Talawe wetlands for the past three days have been brimming with the presence of Pink lesser and greater flamingos. On Wednesday bird watchers’ joy turned into concern after residents from buildings surrounding the wetlands saw a man wading into the deeper end of the lake with the intention to drive the birds away.
Numerous residents saw and shot videos of the entire event and shared it on social networking media and even tagged activists rallying to safeguard the wetlands.
“ It’s been only three days that these majestic birds have decided to return to the lake. Till now we had observed these birds to be merely flying over the lake area as though uncertain whether to land or not. Now that they have arrived there are attempts to drive them off,” said Shruti Agarwal, activist fighting to safeguard the wetlands since 2018.
The man in the video can be seen wading through the water and driving the birds away from the lake. “ We saw a man walking into the lake with a bucket in his hands and throwing things and chasing the flamingos away. Authorities need to take cognisance of the matter and take stringent action,” posted Joita Upadhyay on Twitter.
The incident according to activists are covert tactics to destroy the wetlands. The action witnessed on Wednesday afternoon is stated to be part of the plan to usurp the land for the proposed golf course and residential projects. “ Flamingos visiting the lake is one of the major hurdles for those intending to usurp the wetland area and use it for commercial purposes. While we have managed to get a stay on the project from the High Court, this doesn’t mean that the stakeholders to the project will let go of this prime land. We strongly believe that Wednesday’s activity was done purely with the intent to scare the birds away permanently,” said activist Sunil Agarwal.
Activists have been consistently asking from CIDCO to notify the area as wetland and transfer the area to the forest department.
Range forest officer Sudhir Manjre said regular patrolling of the area will be carried out. According to the officer, the action is more likely to be caused by fishermen trying to prevent the Flamingos from feeding on fishes that are farmed on the lake. “No sooner was I informed about the incident, I deputed a forest guard to catch the culprit, but by the time, we could reach the person had left. I have asked for more rounds to be done so that these birds are not disturbed in their habitat,” he said.