Bird Paradise at Risk!!

Sheikha Jheel: From hunters' playground to bird paradise. Destruction of valuable habitat in the name of development is a problem that must be monitored and prevented. The article stresses this point fervently

- DR ASAD RAHMANI

Forty-eight years is a long period to remain connected to a small, once-neglected wetland but if the results are good, one gets a feeling of achievement. I first heard of Sheikha Jheel in 1975 when I was doing PhD in the Aligarh Muslim University. My constant fight with local hunters was a topic of discussion, and also denigration, in the university. The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 that banned hunting and trapping, was in its infancy and some so-called ‘sportsmen’ still thought that hunting was their birthright. Having heard that a large number of ducks and geese were being slaughtered, I travelled to Sheikha (1975) in a rickety overcrowded bus, despite the morbid warnings and threats by hunters. My introduction to Sheika Jheel, however, started on a memorable note as I saw a pair of Sarus with a juvenile, and thousands of ducks.

A few letters to the Chief Wildlife Warden of Uttar Pradesh to protect Sheikha resulted in the visit of the Wildlife Warden of Agra-Meerut region, Mr O.P. Tyagi, who agreed to post a guard at Sheikha. This brought some control on rampant poaching. Till I joined BNHS in 1980, I was a regular visitor to Sheikha. Meeting with villagers got me the assurance that they would not allow hunting anymore. Villagers even started chasing the hunters, who (rightly) blamed the young researcher of the University for spoiling their “sport”. Once the Department of Wildlife was established in AMU in the mid- 1980s, Sheikha Jheel became an open-classroom to teach bird identification to students. In the 1990s, I got it included in the list Wetlands of National Importance of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, and in 2016 it was declared a bird sanctuary.