Rapid urbanisation and increasing population is spelling doom for sparrows, which were found in large number in the city, experts said.
Malini Jain, a noted ornithologist, who has been running ‘Save the sparrow campaign’, said rapid urbanisation, lack of nesting place, food opportunities and lesser research and understanding were the root cause of disappearance of these birds.
“Gone are those days when house sparrows used to be most common birds in India. Their chirpy sound is rarely heard in these days and their absence is increasingly becoming noticeable,” Jain said.
Every year, the bird lovers celebrate March 20 as ‘World Sparrow Day’ which was declared by the United Nation Agency. In 2012, the house sparrow was declared as the “State Bird of Delhi” by the then Sheila Dikshit government. The bird lovers also took an oath to save them as their population was going down due to massive development work which leads to cutting of trees and mangroves, besides pollution.
“The destruction of wetland bird areas, loss of shrub vegetation coupled with reduction in potential breeding sites led to the decline of sparrows in India. But the major reason is the scarcity of insects and grains which serve as protein supplements for the young sparrows,” environmentalist S Kurana said.
Khurana said, “People in urban areas are often seen feeding grains to pigeons. These pigeons are now occupying the nesting spaces of sparrows. As a result, the number of sparrows is going down in urban areas.”
Noted environmentalist HS Khera said, “Delhi has 15,000-20,000 green spaces today, but because of their smaller sizes, these are unable to support larger habitat diversity and provide ecological services. Inter-connecting of such small patches is needed to reintroduce the lost habitat.”
“Though sparrows have not declined below the threshold limit in Delhi, therefore we can still afford to bring them back through proper conservation practices,” Khera said.