INDIA BID TO SAVE HOUSE SPARROW

             

    Authorities in the Indian capital, Delhi, have adopted the house sparrow as the "state bird" in a bid to halt any further decline in their numbers."

We will take steps to ensure that the sparrow returns, feels safe, and is able to live peacefully in the city," Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit said.The house sparrow is fast disappearing from India's rapidly-growing cities.Experts say that a number of factors like high pollution and a growing use of insecticides are to blame."Their numbers have gone down drastically, specially in the cities. Sparrows don't like to build their nests in high-rise buildings. They prefer old-style construction where there are lots of nesting spaces," Sajeev TK of the Bombay Natural History Society's Delhi centre told the BBC.

"Also, because of pollution and use of insecticides, they are no longer able to find soft-bodied worms to feed their chicks," he said.Experts say the humble sparrow is also being pushed out by bigger and more aggressive birds as food in the cities becomes scarcer.Bird lovers and wildlife officials say that an aggressive awareness campaign can still save the sparrow and children would have to be at the heart of any effort to bring it back home."People need to be made aware that the sparrow shares the space with us in the cities. And children need to be encouraged to feed them," says Ranjit Lal, an avid bird watcher who writes on wildlife issues."Sparrows are smart birds, if they find food, they will return."Noise in urban areas could be increasing the mortality rate among young house sparrows, a study has suggested.Researchers say the noise could stop adult birds hearing the hunger calls from their dependent offspring.In their study, the team found that birds nesting in noisy areas were less effective at feeding their chicks as those that nested in quieter places.

Scientists from the University of Sheffield reached their conclusion after carrying out a study on Lundy, a 445-hectare (1,100-acre) island located 19km (12mi) off the North Devon coast.Co-author Julia Schroeder explained that the project happened more-or-less by chance."When I first went to the island, which is very remote and quiet - apart from gulls and shearwaters - I entered a barn and it was very loud," she recalled.The barn contained an electricity generator, yet sparrows were still choosing to nest in the building, so Dr Schroeder wondered whether the conditions affected the songbirds."I found that there was a reduced fitness - a reduced reproductive output from the nest boxes located in the noisy area," she told .So she decided to test her findings against classic hypotheses on how noise could affect birds."The main hypothesis regarding breeding output is that it affects mate choice decisions," she explained.However, the study's findings did not fit the existing hypotheses.

"In our case, we saw that the birds did not feed the chicks as well as the birds in the quiet area - this was a novel idea that had not been shown before," Dr Schroeder said."Obviously, chick provision is strongly linked to chick survival because if they do not get fat then they die."

Prof. John Kurakar