(CN) Building workers kill nesting colony of birds

[Guest guest]

Building workers kill nesting colony of birds

By Zhou Kuanwei

Shanghai Daily

2007-7-30

 

NEARLY a thousand young egrets were killed when

construction workers felled a small forest in

Shanghai's Qingpu District last week.

 

The newly hatched birds fell to their death after the

workers cut down camphor and yulan trees because their

wings were not strong enough for them to fly, said a

local resident surnamed Chen.

 

" I saw the little white injured egrets fall to the

road, " said Chen. The bulldozers are clearing land to

make way for a new community named Xinchengshengjing

built by the Xincheng Real Estate Company, registered

in Jiangsu Province.

 

The corpses of birds and shattered eggs were left

lying under the leaves of the felled camphor trees

among the bulldozers. In the heat, the smell of

decomposing flesh and eggs is disturbing nearby

residents since the workers started felling trees last

Thursday.

 

" We have cleaned up a lot of bodies today but there

were more lying on the ground than several days ago, "

said a security guard working in a community nearby.

 

" I saw many children enter the forest and put the

fallen chicks, still fighting for life, in bags to

bring them home to feed them. "

 

More than 1,700 square meters of trees were cut down.

The felled trees are to the west of Huijin Road and

the south of Huaying Road.

 

A spokesman for Xincheng said the forest was earmarked

for redevelopment but did not know the felling would

lead to the birds' death, and refused to comment

further.

 

" The behavior is really brutal, " said an unidentified

worker from another construction team. " We planted

those camphor and yulan trees but now they are all

destroyed, as well as the poor birds. "

 

Summer is the main breeding season for egrets. Each

female has three or four eggs, and looks after the

chicks for 45 days.

 

Photo:

A live egret is found yesterday in a garden in

Shanghai's Qingpu District, where part of a forest has

been chopped down to make way for a property project.

 

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=325278 & type=Metro

 

 

______________________________\

____

7 Mail has just got even bigger and better with unlimited storage on all

webmail accounts.

http://au.docs./mail/unlimitedstorage.html