Migratory birds are being hunted in various parts of Satkhira, including the Sadar upazila. Unscrupulous local people are defying a government ban to set different kinds of traps for the birds, and some are also shooting them with guns and air guns.
As a result, Satkhira's wetlands and beels have become unsafe for migratory birds. Flocks of egrets, whistling ducks, cormorants, long-necked cranes and other species arrive at the Goalpota beel and Khoriadanga beel in Brahmarajpur union of the Sadar upazila, the Achhandanga beel in the Dhulihar area, the Komorpur beel, Ellachar, Bokchora and elsewhere.
Hunters flee, one comes back empty-handed
Mizanur Rahman Babu, chairman of Dhulihar Union Parishad, said some unscrupulous people were hunting birds in different places. Five to seven days earlier he had received word that migratory birds were being hunted at night in the Jugipota beel, but when he rushed there the hunters fled. Everyone in the area has been urged to stop hunting birds.
Bablur Rahman, a resident of Dhulihar union, said he regularly sets traps to catch birds in the Komorpur beel. On Sunday, 8 December, he went there and came back empty-handed, without catching a single bird.
Asked where he had gone hunting, he said: "The Komorpur beel, but I didn't get a single bird."
Migratory birds fly in flocks to the country's canals and beels drawn by shrimp, puti and other small fish. But their habitats have now become unsafe, as a class of poachers stands in the way of their free movement, damaging biodiversity and the environment. Such complaints come not only from Satkhira Sadar but from several other upazilas as well.
Legal action promised
Debashish Chowdhury, Satkhira Sadar Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO), said he had received complaints of migratory birds being hunted in various places. Everyone had earlier been urged not to hunt them, and legal action would be taken against those still doing so.
He said that if local people helped with information while birds were being hunted, a mobile court would be run on the spot to take action.
Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
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