Kolleru sanctuary sees a sharp drop in bird population

The Kolleru lake, spread over the West Godavari and Krishna districts in Andhra Pradesh, has been witnessing a sharp drop in bird count over the years. According to data obtained from the 2017 and 2018 Asian Waterfowl Census (AWC), the count has fallen to 61,627 this year from 91,336 last year.

One of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia, Kolleru was declared a wildlife sanctuary in November 1999 under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. It was designated a wetland of international importance in November 2002 under the international Ramsar convention.

Several illegal fishponds, which come up in the lake after the monsoon when the water drains out into the Bay of Bengal but there is little inflow from seasonal streams, pose a major threat to the waterbody, experts said. Sewage and industrial pollutants that flow into the lake from nearby towns are other threats.

According to the Kolleru Committee report, 2010, the lake supports 200 species of birds, including the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper. One of the most inportant wetlands of India, the lake boasts of spotbilled pelicans, painted storks and Asian openbills, among several other migratory and resident birds. But of late, it’s only the pelicans that have been growing in number – the count went up from 8,701 last year to 10,629 this year. The trends pertaining to other bird species are quite disheartening, said Sudhir Moorti, a member of the Birdwatchers Society of Andhra Pradesh who was part of AWC team in Kolleru this year.

The bird counted this year seemed to be about 25% lower than that of last year, he told Hindustan Times. The species whose numbers seemed to be dwindling as per the census for the two consecutive years include herons (down from 22,181 to 12,263), glossy ibis (down from 31,000 to 6,727) and ducks (down from 10,074 to 3,882).

In line with Supreme Court directives and concerns of green activists, the Andhra Pradesh government undertook Operation Kolleru in 2006. However, the operation hardly helped revive the past glory of Kolleru lake as a home to a wide range of exotic and migratory birds, said T Patanjali Sastry, an environmentalist from Rajahmundry.

Mrutyunjaya, a bird watcher, said the state of Eluru-headquartered Kolleru wildlife division – it has skeletal staff and doesn’t have a regular divisional forest officer -- showed the government’s lack of commitment to reviving the sanctuary. He said Odisha’s Chilka lake had 10 lakh birds during latest census. But Kolleru registered a drop in bird count from 1,50,000 to 61,000 over time.

Anant Shankar, conservator of forests based in Rajahmundry holding Kolleru wildlife division as an additional charge, asserted that Operation Kolleru was good for the diversity of the lake and Kolleru cannot be compared with Chilka in terms of bird count.

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