Once upon a time, the sparrow or more commonly called chidiya, was widely spotted in homes, gardens. The bird's propensity for human company had earned it the name 'house sparrow'. But now the species has become a rarity, especially in urban spaces like Delhi.
The bird, as a result of urbanisation and shrinking space, isdisappearing from India.
To create awareness amongst the masses and educate them towards preserving the species, it was declared the 'State Bird of Delhi' in 2012. Five years on, the situation still remains uncontained due to the lack of an 'emotional connect', said a report in Hindustan Times.
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Conservationist Mohammed Dilawar, who started the practice of observing March 20 as World Sparrow Day in 2010, said that "mindless urbanisation" was leading to a loss of the birds' natural habitats.
"The current generation is so much surrounded by technology that they have forgotten about nature. The indifference caused by a lack of emotional connect has pushed these birds to the edge of extinction," Dilawar, who also founded Nature Forever Society for India (NFSI), a non-profit organization to conserve house sparrows, told PTI.
Although the bird was designated a day, nothing on ground has been done in terms of sparrow conservation, a senior Delhi government official told the newspaper.
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World Sparrow Day, an initiative by NFSI, is now celebrated annually across 50 countries.
Could this be a warning to humans about impending environmental hazards? World Wide Fund for Nature says: "The house sparrow has evolved with humans, known only to live in close contact with us, instead of forests. For years, it has peacefully coexisted with us in our buildings and gardens, but in the last two decades, their population is on the decline in almost every city.”
“The reasons attributed are: rapidly changing cities are no longer a suitable habitat for the house sparrow, as the new and modern designs of infrastructure does not give any room for the sparrow to nest; pollution caused by microwave towers and pesticides; the house sparrow loses its foraging grounds (natural grasslands) as the green spaces in our cities give way to more concrete constructions.
A research paper said: The present decline in house sparrow numbers appears to be widespread all over the world. The uncontrolled use of pesticides resulting in the absence of insects needed by newborn sparrows are one of the major reasons in declining population.
