A two-day census of waterbirds began today in 23 wetlands of Kashmir valley which host close to a million migratory birds every winter in addition to hundreds of thousands of local species.
"In connection with International Waterbird census and Asian Waterbird census 2016, the Department of Wildlife Protection organised a two-day programme at Hokersar which began today," an official spokesman said.
The programme saw participants including students, NGOs and Wildlife SOS, the spokesman said.
"The department is organising this event in all the important wetlands which include Hokersar, Shallabugh, Wullar, Dal, Anchar, Haigam and Chattlum," Chief Wildlife Warden Deepak Khanna said.
Every year thousands of volunteers across Asia visit wetlands and count water birds for population estimation which include migratory and resident birds.
"This event is called the Asian waterbird census which is part of a global water bird progarmme, the International waterbird census coordinated by Wetlands International Netherlands," Khanna said.
Prior to the exercise, an orientation session for the participants was held at Hokersar where they were given first-hand knowledge of the methodology to be adopted in counting the birds.
