Have you ever seen a house sparrow in your locality? If this question was asked some two decades ago, people would have laughed at you. There were thousands of house sparrows in the Twin Cities flying in to and out of the houses and around the houses, happily chirping away.
The association between human beings and sparrows dates back to several centuries unlike any other bird. But, unfortunately the sparrows have almost disappeared from the Twin Cities due to the destruction of its habitat, air and water pollution, increased predation by hawks and domestic cats, competition for food by other urban species, etc .
Like sparrows, several species of flora and fauna which were synonymous with the Twin Cities till a few years ago have now vanished mainly due to the interference of human beings, who are responsible for air and water pollution and other factors detrimental to their survival.
The Twin Cities have almost become a concrete jungle now due to rapid urbanisation with hardly any greenery left for the birds to nest. The human beings are responsible for the disappearance of flora and fauna and water bodies.
Apart from the sparrows, the other endangered bird species are crows, vultures, parrots, owls, kestrel, parakeet, munia, kites, Indian Roller (pala pitta), humming birds, Great Indian bustard and Jerdon’s Courser. All these are scheduled birds and most of them have been declared endangered by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
Several species of butterflies and fish have also vanished from the Twin Cities and this has been acknowledged by R Hampaiah, Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh State Biodiversity Board.
The expansion of urban areas and related issues such as pollution and habitat destruction, no doubt had left their impression on the environs, but the protected areas (public and private-owned), green islands in the form of large campuses of universities and institutions and patches of vegetation in the semi-urban and peri-urban regions provided safe haven to bio-diversity, he added.
Hampaiah said there was an urgent need to protect birds from the developmental pressures of urbanisation to maintain the eco balance. Scientific investigations carried out by the academicians of different universities and institutions in the Twin Cities on different aspects of biological diversities had revealed interesting patterns of spatiotemporal distribution of species, he said.
He said that out of the 360 butterfly species, already 100 of them had vanished due to serious air, water and sound pollution. “We have identified some these species and are breeding them outside the City. We will bring them to the City and leave them in major parks here. We have suggested to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to plant local species like neem, jamoon, tamarind, maredu, bamboo, mango, ficus and other trees as they are self-propagating trees and many birds are attracted to these trees’’ he added.
Hussain Sagar, which used to have 500 fish varieties, today has just two varieties called Tilapia and Cat Fish. These fishes were introduced to eat away weeds and water hyacinth but unfortunately they had eaten away all the other fish species present in the lake.
The immersion of idols in the lake has also led to serious water pollution, Hampaiah said and added it was time the government acted swiftly and firmly to check the pollution.
