A thirty percentage decline in migratory birds – A call for action

Recently I met another bird photographer at Kadamakkudy Islands who was visiting Kadamakkudy Islands after seven years. What happened to Kadamakkudy?, Where are the birds?..that was his reponse with lot of anguish and pain. Studies points to the fact that there is a 30% decline of migratory birds visiting Kerala. Here are some of the root causes;

Conversion of wet lands

What were once paddy fields are now getting converted to shrimp farms. This affects the food cycle for birds. This also spoils the environment required for nesting and reproduction.

Infrastructure and development

Lack of long term vision, incompetence and corruption leads to reckless infrastructure and development activities. They have led to increased construction activities and the destruction of natural habitats like mangroves. A state forest department study in 2013 linked a 30% decline in migratory bird visits across Kerala to the increase in high-rise buildings.

Expansion of tourism

Kadamakkudy Island is witnessing increased tourism activities, especially after the tweet by Anand Mahindra citing Kadamakkudy Islands as one in his bucket list. This is leading to mushrooming of uncontrolled and unplanned tourism activities. Some of the tourist operators are even advertising trips into the mangrove forests which is a major threat to the birds and fish.

Plastic and waste dumping

Increased tourism activities produces more plastic wastes.In Kadamakkudy, this was a big problem till a couple of years back. Now the plastic waste collection and processing has helped to reduce this problem to a great extent.

Chemical Pollution

A couple of years back large quantities of fish in river Periyar were killed due to pumping of industrial waste by companies in the nearby Eloor industrial area which is one of the most pollutted areas in the region. Kadamakkudy Islands are surrounded by estuaries of river Periyar.

Noise and light pollution

Kadamakkudy Islands attracts many bikers becuase of it’s good roads.While most of them are highly civilised, some alter the silencers of their bikes inorder to get attention. This creates too much noise. Unfortunately there is no sufficient monitoring and controlling of this.

Disrupted migration patterns

Global warming has impacted the migration patterns of the birds. Climate has become very unpredictable.

Pesticides

Because the labour costs are high, very often shrimp farmers are resorting to the use of pesticides to remove weeds prior to the start of the season. This contaminates water and food of the birds.

Human presence

Increased advertising, improved connectivity, increased tourism, increase in construction activities, all these leads to increased human presence leading to birds avoiding this area.

You and me have to do something about it, so that the future generation will have the privilege to see birds in their backyard.