Coronavirus lockdown: Delhi's birds bear brunt of human boredom

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s bird hospitals — listed under essential services — are functioning during the anti-coronavirus lockdown and staying quite busy. The reason — kites.
Over 60-70% cases received at bird hospitals across the city are due to manjha (kite string) injuries while the remaining are animal bites and injuries received from falling from the nest.Veterinarians say there has been a spike in the number of manjha injuries, with people taking to kite flying during the lockdown, particularly in parts of central, east and west Delhi.
Despite the lockdown, Jain Bird hospital in Chandni Chowk is receiving 10-15 bird cases each day. Sunil Jain, manager at the hospital, said that 70% of cases coming in are injuries from kite string, followed by attacks from other animals like cats.
Even though kite flying is particularly popular in the nearby Old Delhi area, the hospital is receiving cases from parts of east, west and central Delhi, Jain claimed. According to him, the hospital currently has close to 3,000 birds, with a large number of injuries being black kites.
“People are still bringing in 10-15 birds each day on an average. This number used to be 50-60 birds prior to the lockdown. However, it is still a significant number,” said Jain, who added that the lockdown has proved to be tricky, as their donations have dried up.
“People would earlier come physically and donate money. Ever since the lockdown, that has stopped and we are low on funds,” he claimed, requesting people to donate money through their website to help birds during this period.
While the bird hospital does treat raptors (birds of prey), it does not feed them — a task which is undertaken by wildlife rescue, a bird rescue hospital in Wazirabad. The hospital has close to 100 raptors, a majority of which are black kites. “The shikra breeding season generally starts in May and their numbers will rise to. Black kites are facing the brunt from manjha. Most injuries are due to people flying kites during the lockdown, which can cause considerable damage to the wings of a bird,” said Nadeem Shehzad (42), who runs the centre with his brother, Mohammad Saud.
Shehzad said while they did purchase a month’s stock of chicken for the birds before the lockdown began, they are now starting to run out of food. “We will have to replenish our stock. Around 10-12 kg of chicken is fed to the birds each day,” he claimed.
“We are also going around the city, collecting raptors from hospitals, which have been treated and then released,” said Shehzad, asking people to reach out and donate to help the birds sustain during this period.
Meanwhile, Ambika Shukla from Sanjay Gandhi Animal Care Centre said that it has been a double-whammy, with birds coming in either with manjha injuries or are hungry and thirsty. “Black kites would generally be able to survive through kitchen waste and prey on other birds, but that has gone down during the lockdown. We are getting a lot of cases of birds that are hungry and thirsty, while some have been badly wounded,” Shukla explained.