T h e  L a s t  G e e s e

By:- R.K. Birjit Singh *

It is a gloomy early morning of the 1st week of November, 2008. A fine drizzle and low cloud cover the countryside. There is no sign of the moon or stars in the sky. Nothing is visible to the eye.

Yet regularly, high-pitched sounds pierce the silence of the night. It is the sound of Barhooded Goose carrying winter in their back migrating from Siberia and Aral Sea through the routes of Mongolia and Chinese-Turkestan for wintering at Loktak lake.

Every year they never fail to reach Loktak in this part of the month. The season is the good time for enjoying the meat of the migratory birds wintering in Loktak lake by the local people in and around the lake.

Although the number is drastically reduced and some of them are included in the "Rare" category of the species survival commission of IUCN, it is still available in our flooding local wind vendors in and around Thinungei, Moirang, Kumbi, Nongmaikhong, Thanga, Keibul etc.

The hectic activities of "AMADA", "CADA" cannot stop these local vendors, and the young minds are determined to enjoy the petty flesh of these migrating birds. It becomes a trademark of "Owners Pride and Neighbours Envy". "Come on Yaar, they have paat uchek and huisa". They are popular as much as that of Chinese "Peking Duck" served at the various restaurants of Sanghai and Beijing.

Secretly and silently a number of young customers are flocking around the local wine vendor where roasted Paat Uchek are available. Most of the time these birds are made available only to those recognized and trusted customers.

Hume(1888) had recorded as many as 57 species of water fowl in Loktak alone and he had never seen such enormous number of birds in any part of India (Manipur Gazetter). Some of these wild ducks comes to Loktak from Central Asia, Siberia and Yunan province- flying 3,2000-4,800 kilometres over the Himalayan ranges.

In the olden days as one may describe the arrival of the thousands of enormous number of wintering birds with the quick flap of wings, the startled flight of the coots, the noisy chirps of thousands of maneouvering shovellers in flight,the graceful flight of the great Erget and the majestic perch of the Red-crested cormorant.

So, was the number and scene of the time. During the British period hundreds and thousands of these birds of Loktak was hunted for sport and meat by the British Sahib's.

Today the picture is very different, the number of these birds has been reduced drastically due to the disturbance of its habitat after the commissioning of Ithai Barrage. Hardly we have 10-16 species of water fowl in Loktak (MASS & GENIM, 1998,2002,2008). Selective hunting of these groups of Loktak birds including the problems of pollution has threatened the very survival of these lovely birds. The other option is that it must migrate into a marginal habitat where it may succumb to predation, starvation or disease.

When we talk of selective destruction it will be appropriate to recall the story of American Passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorious), probably the most numerous bird on earth as recently as the middle of the nineteenth century. They were in such immense number that their flocks darkened the sky during migration, and one such flock alone was 400 km. long and had no less than two billion birds.

So huge was their number that the branches of trees would break under the weight of the perching birds.It took several hours for the flocks to pass through a place.There were as many as 90 nest per tree throughout a stretch of forest of about 5 km. width and 67 km. lenght.

In 1871, an estimated 136 million Passenger pigeon nested in a 2,200 sq.km area of central Wisconsin.One of the interesting feature about these birds is that it laid just a single egg. All the above information gives us picture of immense abundance of the species but an immense abundance does not immunise a species from extinction.

Despite their abundance and large number ,today there is not even a single Passenger pigeon on the earth now. They are extinct forever from the surface of the earth. In 1878, within three months more than 1.5 million were shipped to New York, Chicago, Boston from Michigan and were served in various fashionable restaurants.

One dealer in New York received 18,000 birds a day. By these activities, the last pigeon-Martha died in Cincinnati Zoo in 1914, and its body is preserved and kept in the United States Natural Museum in Washington. The decline and eventual extinction of such an abundant species now seems beyond imagination- but is an event marking one of the darkest hours in environmental history.

So, was the story of "Dodo", the first animal species whose extermination was fully documented. And the day will not be too far for us to meet "The Last Geese of Loktak" following the steps of Martha, Dodo, if we continue uncheck our activities of indiscriminate poaching and hunting of these wild birds and disturbing its habitat.

