TN bird trappers resort to bird song cassettes, speakers fitted on trees

TN bird trappers resort to bird song cassettes, speakers fitted on trees
GLADWIN EMMANUEL

THANJAVUR, DECEMBER 12: Bird trappers in the villages around Nagapattinam have found a new way to entice their prey. They play the language of the birds on the tape recorder to trap them and later sell them to wine shops in the area, District Forest Officer and Wildlife Warden, Nagapattinam, Akash Deep Baruah has said.

The DFO said the neighbouring towns of Nagore and Karaikal are the major centres of this illegal trade in birds. Karaikal, 20 km from Nagapattinam, abounds in liquor shops. Dishes made from wild birds are readily available near most of the shops.

While speaking to The Indian Express recently, Baruah said an all-time high in number of bird trapping cases had been booked in Nagapattinam during the current year.

It is the chance to make some easy money and find a good market in places like Nagore, which lures bird trappers.

While the rates for a pair of egrets is Rs 40, the hunters get Rs 5 to Rs 8, for sandpipers (ullan, in the local language). India Pitta fetches Rs 5 to Rs 10, a pairof quail Rs 30, pond heron Rs 30 to Rs 35, and the list goes on.

The wildlife warden says poverty did not have much to do with poaching. According to him, the people of Vilundamavadi, 20 km south of Nagapattinam (en route the famous Point Calimere Sanctuary), have been regularly engaging in illegal trade of wild birds. They employ a variety of methods for trapping the birds, the most ingenious of which is playing of bird call cassette. The modus operandi is to fix speakers, connected to a centrally located cassette player, on trees fitted with traps on the branches. The aerial traps, locally called ``quail tatts'', are fitted with nylon snares and carry a bunch of coloured beads resembling grapes and rose apple.Most often, the targeted species are quail (eudynamys scolopacea) and the Indian pitta (pitta brachyura). While quails are trapped on trees, the pittas, being terrestrial birds, are trapped in cages laid on the ground. Much of the poaching takes place in orchards, along the coastal tract of thedistrict.

It has been observed that the ``quail tatts'' are mostly placed on rose apple trees or neem trees which the birds frequent. The foliage of the trees facilitates trapping.

The cassettes are played mostly in the early hours of the day. The birds are attracted by the fruit like beads. Once they alight they are trapped.

Distress calls by the trapped birds attract more birds to the trees.

In the case of pittas also cassettes are played. In addition, an insect is hung in the centre of the trap. The movement of the bait attracts birds, which, while entering the cage, activate the lever closing the trap. The trapped birds are collected and are either locally consumed or sold to agents from outside.

Trapping reportedly goes on throughout the year but increases between October and December when the local bird population increases with the onset of rains and the visit of migratory birds.

In an effort to check the trend, the Wildlife Division of Nagapattinam recently seized a number cassettes,players and speakers, besides expensive CD systems, used by the poachers around Vilundamavadi and Kathripulam, he added.