Migratory birds visiting the famed Oussudu Lake, a bird sanctuary co-managed by Puducherry and Tamil Nadu are meeting a fatal end and ending up as food in eateries due to unabated poaching and lack of a stricter vigil on the part of the Forest Department.

The inter-State lake covers an area of 800 hectares, of which 390 hectares lies in Puducherry. In 2008, the lake was declared as a sanctuary by the Puducherry government making it the first ever sanctuary in the Union Territory.

Significant wetland

In fact, this lake is identified as a wetland of national importance under the National Wetland Conservation Programme of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), and has also been declared one of the 93 significant wetlands in Asia by the Asian Wetland Bureau.

Hundreds of migratory birds, especially Spot Billed Pelicans, Painted Stork, Spoon Billed Ducks, Whistling Ducks, Black Headed Ibis, White Ibis and Painted Stork, flock the lake during October to February every year for nesting and breeding and a number of the birds are poached right under the nose of the Forest Department.

The modus operandi of the poachers is to trap the birds by mixing poisonous substance in fish and grains on the sprawling lake. A visit to the periphery of the lake bordering Pathukannu revealed the unabated massacre of birds with carcasses of several Spot Billed Ducks and Pelicans lying on the dry lake bed.

An ornithologist said that the sprawling Kaluveli Lake in Villupuram and Odiyur Lake in Kancheepuram had gone bone dry owing to severe drought and only a few lakes such as the Oussudu Lake contained. Though the water level in the lake had dwindled it had become a favourite haunt for poachers since it had been attracting birds even during the lean season.

Earlier, primitive tribes including those belonging to the Narikorava community were mainly engaged in poaching of the birds. But of late the lake had also been facing several threats including pollution, invasion of wild weeds, illegal fishing and poaching of endangered birds, he said.

A couple of years ago, the Coimbatore-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACEN) handed over to the Wildlife Department a Comprehensive Management Action Plan for Conservation of the Oussudu Sanctuary that encompassed threat identification, minimisation and control, protection, eco-restoration, research and monitoring, outreach and nature education.

“However, more than nine years after the Lake was declared a bird sanctuary, the Forest Department has failed to take up any conservation measures.

No watchtowers

The sanctuary has no watch towers and large expanse of unfenced areas has enabled poachers to make their way into the sanctuary for poaching. There has been a rise in incidents of poaching due to absence of any patrolling inside the sanctuary,” a bird watcher said.

A wildlife activist said the sanctuary was already facing lot of human related disturbances and boat operations should be stopped permanently. The islands inside the lake are the nesting site for the birds.

However, the Puducherry Tourism Development Corporation which operates the boats ferries tourists close to the islands to enable them take photographs disturbing their habitat, he said.