The question is that why we should mourn on the extermination and extinction of these birds and diverse forms of life?...............Why we need to protect and conserve them?

Who does not like birds ? It is great joy to watch these beautiful and graceful creatures.Birds are our chief allies in fighting insect pests. Without their help the world would have been desolate. For everywhere,in our fields, forests, gardens and orchards, there are armies of insects, small and large, which devour every variety of green thing that gorws.

There are over 30,000 different kinds insects in the Indian region alone. Insects are not always harmful. They, too, have their own role to play in nature. But they increase their population at such rapid rate that their numbers have to be kept down; otherwise they would eat up every leaf, every blade of grass and the world would become a deseart. If there is no green plants than there will be no life on earth.

Birds eat large numbers of insects in a short period of time. One small bird can eat over six hundred caterpillars in less than half an hour. Kites, Eagles and Hawks hunt field mice and rats which damage crops. They also check diseases often fatal to man by killing destructive pests which harbour and carry germs. The world would be a big dustbin if it were not the role of scavenging vultures, kites and microbes.

Birds play a major role in the process of pollination and cross-fertilization for the continuity of plants life.So there is complex and intricate mechanism of relationship among the living organisms.If one species is being removed or killed it will have serious direct or indirect impact on the survival of the rest of the other living organisms.

Besides, in many plants, a seed which is not passed through the elementary tract of the birds cannot germinate. The avocado tree and quetzal are dependent on each other for their for survival. In 1970,the Tambalacoque plant of Mauritius was on the verge of extinction.Dodo used to feed on the fruit of Tambalcoque and it can grow only passing through the stomach of Dodo. Without Dodo,the plant cannot multiply their number. Fortunately, the introduction turkeys saved tambalqcoque.

In the case of families of Ficus, Pipal and Banyan, Phoebe lanceolata and many more indegenous plant species cannot grow and multiply their number without the role of the birds. One of the greatest strange and amazing of bird life is migration. The migration of bird is facinating study indeed, and there are many unsolved problems which lie ahead.

Every year, during autumn and early winter, birds travel from their breeding haunts in the northern region of Asia, Europe and America to the southern, warmer lands. They make return journey again during spring and early summer. They are very punctual too, unless they are delayed by bad weather. We may calculate almost to a day when we may expect our bird friends to return at Loktak, carrying winter on their backs.

By the middle of the 20th century, the hobby of bird-watching was developing into an industry. People have always enjoyed looking at and listening to birds, but an increasing number have taken an interest in identifying birds and in traveling to new areas to see them. Books and magazines about birds, recordings of bird voices, and binoculars and telescopes for bird-watching are sold in tremendous numbers.

Advanced amateurs as well as professionals photograph birds and record their voices. Many dozens of travel agencies and individual tour guides specialize in leading bird-watching trips. Like other forms of tourism, such trips are valuable to the economies of the visited areas and countries as well as to the manufacturers of the bird-watching equipment.

Moreover, this tremendous popular interest in birds seems to bode well for public support of wildlife conservation measures and for ecological awareness in general. Many amateurs have gone well beyond the "bird-listing" stage and, either on their own or under professional direction, have made important contributions to ornithology.

Are we still going to continue killing these precious birds? Let us take a serious care of these lovely birds and let us show our lovely and smiling face to them which will in turn care our future and sustain life.

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* R.K. Birjit Singh contributes to e-pao.net regularly . The author is a regular contributor to the reputed science journals, "The Resonance", Science Reporter, "Hornbill, Birdlife", published respectively by Indian Academy of Science, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR), Bombay Natural History Society(BNHS) and Co-organizer of Science Meet, Coordinator of "Year of Scientific Awareness"(YSA), Understanding Planet Earth(UPE) under NCSTC, DST, Govt. of India. In addition, the author is the census coordinator of "Waterfowl Census programme at Loktak wetland" and providing data's to the Asian Waterfowl count of the Wetland International, South East Asia with Dr. R.K. Ranjan Singh.
The writer can be contacted at bsningthemcha(at)gmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted at e-pao.net on 27th July 2009.

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