Renowned bird scientist Prof Dinesh Chandra Bhatt has made an impassioned appeal for the conservation of the sparrows whose number is dwindling at an alarming pace in the urban areas while asking the people to go for natural boundary walls for their residences instead of the concrete walls to ensure that the species build their nests there without any trouble. He was addressing a day’s workshop on disaster management and sparrow conservation held by department of Zoology and Environmental Science of Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya to mark the World Sparrow Day which is observed on March 20. The district disaster management official Meera Kaintura inaugurated the workshop. Prof Bhatt was the convener of the conference.
Prof Bhatt exhorted all the participants, bird lovers and the ornithologists to understand the importance of the World Sparrow Day and make extra efforts towards the conservation of ‘Goraiya’ which has almost vanished from the urban areas.
He said the rapid urbanization had resulted in shrinking of the natural habitats of these birds. The population explosion and unplanned construction had resulted in the ‘goraiya’ getting extinct.
In research study conducted by the team of scientists of Gurukul Kangri University, it has been observed that in the past one decade, a marked decline of 60 – 70% was seen in the number of Goraiya across all the cities of Uttarakhand. However, in rural areas, the bird could still be spotted, said Prof Bhatt.
Suggesting ways to improve the number of species, Prof Bhatt asked for the artificial nests made by the laboratory of Gurukul Kangri University to be put up to attract Goraiya. He also lauded the efforts of Mahamana Sewa Sansthan and Dr R C Sharma’s Goraiya conservation campaign.
Disaster management also prominently figuring in the workshop, the district disaster management officer Meera Kaintura shared her experiences of the disaster management and cited the Kedar tragedy 2013, saying with the entire road being washed away, the disaster relief team could not have reached the deluge-ravaged places in time. Things had turned all the more grim, she said, as even the air routes had not been accessible due to the hostile weather conditions. She said that imbibing lessons from the past experiences, they had drawn roadmap to cover villages during such calamities so as to minimize casualties and loss of property.