National birds are being poisoned in Gujarat farms

AHMEDABAD: They are show-stoppers and not shy of the drama they present during monsoons. If you are lucky, you may even spot them on the roadsides in Ahmedabad. But today, this national symbol of beauty is under threat from pesticides and is being poisoned in our farms. Recently, 15

peafowl

carcases from Ahmedabad (killed during Uttrayan by kite strings) were analyzed by the ecotoxicology laboratory of the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) in Coimbatore.

The tests found high levels of chlorinated pesticide deposits in the birds’ tissues. SACON was investigating 550 peafowl poisoning cases in 35 incidents between January 2011 and March 2017 from across the country. Almost 98% of the cases of peafowl poisoning deaths across the country were “unintentional”, according to SACON professor Kanthan Nambirajan.

The pesticides found included hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), DDT, endosulfan, heptachlor, dicofal, dieldrin, and chlorpyrifos. From Ahmedabad, Kartik Shastri and Dr Shashikant Shivaji Jadhav of the Jivdaya Charitable Trust had provided the peafowl carcasses for the tests.

The study found that peafowl from Ahmedabad had significantly higher level of total pesticides, at 149 nanograms/g, than the birds from Coimbatore (47.8 ng/g). The maximum pesticide accumulation was found in peafowls’ livers (123.9 ng/g), followed by the kidneys (91.9 ng/g) and muscles (19.5 ng/g).

“Often, birds meet their dreadful fate when a farmer — to ward off rodents in his farmland — mix pesticides such as phorate (organophosphate) and carbofuran (carbamate) with millets and maize and places them in and around his field. Many peafowl which fed on these baits were killed,” says Nambirajan.

He feels that some of the new pesticides which are available in granular form should be regulated by the government as they are mistaken by peafowl and migratory or farm birds as seeds.

“We have been advising farmers to not leave the pesticide bait unattended after the targeted rodent is killed,” says Nambirajan. “The liquid version of these pesticides is less hazardous to the birds since they are not likely to ingest it directly, but it is still harmful.”