Wildlife officials feed birds in icy Kashmir

SRINAGAR, India (AP) – Animal officer Ghulam Mohiuddin Dar and his colleagues break the ice on a frozen wetland, row their boats and scatter grain to feed migratory birds in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Officials are feeding the birds to ward off hunger as weather conditions in the Himalayan region deteriorate, with two heavy snows since December. Temperatures have dropped to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit).

Vast rice fields and apple orchards are covered with snow. Numerous wetlands and lakes, including parts of the famous Dal Lake, have been frozen.

The cackling and screaming of hundreds of thousands of birds visiting Kashmir during their winter migration have long been a welcome noise to the inhabitants of the region. They come from as far away as Eastern Europe, Japan, and Turkey to feed and breed in the wetlands nestled among the region’s mountain peaks and plateaus.

“They’re our guests,” Dar said on a freezing day, dropping grain at bird feeding points in the Hokersar Marshland.

Officials say at least 700,000 birds have come to Kashmir in the past two months and expect more to arrive if the temperature improves in February.

In recent decades, the number of visiting birds has declined, which experts say is due to a combination of climate change and urban development. They say the construction around wetlands, accumulated waste and the changing climate in the Himalayas are robbing the birds of their traditional watering holes and nesting areas.

According to a recent study from the University of Kashmir, the Hokersar wetland shrank from nearly 19 square kilometers (7 square miles) in 1969 to 12.8 square kilometers (5 square miles) today.

But Kashimir’s tense security situation has made it more difficult to address environmental challenges in the famous Kashmir Valley – a vast collection of contiguous wetlands and waterways known as much for their idyllic vistas and flowery meadows as for decades of struggle against Indian rule. Since 1989, tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

The mountainous region of Kashmir, part of which is controlled by neighboring Pakistan, is traversed by hundreds of kilometers (miles) of barbed wire and patrolled by hundreds of thousands of Indian troops. It is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan.

Environmentalists are urging residents to offer the birds food in the icy conditions.

“It is not only our official duty to feed them, but also a guideline from God,” said Dar.