The other day, I got thinking about the importance of names. Call an animal a Royal Bengal Tiger and everyone leaps to its defence (fat lot of good it’s done for tigers, but that’s not the point here). But call an animal a house sparrow or a common sparrow, and it gets so taken for granted that few even notice when it all but disappears from our neighbourhood. This little brown bird was once a common sight — nesting in the eaves, window ledges and deep verandahs of traditional bungalows. It ate all the aphids and caterpillars in the garden, so canny old gardeners always looked the other way when it also nipped off some buds or pecked out seedlings. However, today, as shiny glass-fronted buildings have replaced most old bungalows, and gardens have given way to houses with “full coverage”, the sparrows have become an increasingly rare sight in cities.
“Sparrows have adapted harmoniously to human habitats for thousands of years,” said Mohammed Dilawar, the soft-spoken lecturer from Nasik who spends much of his time and personal resources in conserving sparrows. “If they’re disappearing today, we’re to blame!” he added. In the midst of a three-year study on sparrows in India, commissioned by the Bombay Natural History Society, Dilawar has pinpointed several factors that have contributed to their declining population.
“Lack of insect food is the main reason why sparrows are dying out,” said he, adding, “and this is because of shrinking gardens and parklands in cities, and increased pesticide use.” Further, these days, more and more gardeners prefer “exotic” plants (plants that are not native to the area they’re grown in). “Unlike indigenous plants, which have evolved symbiotic relationships with other species over thousands of years, these exotic species have turned gardens into what I call Urban Green Deserts,” said Dilawar, adding, “Such gardens may be green and lush, but they don’t support the diversity of life that they ought to.”
Disturbing but true, most of the factors causing the decline of the sparrow population are equally injurious to human health. Mobile towers emit microwaves that are believed to be carcinogenic. Most exotic plants not only choke indigenous species, they also contain toxins harmful to us. And the glass-fronted buildings so many of us call home have few open spaces or ventilation necessary for our health.
Unlike in the developed world, India has no system of monitoring common birds. “Which means that basically we sit back and wait for birds like sparrows to become endangered before doing anything to conserve them,” said he. Dilawar believes that since most of us have grown up with sparrows, their conservation should be a citizens’ effort. “I’ve designed nesting and feeding boxes that may be hung on window sills and balconies, and through which people can support bird population in their neighbourhoods,” said he. Also, this year, Dilawar and his NGO, Nature Forever, initiated the first World Sparrow Day on March 20, and received an overwhelming response.
The task ahead isn’t going to be easy. “We don’t receive any funding for one thing,” said he, adding, he relied solely on family and revenues from the sale of nest boxes to run Nature Forever. However, he said it was worth it: “The presence of sparrows indicates that the urban ecosystem we inhabit is healthy. If the sparrows die out tomorrow, it will be because their habitat has been irreversibly altered. Then we may be the next to go….”