Killers turn saviours for birds in India

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Two in bush is better

 

Poachers cross the line, protect birds

Tiasa Adhya

 

 

PARTHA DEY Kishore Behera’s experience as a poacher helps him trace traps

easily

 

Looking at the youthful figure behind matted reeds along the shore, it is

hard to believe Kishore Behera was earlier called the Veerappan of Chilika.

Once a notorious bird poacher, his gaze is focussed on a purple moorhen

nest. As a crow swoops down, he swings his oar with a loud cry and drives

the crow away from the eggs.

 

Till a few years ago, the 43-year-old raided the country’s largest brackish

waterbody in search of the migratory bird species from across the world that

make Chilika their home. Panda grinned sheepishly through tobacco-stained

teeth as he talked about his poaching days. He represents a dynasty of bird

hunters in Mongalajodi, a fishing village on Chilika’s northern shores, and

knows the lake like the back of his hand.

 

Almost every night, he and several others from his village would kill

hundreds of birds and sell them in cities like Bhubaneswar and Puri. “We

would use all possible methods, from nets and gunshots to lacing the water

weeds with poison, to kill them,” recalled Behera. Bird meat is in demand

and each piece fetched us Rs 60 or so, said Ashok Behera, also a poacher

formerly. A skilled poacher could earn up to Rs 40,000 a year, he said.

 

Poaching was not always a business for the fishing communities in more than

130 villages along the lake. They killed birds only for the feast on special

occasions. Poaching became commercial in the past few decades after the fish

catch declined due to siltation in the lake, said Kishore Behera.

Conserva-tionists say 5,000 fishers from these villages are now poachers.

“The government does not dredge the lake properly and on top of it forest

officials arrest people if they hunt birds,” he rued.

 

 

The U turn

 

“People in my village gave up poaching after they earned from tourism,” said

Behera. Wild Orissa helped us to make that switch, he added.

 

The conservation group stepped in after it noticed a sharp decline in bird

population—by 98 per cent in two decades—at Mongalajodi. “Our initial visits

to the village in 1997 were met with anxiety, but there was hope that

repeated counselling would help,” said N K Bhujabal, secretary to Wild

Orissa. The activists asked Mongalajodi residents how they planned to earn

money when bird numbers dwindled. The message reached home.

 

Since the poachers know the lake and its habitat so well Wild Orissa offered

to train them as conservationists and as tourist guides. This would generate

steady income throughout the year and also protect the birds.

 

The poachers were willing; in 2000 they formed a committee and named it Sri

Mahavir Pakshi Surakshya Samity. Working with 35 poachers from the village,

the Samity has since been watching over Mongalajodi waters. A 2004 census by

Wild Orissa showed the bird count at Mongalajodi was 300,000, up from 5,000

in 2000. Their efforts were noticed. Several government agencies have sought

its help to carry out conservation work in recent years. In 2007, Chief

Minister Naveen Patnaik felicitated the poacher-turned-bird guides with

Odisha government’s Biju Patnaik Wildlife Conservation Award.

 

Wild Orissa is now working on an ecotourism project at Mongalajodi. It

offers each family Rs 2,000 a month to abstain from poaching and trains the

poacher-turned-bird guides. This includes educating them on English names of

birds. Activists say once the project kicks off in November, it would

generate employment for most villagers.

 

Asked if poaching happens still, Madhav Chandra, a resident, said poaching

is rampant in adjacent villages where most have no other sources of earning.

“Often they threaten us with dire consequences when we destroy their nets

and traps,” said Behera. But he is determined to hold on to his oars. “I

earn about Rs 60,000 a year as bird guide,” he said and smiled.