It is an annual scene during the spring in the holy city which the bird lovers witness to their anguish, year after year. Many pigeons fall prey to the string used in the flying kites and succumb as they get wounded in their tender necks and wings by the razor-sharp thread.
On Friday too, the sky was dotted with numerous kites to mark the Vasant Panchami festival to the deadly woes of the birds with the working professionals joining the students in the fun of kite- flying. While the people enjoy, the sufferers are the birds, especially pigeons the tender bodies of which get wounded after they get entangled in the kites’ strings. Cases of raptors getting injured this way has increased by 80 per cet this season, says a study report.
In spite of the ban on Chinese kites and ‘Manja’ (string used to fly kite), the markets were seen flooded with Chinese products. “The Chinese non-breakable strings which are now easily available are dealing the fatal blows to the birds. Once a bird gets entangled it does not usually free itself on its own and ends up dropping down dead,” says Ankur Mehta, a kite flier from Jwalapur.
The earlier domestic string rolls used to cost from `400 to `500, depending on the quality, but these Chinese 'manjas' are relatively cheaper and the prices range from `250 to `300. Notably, the tensile strength of the Chinese string made of fibre is much higher than the domestic string made of cotton. The domestic thread has weight bearing capacity up to 1 kg whereas the Chinese kite can undertake pressure up to 15 kg and does not break easily unless the body force is applied fully, tells a shopkeeper.
Speaking to The Pioneer, a working professional Rajat Vats said, “The regular white domestic thread is not that harmful, but the glass coated thread, called manja, creates maximum destruction. Birds get injured, maimed and even killed when they end up getting entangled in the manja. The glass-coated thread acts like a sharp knife. I left kite flying a few years ago, seeing its deathly consequences for the birds.”
The bigger the bird, the more are the chances of getting a severe injury. Many a time, the entire wing ends up coming off and then the bird is never able to fly again.
Yash Bhardwaj, an accountant, says, “I have stopped flying kites since my love for animals has grown. I am rearing a pigeon for the past one year and it has grown up now and has many feathers. I was touched by an incident when a pigeon entangled by the kite string had fallen on my roof some five years ago. It was bleeding. I tried to help it to get on its wings again, but it died." Not only on these special days, the lives of birds are at risk because of the dreaded manja that, getting entangled in the trees, sticks there for months and injures birds which build their nests in them.