NEW DELHI: With the climate still warm for the migratory birds to settle in the national capital, experts claim that rising pollution has little role to play in their delayed arrival.
Pramod Kumar Srivastava, divisional forest officer, Gautam Buddh Nagar, said that pollution is not a new factor for the migratory birds coming to the sanctuaries in Delhi-NCR region.
“If we consider the count of birds for the past four years then the numbers have increased. Therefore there is no direct impact on their arrival or habituating. Compared to last year, the situation is much better…we have formed many islands to facilitate their habitation,” said Srivastava.
Anand Arya, a bird watcher, noted that pollution does affect the natural habitat of the migratory birds but no longer plays an important role in their arrival.
“Smog will certainly affect their cycle pattern and their feeding apart from disturbing their sleeping routine. As the sky is hazy they have difficulty in manoeuvring their path but that has not stopped them from flowing down to the NCR belt,” he said.
The experts however noted that global climate change is impacting long-distance migration. Ecologist TK Roy stated that for long distant migratory waterbirds, winter migration usually starts from September and peaks in October but this year their arrival was late.
“Till this week of October 2019, only 12 species of winter migratory waterbirds and five species of terrestrial birds arrived in Okhla as well other major wetlands in NCR like Surajpur Wetland, Najafgarh Jheel, Sultanpur National Park,” Roy said.
Arya pointed out that the long migratory birds which usually arrives from Serbia or other European nations start flying to warmer region only when the climatic condition at their home becomes unfavourable.
“The birds will stay in Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh where the temperature is considerably lower than the Delhi-NCR. They start shifting by mid-November,” he said.