Thaindian News

Mumbai, March 19 (IANS) A unique public participation initiative to monitor common birds in the country will be launched Tuesday, to coincide with “World Sparrow Day”, an official said here Monday.

The “Common Bird Monitoring Program”, a pioneer project and first of its kind in India, will monitor and carry out detailed mapping of 18 common bird species found across the country with direct public participation, said Nature Forever Society chief Mohammed Dilawar.

The birds like house sparrows, house crow, rock pigeon, rose-ringed parakeets, Ashy Prinia and Hoopoes shall be monitored, mapped and counted around the country as well the entire Indian Subcontinent, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, Dilawar told media persons.

“The data collected will help map the presence/absence, population/distribution of these common birds since there is currently no scientific data available on these common species in India,” Dilawar explained.

The initiative is supported by a corporate house, the Jaypee Group Executive Chairman Manoj Gaur and Jaypee Group’s IT arm, JILIT’s Director Sunita Joshi - the latter has taken care of the technology to design the program.

This data, over a period of time would be statistically analysed for launching conservation efforts, he said.

“The knowledge about the status, population and distribution of common birds will help in timely conservation measures that can save these birds from extinction, and help create conservation interest among the masses,” said Dilawar.

Similar programmes are continuing in many western countries, some more than 100 years old, with the Christmas Bird Count in the US running since 1900.

These bird monitoring acts as an early warning system to initiate remedial measures to save species from extinction before it is too late, he said referring to the critically-endangered status of the vulture, which was once common in India, and proper monitoring could have checked its decline.

Dilawar said that citizens can register and spend 15 minutes daily to monitor the 18 birds for the project from their homes, windows or any other location and make notings and enter their data daily, weekly or monthly or annually.