DECCAN HERALD
Saturday, April 27, 2002
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Poaching threatens Indian Swiftlet in W Ghats
Devika Sequeira
DH News Service
PANAJI, April 26
They may delight the gastronomic tastebuds of many in the Far East. But
environmentalists from Ratnagiri are hardly amused that the authorities in Karnataka
and at the Centre have done little to protect the 'edible' nests of the Indian
Swiftlet from poachers during the breeding season.
The nests, being extensively poached in the Vengurla Rocks Island (Maharashtra) and
Netrani Island (North Kanara) now that the bird's breeding season is on, are smuggled
out to Hong Kong, Singapore and China where they are considered a culinary speciality,
says the Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM), a Chiplun-based nature conservation group.
According to SNM secretary Vishwas Katdare, the Maharashtra Forest Department arrested
7 persons last year for poaching nests on the Vengurla Rocks after a complaint from
his organisation.
Based on information provided by the poachers, members of his group travelled to
Netrani Island this February to discover that nest smugglers had been as active in the
caves there too.
Mr Katdare told this newspaper that after they found evidence of bamboos and rough
ladders in the Netrani caves, they wrote to the Deputy Conservator of Forests at
Honnavar, asking that he take action against the poachers and ensure protection to the
nests through the breeding season from March to May. He has received no response till
today.
Mr Katdare points out that unless the Indian Swiftlet is included in the Schedule I of
the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, it will be under threat in the Western Ghat region
which is its natural habitat.
The poachers, he says, ususally discard the eggs and target the first-built nest
which, according to experts is made out of "pure coagulated saliva; thus of some
gastronomic and commercial value".
Dr Salim Ali and S D Ripley's Handbook of Birds of India and Pakistan describes the
Indian Swiftlet as a "tiny, slender blackish brown swift with a slightly forked
tail... Huge colonies inhabit natural caves and grottoes in the cliffs of hills of the
Western Ghats complex and the rocky islets on the Malabar coast."
They also write, "till about the turn of the century, the right to collect the nests
of the Swiftlet for export to China was auctioned by the Government of Bombay, but the
business was never considerable...The main localities which supplied the nests were
Vengurla Rocks and Pigeon Island (also known as Netrani or Nitran) off the coast of
North Kanara."
The Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra also discovered a breeding colony of the Whitebelled Sea
Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) on Netrani Island. This species generally requires a
huge territory for nesting and is rarely found nesting on such a small island, says Mr
Katdare who counted a total of 20 nests and 57 birds on the island.
He feels the Karnataka government should declare Netrani a sanctuary because it could
be the only island in India with such a large population of the Whitebelled Sea Eagle.
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