Mohammad Rafiqul, a poultry seller, had bought lesser whistling ducks in a village and was carrying the ducklings around town in a sack to sell when members of Nature and Wildlife Conservation Community, a volunteer group that has long worked on conservation in Pabna, spotted them.
The volunteers explained the wildlife protection law to him. After he promised never to trade in wild birds again and to let these go, they took him along to the lake in front of Swadhinata Hall on the campus of Pabna University of Science and Technology, where the 14 ducks were released.
A photo story by Prothom Alo photographer Hasan Mahmud follows the rescue: a university teacher examining the birds, the group releasing them together, and all 14 taking off at once.
Tired and weak, the ducks splashed about on the water for a while and then rested with their eyes closed on the cool lake; the green campus offers them plenty of cover. At dusk they flew off together in search of a safe roost.
The lesser whistling duck is a familiar bird of Bangladesh's wetlands, and local conservationists regularly step in like this to stop wild birds being sold and to return them to the wild.
Photo: lesser whistling duck (file), JJ Harrison / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Photographs of the release: Hasan Mahmud, Prothom Alo.
Source: Prothom Alo
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