Encouraging the foreign bird trade in India

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Sunday, March 11, 2007

 

Bored? Go get a bird

More and more people in cities are rearing birds as pets, reports *Reena

Martins* FEATHERED FRIENDS: Exotic birds from Dr Debashish Banerjee's

collection (Pix: Goutam Roy)

 

In her sea-facing flat at Breach Candy, one of South Mumbai's swankiest

addresses, Sohini Patel cannot cook without Cockie by her side. " If I leave

him alone, he begins fretting and screeching, " says the middle-aged

Mumbaiite. Cockie is a young cockatiel, sitting caged on the kitchen counter

and watching Patel intently.

 

There are a great many city folk like Patel who fill the void of what is

often called an empty nest syndrome with exotic birds. As sons and daughters

move away, parents keep birds for company. Or there are families who opt for

birds because they are easier to tend than other pets. " We simply love them

for their innocence and constant activity, " says Patil.

 

That there has been a steady increase in the number of people keeping birds

for pets is something that Shivani Tandel, one of the few veterinarians in

the country specialising in bird medicine, endorses. She has been seeing

more and more of her feathered patients, some of whom get injured while

being taken out on a leash for a walk by children. " More parents are gifting

their children exotic birds in cities, as they do not take up too much of

space and time, " she says.

 

Not surprisingly, birds are now the subject of academic and public debate

too. By February end, Mumbai University's Centre for Extra Mural Studies

will be conducting the second batch of a course in raising and breeding

exotic birds — extended, says centre director Mugdha Karnik, because of

public demand. A few months ago, the Aviculture Federation of India was set

up in Calcutta, with people ranging from software engineers to doctors

enrolling as members.

 

And helping nature-starved city folk lend a touch of the jungle to urban

landscape is another growing breed of bird lovers — breeders.

 

There are big bucks to be made in the business of bird breeding. " While

exotic birds like the macaw fetch up to Rs 1.5 lakh, cockatoos go for

anything up to Rs 35,000, " says Ajit Ranade, head of the poultry science

department of the Bombay Veterinary College, Mumbai.

 

A visit to Crawford Market, an old bird market in Mumbai that is known to

get most of its birds from breeders in Calcutta, however, shows poorly

maintained birds. A pair of the finger-sized, riotous budgerigars (popularly

called love birds) is priced at Rs 80, while a solitary African Grey parrot,

perched out of reach, is for Rs 25,000. And even these, says Mumbai bird

raiser Kalpana Assar, are the rejects. " Breeders never part with their best

line. "

 

Late afternoon in one of South Mumbai's busiest alleys, bird breeder

Muffadal Tambawalla's nondescript terrace morphs into a Tower of Babel, with

the male of the species (rosellas) strutting and screeching to woo the

females. The resplendent colours of the birds, Tambwalla says, result, very

simply, from incest. In the world of birds — and of animals — kinship has no

barriers.

 

But breeding — especially African Greys, which are nowhere as demonstrative

as pigeons which kiss madly on building parapets or rooftops — is not a

simple task. Christopher Liang, an architect and breeder who has two of his

six Greys breeding, says, " To breed, they need a lot of privacy. And above

all, the pair must like each other. " But while most birds can be wooed by a

certain colour here or lines there, Greys, known best for their gift of the

gab, are more secretive about their sex.

 

Greys also come with their strong mood swings. For instance, Smokey, a Grey

belonging to Mumbai breeder and businessman Chandrahans Rajda, is shy of

strangers, but behaves in an outlandish manner when a favourite member of

the family enters the room. Smokey, by then in a cage, turns upside down,

knocking his beak hard against the cage bars. Some delicate caressing by the

object of his affection, and he is back in place.

 

It is this quality of birds that prompts Debashish Banerjee, a dentist and

bird breeder in Calcutta who boasts a collection of over 500 birds, to

advise a depressed patient to go get a bird.

 

But if birds can de-stress, they are also vulnerable to stress in the

environment, as Patel learnt the hard way. " They pluck their feathers.

Sometimes, they just go quiet and fall dead. "

 

Dr Banerjee stresses that it is difficult for a lay person to care for

birds. When a bird needs to be injected, one of the biggest challenges is to

find a vein for the injection. Raising a bird requires the handler to be

anything but half-baked in his choice of food and medicine.

 

Rajda's Smokey shares the family's taste for *dal* and rice — apart from

fruits and vegetables. Dr Banerjee estimates that while the monthly food

bill for a pair of Greys could go up to Rs 700, that for a breeding pair

would hover around Rs 2,500 — for fruits, vegetables, nuts and even

macademia seeds that have to be imported.

 

Rajda's canaries, which whistle like milk cookers, eat vegetables, bird seed

and even boiled eggs, which he grates every morning. " No two birds are alike

in their tastes, even within the species, " he says. Serve the wrong fare and

you'll find the bird picking on its food or even going hungry.

 

Breeding in captivity is a clinical process, which banks heavily on

meticulous work and hygiene. During the breeding season — November to

February — Rajda keeps a hawk eye on his birds' progress, from laying to

hatching — coded with magenta and green coloured *bindis*. " Eggs take an

average of 12-18 days to hatch. In another 14 days, the chicks start to look

like their parents. "

 

Bird breeders and raisers believe that they are good for the feathered

creatures. " A bird in captivity has a longer life span — about 20 years

—whereas in the wild it would have lived hardly for five years and died if

sick, " says Dr Banerjee. But not everybody is happy with the arguments.

Bittu Sehgal, environmentalist and editor, *Sanctuary*, calls the practice

of caging birds abhorrent. " It's a subliminal way to demonstrate dominance, "

he says.

 

Being at constant loggerheads with animal lovers also causes breeders and

bird raisers to veer towards a strict code of secrecy. " I do not tell people

that I have and breed exotic birds, as I am never sure of the consequences, "

says Rajda. But despite India being a signatory to the Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which restricts the trade

of foreign birds, there is no legislation to back it up. The Wildlife

Protection Act, 1972, bans the capture and trade only of the 1,200 varieties

of indigenous birds.

 

Mita Banerjee, regional director, wildlife protection department in the

Central government, takes a more serious view. " The channels through which

birds are smuggled are the same as those for arms and drugs. " And given that

the birds are of foreign origin, they need to be registered with her

department — " something that nobody has done till date, " she says. " Breeders

are not interested in doing business legally. "