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Increase in bird fatality predicted as Sankranti falls on a weekend

Activists involved in rescuing and providing medical treatment to birds that get injured due to kite strings are worried. According to them, this year with the number of kites seen in the sky being much higher than last year, it could mean that the number of mortalities and injuries will rise too.

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Activists involved in rescuing and providing medical treatment to birds that get injured due to kite strings are worried. According to them, this year with the number of kites seen in the sky being much higher than last year, it could mean that the number of mortalities and injuries will rise too.

In fact, by Saturday evening there were over 150 birds reported to be injured. “We got around 100 birds from across South Mumbai and the Western suburbs, mostly pigeons, which got injured, and are being treated,” said Harsh Shah of Bird Helpline, who along with several volunteers have set up several camps across Mumbai.

Shah, voicing his concern said that, since this year Makar Sankranti fell on a weekend, more people flew kites. “Our observation suggests that this year the chances of the manjha getting entangled to branches, walls, and other places will be higher. Normally the cases of bird injuries begin flooding a day after the festival,” he said.

Bharat Amin, a resident of Ville Parle, found a bird struggling to free itself from a manjha for hours. “The bird's feet got stuck in the glass-coated string that was dangling from a tree at Irla. We spotted it around 1pm and despite calling out to everyone for help, we could set it free only around 4pm,” he said, adding that the fire brigade did not reach on time.

Sunish Subramanian, Secretary, PAWS, Mumbai, said that they rescued six pigeons, and one crow on Saturday and were were stunned at what they chanced upon while rescuing a crow. “Our volunteers saw a crow stuck in a manjha; a monkey was seen making attempts to free it by pulling the branches and the manjha," he said.

Mumbai Fire Brigade too was busy as its control room kept buzzing with bird rescue calls. “On an average we receive two calls a day informing about birds stuck in majha. On Saturday we received around 25 phone calls reporting the same,” said a fire brigade official.

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