Hungry birds and animals during the COVID- 19 lock down

A murder of crows and not flock is the collective noun! It’s 5 am or earlier in the morning and the crows are cawing incessantly in the half morning light, just outside our windows. We have never had this happen during normal times. Yes, maybe in the hot and humid afternoons you might get the odd crow or raven, sit on a branch and caw lazily, making a mess of the path below with its droppings. Instead this is a wild incessant cawing, almost shouting,with dozens of them flying crazily around between the branches, which is most unsettling. And its happening everyday when COVID -19 hit. Usually when nature is in trouble the first to know are the birds and the animals. Thats what happened with the tsunami when it struck all over the Asia Pacific zone. Flocks of birds went squawking and fleeing inland and it was only man who was dumb, in the face of adversity and faced the brunt of the awful smash of the waves.

Crows are scavengers and are necessary for a healthy ecosystem. In the present scenario we feel it’s because the birds are hungry, and since they are scavengers they can’t find any food. Crows will eat practically anything. Their diet consists of various road-kill, insects, frogs, snakes, mice, wasted human fast food, even eggs and nestlings of other birds.Crows are known as natural scavengers because they eat dead animals and plants and clean up the ecosystem. Because crows are scavengers by nature, they tend to live in cities inhabited by humans in order to feed on their household waste. In this case because of the COVID-19 lockdown, humans are not throwing their waste food everywhere in the open as is the norm, so they are literally starving for food. Is that why they are so testy?

Crows are bold and cocky birds The term "murder" was used to describe a flock of crows as far back as the 15th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. There was a time in England when it was fashionable to coin words for groups of animals, based on their qualities, whether perceived or real. Hence we have a pride of lions, a gaggle of geese, and a murder of crows. Lions were thought to be regal beasts, so they got a proud name. Geese were noisy, flocking creatures, so their group name reflects that. Crows were thought to be loud, thieving birds, so their group name reflects those traits. If you've ever heard dozens of agitated crows in full cry, it really does sound as if they're yelling bloody murder.

Stray dogs are scavengers too Also, the basis in fact is probably that occasionally crows will kill a dying crow who doesn't belong in their territory or much more commonly feed on carcasses of dead crows. As for stray dogs in India, there are an estimated 35 million stray dogs that live in India and according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) India faces about 18,000 to 20,000 cases of rabies every year. This is from WHO statistics from 2018. Today there was a horrible story of a dog carrying away a woman’s new born child in UP from the hospital in the Bangalore Mirror. It’s shocking that such things happen in this day and age. With COVI-19 again, there is no waste food being thrown out for the dogs to feed on, because of human lockdown. They need to eat so will attack the defenceless. According to reports more than 1.3 million people were bitten by dogs in Mumbai in 2018. Kolkata has a population of more than 80,000 stray dogs, according to the NGOs in the city. But the number is constantly rising due to a sluggish sterilisation drive. Activists in the city blame the administration for not pushing animal control policies, including spaying and neutering, which would have possibly helped avoid some of the current problems. Similarly in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh there are around 16,000 stray dogs in the city and according to officials the population has increased by 3,000 due to failed efforts by civic bodies in administering sterilisation and other vaccinations to reduce the population.

Strays tend to hang out in packs which are dangerous The simple reason that India has such a huge number of stray dogs, is the lack of clean habits in the population in disposal of their waste food. Stray dogs rely on garbage while hunting for food. Countries that have garbage kept in bins and are cleaned regularly have no stray dogs, besides they also have laws enforcing that.

Avoid a pack as they can attack as a gang India also has fewer government and NGO services that deal with stray dogs. In many developed and developing countries, the government spays and neuters stray dogs to decrease their population growth. Many countries have organisations like Animal Control, the Humane Society, the SPCA, private shelters, and rescue organisations, that take care of the stray dog problems. The Indian government has to come up with large scale interventions with the judicious implementation of regulations that need to be renewed and implemented in a more organised way.