Water birds tickling tipplers' taste buds
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Kochi City Edition on 04 Sep 2004)
By Binu Karunakaran

The water birds in the wet land belts of West Kochi, Kottayam and Kumarakorn are encountering a grave threat: Culinary perversions of the toddy shop kind. Spicy dishes of young little and large cormorants and whistling teals are the favourites at the toddy shops. Poachers are making a killing out of their trigger-happy pastimes. While youths in West Kochi fan out in the night with air guns, eager to put pellets in the tender flesh of night herons and egrets, poachers climb up teak and mango trees in Nattakarn pulling down the cormorant nests to collect chicks. The sack load of cormorant chicks are then taken to the toddy shops where they are 'dressed' and served along with sweet toddy. All these birds belong to protected species under the Wildlife Act and fetch the poachers  around Rs 160 per kg. 

"When the adults return in the evening, they flap around with agonised cries. It is a sad scene," says Surna, a Public Health Centre nurse who has, seen the poachers in action. Environmentalists say poaching of protected birds is nothing new in the Kottayam-Kumarakom-Alappuzha belt. "A change can be made only if the authorities are more alert. But the most important thing is to increase the awareness of people," says Dr B.Sreekumar, president of the Kottayam Nature Society. 

The flip side? Cormorants are considered a sensory nuisance because of the stink emanating from their droppings. Fishermen say the birds bring down the fish wealth in the backwaters. Naturalists, like Eldo, dismiss it as a myth. "Cormorants feed on predatory fishes like cat fishes and thus help in maintaining the balance," he says. 

An interim bird survey by the Kottayam Nature Society and the Forest Department had found that there was an increase of 9.5 percent in the cormorant family in the region. While the little cormorants almost doubled their numbers from 1,229 in 2003 to 2,447, the great cormorants came down from 219m 2003 to 21 in 2004. Bird census held in January 2003 had found that there was one- third reduction, in cormorants, Says Sreekumar 

"You can avail the meat of these 'bird's easily in West Kochi," says Antony, who was shocked by the offer of meat by a poacher a month ago. Poachers sell the birds hunted from the mangroves in' toddy shops in Mundamveli and Chellanam. Sreekumar and Antony blame the rise in air gun culture for the widespread poaching of the birds. B. Joseph, Deputy Director, Conservation West Zone, says the forest department regularly organises raids to counter the menace. "We registered four cases against toddy shops in Alappuzha last year. But it is very difficult to nab the poachers" he says.