Afghan Birds MIA After US Bombing

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Afghan Birds MIA After US Bombing

Saturday, 29 December, 2001, 00:32 GMT

The Siberian crane is globally endangered

By Jill McGivering | BBC South Asia Correspondent

 

Ornithologists in Pakistan fear that populations of birds whose migration

route takes them over Afghanistan may have been devastated by the weeks of

bombing there.

 

On the shores of Rawal Lake, a key conservation area only about 10 minutes

drive from the centre of Islamabad, there is a sound that cannot be heard

this year - a whole bird population which has suddenly gone missing.

 

For the birds, the timing of the bombing could not have been worse

 

Dr Masoud Anwar, a bio-diversity specialist who monitors wildlife here,

usually he sees several thousand ducks and other wildfowl migrating here

from Central Asia via Afghanistan.

 

So far this year, not one has arrived. It is a conservation disaster.

 

" We are trying to conserve bio-diversity here, and we need the bird for

that. If there's no birds, we cannot go for the conservation, " he says.

 

KILLED OR DEROUTED

 

The same reports are coming from all over Pakistan: tens of thousands of

ducks, cranes and other birds depend on Pakistan as a winter habitat, and

Afghanistan is a key migration route.

 

Oumed Haneed, an ornithologist with Pakistan's National Council for

Conservation of Wildlife, says it is unclear why the birds have not

appeared.

 

" One impact may be directly the killing of birds through bombing, poisoning

of the wetlands or the sites which these birds are using.

 

" Another impact may be these birds are derouted, because their migration is

very precise. They migrate in a corridor and if they are disturbed through

bombing, they might change their route, " he says.

 

DEVASTATION

 

Cranes are perhaps the most at risk. Three species of crane winter in

Pakistan - all of them are rare. One, the Siberian Crane, is globally

endangered.

 

Asheik Ahmed Khan of the Worldwide Fund for Nature says the signs so far are

very disturbing.

 

" Previously the hunters, they used to see cranes in a group of 50 or 55.

This year, they could not see them in a group of more than three. The group

has become very small, and it means something is happening, somewhere. "

 

Down at the lake, monitoring teams are waiting in the hope of late arrivals.

 

The real impact on migrating birds will not be known until surveys are

completed.

 

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