Heritage: Sindh's Vanishing Fauna

[Gul Agha <agha@CS.UIUC.EDU>]

Sindh's Vanishing Fauna

With the beginning of the month of September, and as the winter
approaches, inhospitable temperate climate of northern hemisphere
forces its birds to migrate towards south.  Sindh, with traditional
hospitality, not only welcomes these migratory birds but also provides
temporary abode and refuge for their mating and breeding.

With arrival of bustards, including houbara bustard, from Siberia,
rich sheikhs also start pouring in the region for their hunting.
Houbara, one of the 22 species of the bustards is endangered specie.
However, wildlife authorities do little to protect them from human
predators.  These birds use Indus plains as their feeding and breeding
ground during winter. Males of some species of bustards perform
remarkable displays to attract females.  They swell up their necks,
raise feathers, and twist their bodies into odd postures.  No longer
these are in common sight in the countryside.

Northern temperate climate also push numerous ducks, mallards, and
numerous other waterfowls to migrate towards tropical and sub-tropical
regions. As a result Sindh also receives many of them. Ducks live
throughout the world in wetlands, including marshes and areas near
rivers, ponds, lakes, as in Sindh, and near oceans.  They live in
arctic, temperate, and tropical regions usually for some part of the
year especially in summers.  Many kinds of ducks migrate long
distances every year between their breeding grounds, where they rest
and raise their young, and their wintering areas, where the water does
not freeze.  Some ducks migrate thousands of miles. Migrating geese
fly in large groups, often in a V-shaped formation.  It is believed
that geese use this formation to facilitate their flying because air
currents created by the birds in front make flying easier for the rest
of the birds. Such scenes are not the often sighted in Sindh these
days.

Peacock, or peafowl, is one of the showiest of all birds because of
its large size and the attractiveness of its feathers.  Indian peafowl
exist in wild in India as well as Sri Lanka. Their coloration, broken
dark-green, may have protective value amid colorful tropical foliage.
These birds live by eating snails, frogs, and insects.  They also eat
grain, juicy grasses, and bulbs and often destroy crops. The green
"jungle" peafowl, of Burma, Malaysia, and Java, has a golden-green
neck and breast. Peafowl were very common in and around Thar Desert of
Sindh.  However, their population has been declining very fast and are
no more easily seen there, thanks to the Homo Sapiens.

With the traditional hospitality of Sindh gone, not only wild goat of
Khirthar, the Sindh Ibex, is under threat from the human predators but
also the so-called game birds like partridges, etc. are threatened due
to their unwarranted hunting especially in the breeding season.
Government officials, environmentalist, conservationists of nature,
wildlife protectors may be doing good job in keeping their official
paperwork up-to-date in their offices in posh areas of Karachi and
Islamabad, participating in conferences, presenting so called
'papers', arranging 'seminars' but they are certainly not found in the
countryside.

No one is interested in advocacy or creating awareness about the
swiftly vanishing fauna of Sindh.  It is common to hear stories from
rural dwellers like "Mr A hunted 30 chinkara deer" and "Mr B hunted 50
last year"; "That sahib hunted an ibex with 50 inch long horns..", and
so on and so forth.  Such stories of senseless killings of wild life
are endless and have brought rich fauna of Sindh to near
extinction. Arab Sheikhs are allotted distinct areas, sometimes, full
districts by officials to for hunting for whole of the winter. They
have to please their financial 'donors'!  If this situation persisted
coming generations may not be able to see chinkaras, ibexes, peafowl,
ducks, swans, storks, partridges, Indus dolphin, Palo fish, etc.
etc. etc.

Sincerely,

Mir Atta Muhammad Talpur
Sindh
..................................
mailto:talpur@mail.com

From: <sindhorg@egroups.com>
eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/sindhorg
http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications