leuven in Belgium have discovered that birds have unique "featherprints," which may make it possible to identify bird species by analysing a small piece of feather (BBC Wildlife, Vol 10, No 12). Feathers from more than 200 species of birds …
THE HOODED pitohui, a bird native to New Guinea, has a deadly surprise in store for predators. Its brilliant orange and black feathers and its skin are laced with a potent toxin called homobatrachotoxin, and researchers say it is the first known bird using poison in self-defence. The poison acts …
There has been a gradual decline in the natural vegetation around Madras. The reduction and fragmentation of the mainly tropical, dry, evergreen forest, also called scrub jungle, has led to the extinction of bird species, particularly those that are habitat-specific. Studies showed more migratory birds were found where new trees …
COMMERCIAL felling of trees and forest management techniques are threatening birds that nest in cavities of tree trunks. Such birds prefer diseased, dying or dead trees because it is easier to find or excavate' cavities in such trees. However, forest management requires the removal of all dead and diseased trees …
IRONICALLY, trees are now a security problem for the army. The armed forces are seeking urgent permission from the environment ministry for selective tree-felling in the thickly wooded areas under their control, for security reasons. They claim, while trees were earlier planted as camouflage, now the areas have started sticking …
THE DISCOVERY that bird brains call appreciate the finer nuances of music has a learn of scientists harmonising at Rockefeller University in New York. The scientists, led 13, Claudio Mello, have identified a Aile in song- birds that responds to music made by other birds. Scientists studying canaries and zebra …
WHEN animals live in groups, many paradoxes occur that are hard to explain within the framework of the classical Darwinian theory of natural selection. For example, a honey-bee spends its entire life working selflessly for the welfare of its queen mother and thousands of its sibling larvae. In 1964, scientist …
