Five mango orchard owners to get financial support to protect birds

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FE Team | Published: November 22, 2020 22:35:08

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RAJSHAHI, Nov 22 (BSS): Five owners of mango orchards, who have bird nests, will get financial support to protect birds at Khordda Bausha village under Bagha upazila in the district.
Several thousands of Shamuk Khol birds (Asian open bill stork) have built their nests in 38 trees of the mango orchards. Each nest hosts babies who have not learned to fly yet.
The government has already allocated Taka 0.31 million for the orchard owners as compensation to make sure the birds protection.
A team of the Department of Forest Saturday visited the mango orchards and apprised the owners of the government fund allocation after seeing fowls in most of the nests.
The beneficiary owners are: Monzur Rahman, Sanar Uddin, Shahadat Hossain, Shafiqul Islam and Faruqe Anwar
Forest Conservator Mihir Kumar, Divisional Forest Officer Zillur Rahman, Assistant Conservator of Forest Mehedi Uz-zaman and Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservator Officer Rahat Hossain were the team members.
Zillur Rahman said a large number of Shamuk Khol birds have built nests in 38 trees of the mango orchard.
He said the money will be given to the owners of the orchards through the local upazila nirbahi officer within a few days.
Rahman said the birds are likely to stay for one and a half months and they will migrate when winter sets in. The birds have been behaving the same way for the last four to five years.
He said they did not want to destroy the nests as these were carrying baby storks, locally called "Shamukkol".
Four to six baby birds live with their parents in each of the nests and there are hundreds of these birds in this orchard, he added.
Meanwhile, Rajshahi Deputy Commissioner Abdul Jalil said the birds will be protected. None will be allowed to disturb them and destroy their nests in any way.