21-yr-old pharmacy student rescues rare seabird
PALGHAR: A rare sea bird called brown booby, which is originally found in Australia and the United States, was rescued at Virar on Sunday afternoon. Suraj Pandey, a 21-year-old pharmacy student, spotted the dehydrated and tired bird, which was being attacked by crows, and rescued it.
Pandey informed forest department officials who took custody of the bird. The brown booby is now being treated at Transit Wildlife Rescue Centre,shilphata in Kalyan which is run by the forest department, and will be released in the Arabian Sea when the bird is in a better shape to fly, said Namrata Pawar, range forest officer, Virar.
Brown booby or Sula leucogaster (scientific name) is a large seabird of the booby family, Sulidae, and is found on the islands and coasts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in Australia and the United States, said Pandey who also rescues snakes.
Brown booby birds frequent the islands in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and nest in large colonies, said Bhushan Bhoir, zoology professor at Sonopant Dandekar Shikshan Mandali, popularly known as SDSM College, Palghar.
Bhoir added that the bird may have flown from Australia to Kerala or Karnataka in search of food and ended up in Palghar.
MUMBAI: The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) has asked authorities to reconsider the Virar-alibag multi-modal corridor alignment to minimise the cutting and destruction of mangroves. The proposal was deferred in a meeting held on July 7, 2020, stating that MCZMA requires a detailed survey of “quantification of mangroves” to be affected owing to the alignment.
In the meantime, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which was handling the project until recently, said that it is in the process of handing over the project to the Maharashtra State
Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which is also constructing the 701km Mumbainagpur Samruddhi corridor. AB Gaikwad, chief engineer, MSRDC however, said that it can comment on the re-alignment only after the transfer is completed.
Anil Diggikar, chairman of MCZMA, in an earlier interaction with HT had confirmed that clearance for the multimodal corridor has been deferred. As per MMRDA’S submission in 2019, the project is passing through mangroves and its 50-metre buffer zone, which is around 19.95 hectares.
MCZMA had asked the state mangrove cell to conduct a site visit to assess the damage in 2019. The cell, which visited five villages, in its report to MCZMA stated that it is necessary “to determine exact affected mangrove area and clearance under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 needs to be obtained.” It’s report states that mangroves will be affected in the villages of Rave, Dighati, Vidhane, Dighode and Koper.
The minutes further revealed that the project will pass through 3.68 lakh square metres of CRZ area and through the greenfield areas under the City Industrial and Development Corporation’s ambit.
BG Pawar, joint metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA said, “MCZMA has asked to look at an alternate alignment between Chirner to Balavali only. The decision to hand over the project to MSRDC was taken in an authority meeting held in July and is under process.”