COIMBATORE: Bird lovers and activists have appealed to tourism minister M Mathiventhan to not conduct the three-day kite festival, scheduled from August 13 in Mamallapuram, considering the risk kites pose to birds.
“Though use of manja (thread) is banned, we fear the kite strings would harm the birds. August is a migratory period for spot-billed pelicans, which comes under near threatened species, along with painted stork, grey headed swamphen and common coot, and dozens of sea birds. Importantly, Mamallapuram, where the festival is scheduled, comes under Central Asian flyway,” said P Jeganathan, ornithologist and coordinator of Tamil Birders’ Network.
S Bharathidasan, member of the State Board for Wildlife (SBWL) and secretary of Arulagam, an NGO conserving vultures across the State, said, “The proposed festival, organised by Global Media Box with the help of TN tourism department, has added fuel to the fire, as birds and vultures are already facing a life threat and vanishing due to various reasons, including rampant pesticide usage, industrial waste, water pollution and climate change.
The festival should be withdrawn as it originated from North India. A field study shows that over 30 bird species, including black kite and saras crane, which are critically endangered, are getting injured in the kite festival in Gujarat every year. Despite bringing world class treatment and veterinarians, we aren’t able to save the birds. The birds injured in the string become permanently disabled.”
Bharathidasan, along with the group of birders, sent a petition to the tourism minister and Principal Secretary to Government Tourism, Culture and Religious Endowments B Chandra Mohan, seeking to stop the festival.A team, headed by S Muralidharan, senior principal scientist of Salim Ali centre for Ornithology and Natural History, carries out field study in Gujarat kite festival every year, and it also conducts postmortems and rescues injured birds.
Kirubhanandhini, one of the team members, said, “Earlier, thousands of birds got injured in the festival. However in recent years, the injury rate has come down since the numbers of bird population have also come down.” City-based environmentalist K Mohanraj said, “Recently, the State listed Pallikaranai as a Ramsar site and Mamallapuram is located just 40 km from Pallikaranai. The scheduled kite festival is expected to create a bad name due to these disadvantages at a time when the State is getting international recognition for hosting the Chess Olympiad.”
When contacted Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary of Environmental Climate Change and Forests told TNIE that she is aware of the issue, since some people have brought it to her attention and she will talk with the tourism department officials about this.