Birds that are friends of farmers and farming are disappearing. Rapid urbanisation has left these environment-friendly birds nearly extinct. Excessive pesticide use in farming and current nets are killing them, while climate change and the destruction of large trees and forests, their habitat, are also driving them away.

Flocks of native white egrets once landed along beels and water bodies. When farmers ploughed their land or harvested crops, the birds would surround them and fill up on harmful insects. These native birds, much loved in the country's biodiversity, are now on the verge of vanishing.

Amid this hostile environment, hundreds of white egrets were seen in the fields of Defalbari village in Jhenaidah Sadar upazila as a farmer prepared land for Iri paddy. More than a hundred egrets flew in, circling the farmer's plough and eating insects with a chattering noise, sometimes rising in flocks into the sky, sometimes flying from one field to another. Passers-by were charmed by the sight.

Saiful Islam, a farmer working in the field, said the white egrets do a lot of good. They eat stem borers, hoppers and other harmful insects in paddy seedling fields, and clear up the insects that float when fields are watered, which helps the crop. "But now these white egrets are not seen as before. Caught in hunters' traps, they are almost on the way to extinction," he said.

Golam Rasul, a farmer from Balarampur village in Kaliganj upazila of the district, said he has spent his mornings and evenings in the fields since childhood. "As a child I saw many kinds of birds in the fields and woke every day to birdsong. But those birds are not seen now." Tree felling is costing birds their habitat, and pesticides on crops are killing small fish and insects, so the birds die from eating poisoned food, he said.

He added that climate change is making it hard for birds even to survive, let alone breed. A few birds are hanging on despite everything, but it is hard to say for how long. He also complained that a group of unscrupulous people catch birds and sell them in markets, but the administration takes no action.

Hasanuzzaman of Jhenaidah town said that even 15 to 20 years ago evenings were filled with the chatter of countless birds living in the bushes near homes, and people woke to birdsong. Rapid urbanisation is destroying their habitat, so birds are not seen as before.

Masud Ahmed Sanju, president of the Jhenaidah Environment and Biodiversity Conservation Committee, said the white egret, a symbol of village heritage and beauty, is no longer seen as before and is nearly extinct because of pollution and hunters' traps. Everyone must become aware to preserve this and all other birds, he said.

Sadar Upazila Livestock Officer Dr Subrata Kumar Banerjee said egrets are our natural friends and environmental conservation is very important in today's world. Pesticide use must be reduced to produce poison-free crops, and care taken that egrets do not die from eating poisoned fish and insects. Killing these birds is not allowed, and action is taken against anyone who does, he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.