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Today's Paper » NATIONAL » KARNATAKA Published: March 21, 2014 00:00 IST | Updated: March 21, 2014 05:31 IST
Enticing sparrows to return Ranjani Govind
On World House Sparrow Day, observed on Thursday, we need to know that the house sparrow is old Bangalore’s forgotten resident, says Chandrashekar Hariharan, Executive Chairman and co-founder of BCIL ZED Homes. “Bangalore’s gradual deficit of green or the surfeit of concrete structures may have played spoilsport to the teeny-weeny winged creatures. This day can serve as a platform to highlight the need to conserve sparrows for urban biodiversity and aid a sustainable ecosystem. We need to get them back to their spaces amidst us,” he says. ZED foundation, which is the non-business face of green homes builder, BCIL-ZED Habitats, is trying to reverse the bird's flight and “bring sparrows back to Bangalore.”
Under the ‘Gubbi Goodu’ (sparrow’s nest) campaign, the ZED foundation has distributed 30,000 bird boxes to people across Bangalore and south India.— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.
Under its ‘Gubbi Goodu’ (sparrow’s nest) campaign, the Foundation distributed 30,000 bird boxes to people across Bangalore and south India.
It was around three decades ago that Bangalore’s homes stopped being sparrow-friendly. Says Hariharan, “Gone are the spaces, the fruit trees and with them the sparrows. Now you can see them only in city fringes. Surprisingly, they are still around the new international airport building and its surroundings at Devanahalli, 40-km away from the city centre.” Gubbi Goodu aims to be a good substitute for the lack of nesting spaces amidst trees. Add to this scattered grains and a bowl of water, which would entice the winged ones to visit, but only a continued security of food and shelter will help them stay back, says Hariharan. “Sparrows balance our ecosystem, check the insects and pests and pollinate plants. In most urbanised lifestyles, the reasons for sparrows playing truant are the lack of insects to feed their young, the radiation from mobile towers, dense concrete structures with no trees, and pollution from traffic. They are a mere 25 per sq km now and used to be around 650 sparrows per sq km in 1990,” he says. Plant fruiting trees With high-rise architecture under way in the city, the lack of nesting spaces has to be made up with cozy nooks, ledges and crevices, along with fruit trees. “That is why ZED has also requested the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike to plant fruiting trees. Since Gubbi Goodu rolled out, hundreds of families have called back to say the birds are arriving,” says Hariharan.
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