Date:23/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/23/stories/2008082357292000.htm

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Experts suggest sparrow census

Mumbai: Voicing concern over the dwindling population of sparrows, experts have suggested a census of the bird.

“We have sent a project to the Ministry of Environment and Forest to conduct a census of sparrows,” Bombay National History Society Envis Centre scientist-in-charge Girish Jethar, an ornithologist, said. There has hardly been any study on sparrows, he said.

Being domestic birds, sparrows have not been able to attract the attention of wildlife activists and conservationists, Dilawar Mohammad, founder of Nature India, which champions the cause of sparrows, said. “There is total apathy over the issue of dwindling sparrows due to lack of any kind of national data on the bird.”

The decline in the numbers of this chirpy bird is attributed to environmental changes following ecological disturbance, coupled with the increase in electro-magnetic radiation and the destruction of its natural habitat. — PTI