Indian Wildlife Club Forum

Losing Habitat of Migratory Birds : Mote Majra

Mote Majra is a small village near Mohali which boasts of having  a rich fauna and flora too especially a great variety of birds. Last week there was a photograph with a caption

“ Winged Guests Are Here; Migratory Birds At Mote Majra in Mohali” by Vicky Gharu  in The Tribune. These migratory birds are not here for the entire winter but for a halt on their great migratory leap. So we planned to visit the visitors this weekend. To our utter surprise we could not locate even a single out of the flock despite waiting patiently for a long time. Yes there were some other birds of course like the common kingfisher, red wattle lapwing, Intermediate egret; Black winged Kite,Crow Pheasants and cormorants.

After a long wait we finally approached a local villager who told us that a person has hired the local pond on a contract for fishing and has put some people to work for him to put a net all over the pond so that the migratory birds are unable to catch the fish. This labour has been hired for an amount of 30000/. Now with no food on arrival, the migratory birds have no option but to carry on their migration path ahead. It’s really disheartening to see such human interference.

Water Bodies are providing the habitat to the local and migratory bird species and playing key role in maintaining the balance in natural environmental parameters. The human activities and interference are destroying the natural water bodies' characteristics thereby depriving the migratory birds of their natural habitat  at many places. There is a need to study such aquatic ecosystems for understanding the gravity of environmental problems and to find solutions to improve the habitat of migratory birds which directly help in protecting the bird species. The governments of such places should come forward to save the natural environment.