Winged guests have started arriving from thousands of kilometres away and their hunters have also become active.
A man was arrested in Bilkurul, a wetland in Bharatpur I block in Kalindi, Murshidabad, on Friday with a net and birds trapped in them. The birds were alive.
The Telegraph sent the pictures of the birds to birdwatcher and conservationist Sujan Chatterjee, who identified them as different species of sandpipers. “They fly in from central Asia,” he said
“We got a tip-off and raided the wetland early in the morning. We arrested a man with the net and the birds. He was produced in a court that sent him to jail custody till November 9,” said a forest official.
“The nets were set up after sundown and removed before sunset. We had received information from some residents about the killings,” said Soumyadip Mondal, a volunteer with an NGO called Human and Environment Alliance League (HEAL).
During winter, when the water recedes, the wetlands of West Bengal are the destination of many migratory birds, mainly from central Asia and the Trans-Siberian region.
The water recedes after monsoon and the shallow water is ideal for the birds to feed on insects. But the shallow water is also ideal for hunters to set up poles on which the nets are erected.
In the dark, the nets are not visible and the birds flow into them to get trapped. They are then captured and killed for meat.
“The hunters often avoid local markets and sell on the sly,” said Mondal.
“Migratory birds start arriving in September. The hunters also become active at the same time. The birds are at risk at multiple such wetlands across the state, including some near Kolkata,” said Chatterjee.
In November 2020, a man was arrested from Bortir Bill in Nilgunj, North 24-Parganas, around 35km from the heart of Kolkata with a net and dead birds. The arrest has blown the lid off an alleged mass killing of birds at the wetland by a section of residents of the area, wildlife activists said.
