Kite flying is done with fun and fervour across India on the occasion of Makar Sankranti/Uttarayan festival and on India’s Republic Day and Independence Day cebrations held in the month of January and August, respectively.
Every year, thousands of birds across India lose their wings and their lives due to injuries caused by the glass-coated kite flying maanja/string, used for flying kites and in kite flying competitions. These are usually Made in China and are preferred over the traditional Indian cotton thread string/”saddi”, as they are sharp and help cut the other person’s kite string and help people win bets, games and kite-flying competitions.
What people don’t realise is that their moment of pleasure and entertainment is blood-sucking! As heads, wings or claws of birds are mutilated by maanja, once entangled in it. Birds die of excessive blood loss or are crippled for life.
Please let us not entertain ourselves at the cost of these lives.
Not only does this glass-coated manja hatm animals and birds, it has also fatally harmed kids, adults and bikers.
Flying kites with manja is definitely no fun for families who lose their loved ones or for birds who become entangled and fatally injured in the deadly glass-coated string.
Manja is deadly to thousands of pigeons, crows, owls and other birds who get entangled in it. The birds’ wings are often severed, dooming the animals to an agonising death.
Even after the kite flying festivals are over, these manjas which remain entangled on electricity poles or tree branches, continue to entrap them.
Credits: This article has been posted here thanks to the information circulated by Charu Shah through the Facebook Group ‘Awareness on Kite Flying’, Neha Patel (from Baroda, Gujarat), Nilesh Bhanage (from PAWS Mumbai), Fauna Police (at Delhi) , Wildlife Rescue (at Delhi)
Every year, the festival of Makar Sankranti (falling this year on 14th January 2011) is celebrated with a lot of joy and cheer, but hardly few people know that this joy causes death to many innocent birds.
People use manja/kite string made of glass, so that the kites they fly don’t get cut easily and fly higher, but what they don’t realise is that the same threads responsible for killing a lot of birds every year while crippling others for life.
This glass manja (glass powder treated string or also called Chinese string/manja)gets entangled in the trees and cause death not only on that particular day, but for months after that.
The legs or wings of the birds that sit on those trees, have nests therein or fly past its branches get entangled in this manja, and stay there, sometimes hanging upside down for days …on end, bleeding, and dying a slow miserable death.The most common bird to fall prey to kite flying in the city of Delhi is ironically a raptor bird, known as Kite (to learn more about this, read this article till the end).
Apart from regular birds like sparrows, pigeons, crows, some exotic birds, who have migrated from far off places across the world, also get entangled in the web of glass manjas and loose their lives.
Not to mention here that many humans also get their throats and fingers slit because of these manjas hanging lose all over the place.
So if possible, please celebrate the festival spreading cheer and not death!
(Design Courtesy: Fauna POLICE)
Attached below are come contact numbers for bird rescue in Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Baroda (Gujarat).
All these numbers have been verified by Ahimsa in malad and by Charu Shah, so please forward this piece of information to all your contacts, and please try to save a life this year!
Please note that some of these people listed below may not have an ambulance service to come and take the injured bird, but YOU CAN (and should) definitely take an injured bird you spot to either of these people and request them to administer it medical treatment and take care of the bird until it is fit to fly again.
Why do so many Raptors get injured in Delhi because of kite strings?
Poster Courtesy: PAWS
Delhi is one of the largest producers of meat, as a result of which large amount of meat scrap gets dumped across various corners of the city in illegal slaughterhouses spread across the city. The extinction of Vultures acted as a boon for Black kites (Milvus migrans) and gradually, there was a rapid rise seen in the population of Black Kites.
In India, people love to fly paper kites with the help of sharp glass coated strings/Glass Manja. This string acts like a ‘naked sword’ in sky and generally cuts everything which comes in its way whether it’s a bird or any human being. There have been many cases in which this ‘Manja’ has killed many human beings with fatal wounds on their throat.
We request you to kindly consider giving up kite flying or if you still love flying kites, fly them using a coton string, referred to as ‘saddi’ in Hindi .
For the glass string that gets tied on poles, tree branches also acts as an inevitable injury and death trap for birds of all species as they get entangled in them.
Once caught in these glass manjas, these birds are find it extremely difficult to break free and in the effort that they make to free themselves from these mesh of strings, they end up damaging their wings and other body parts, like damaging their toes.
If ever you spot an injured bird of prey like Kites, Eagles or any other non-vegetarian birds, please dial the following Helpline Numbers in Delhi – 9810029698, 9810129698,
For all other kind of birds, like Crows, Pigeons, Owls etc.,contact : 9810639698, 986855222, 9212111116
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