Amur falcons again

Read an interesting piece on Conservation India recently

Also was party to interesting discussions on the species recently.

G. Asked whether we would lose Amur falcons the Passenger Pigeon way? – In that, given the big numbers, we would fail to realize the catastrophic decline till we are sadly left with too few.

H. is studying the presence of infectious disease and avian influenza (mutated H5N1) in migrant birds sold in the markets (of Nagaland) and also the possibility of Amur falcons being the reservoir of the avian influenza in Northeastern India. His take, which I agree with, was that the number of birds killed in Nagaland was around 2,500 per day during the days that they stay put in Nagaland.

I. Hails from Nagaland and gave an interesting perspective. According to him the Doyang Reservoir brought in something that did not occur before the project and this helped people from areas around hunt these birds in crazy numbers – fishing nets! He also said that the number of birds being killed annually has come down and a couple of local set-ups are taking action on the issue.

J. Asked if the practice (!!) was traditional. This I felt quite sure is not the case. 

H. and I wondered on how and why the figure of 10,000 birds per day has been taken up by all and not many questions were around! Of course whatever is the massacre number has to come down / to a halt. 

Earlier post on Amur falcons