| Nets
were not being widely used, but at a few places they were
being used to protect fish stocks from feeding birds and in
other places they were more randomly stretched across ponds.
The corpses of 3 Black Drongos, 1 White-browed Crake and 2
Pond Herons, 1 Greater painted Snipe and a large number of
smaller and badly decomposed birds were noted in nets at the
site.
Far
more widespread, however, at this site, are the hooks which
are suspended from long strings, stretching across many ponds.
In the past this practcie was restricted to just a few ponds,
but now this rather nasty threat to birds seems to have spread
to almost every part of Muang Boran fishponds and there must
be thousands of these deadly hooks waiting to catch birds
unaware. From casual observations on the 8th March, it appears
that Yellow and Cinnamon Biterns are particularly prone to
capture in this method with corpses of these two species being
notably more abundant than any other species, although a number
of drongos and mynas also seem to fall foul of this obstacle.
Although
artificially high numbers of birds are probably present because
of the abundant food supply of fish, it is upsetting to see
so many bird corpses at this site. |
|
Bird-catching
Hook
(Photo by Nick Upton) |
