Vanishing green cover means a lesser number of migratory birds to Panidihing Bird Sanctuary

Sivasagar, Jan 6: On New Year’s Day, thousands of picnickers thronged the narrow Dhai Ali on cars, SUVs, motorbikes, and battery rickshaws which was not at all a familiar sight in an area inside the Panidihing Bird Sanctuary that is ecologically very sensitive.

The massive swath of wetland, spread across 8370.71 acres, was declared a bird sanctuary by the Governor of Assam through a proclamation under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 on December 18, 2015.

It lies on the left of Dhai Ali and the Maharani Reserve Forest lies on the right as one goes from Sivasagar towards West Panidihing.

The Maharani Reserve Forest is a denuded forest area with no trees worth the name. It is now a densely populated area with several cadastral villages under Maharani GP.

To rehabilitate about 500 flood and erosion-affected families of the Dikhowmukh, Milonkur, and Dolopa area, the government declared over 19, 200 acres of forest land as de-reserved in six phases causing the death of a lush green forest since 1928.

In 1967, a total of 4666.66 acres was de-reserved when Bhimbor Deori was the Forest Minister to rehabilitate 846 families and out of which only 85 were genuinely landless at the time.

Again, during the communist movement in the sixties, the entire forest fell into the hands of the land grabbers.

Panidihing, on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra, is virtually an avian paradise, especially in the winter season. It is because the entire wetland is flooded by the backwaters of the Brahmaputra –Demow- Desang confluence during the monsoon season.

The river waters submerge the entire Sanctuary and its periphery and help in the growth of weeds and grass in the dry season.

The aquatic birds like the geese, ducks, swans, etc converge on the fields and gregariously devour the fresh shoots and tubes of the weeds in the wee hours at dawn. The unscrupulous hunters still kill the migratory ducks with the help of furadon-type pesticides and nematicides widely used for agricultural purposes.

But due to anthropogenic activities and the construction of permanent houses by the villagers right into the sanctuary are adversely affecting the bird population in the area.

The construction of a costly truss bridge over the Demow River with its dazzling steel superstructure would definitely distract the migratory species from the sanctuary.

A beam bridge would have fulfilled the purpose perfectly. Upgradation of the historic Dhai Ali to a state high road connecting Dibrugarh and Sivasagar was in the offing, but it must have a green signal from the Green Tribunal as it runs right through the eco-sensitive region of Panidihing.

The regular winter visitors to the sanctuary are the pochards, shoveller, garganey, ruddy shelducks, grey-leg goose, bar-headed goose, grey ducks, pintails, little grebe, pelicans (dhera), bronze-winged jacanas, curlews, plovers, painted storks, white-necked storks, river terns, redshank, snipes, avocets, and many more. But due to the shrinking green cover the erstwhile Maharani Reserve forest provided, there is a lesser number of migratory species now.

The migratory geese and ducks fly off to other destinations nearby such as the Ahom era natural zoo Pahugarh, the Zereng Pathar, Rupohi pathar, Konwarpur, Gaurisagar, and other places.

The resident birds include various types of warblers, cormorants, darters, herons, egrets, bitterns, painted storks, vultures, adjutant storks, swifts, ibis, cotton teals, fishing eagles, hawks, kites, falcons, kestrels, lapwings, wagtails, coots, sandpipers, doves, pigeons, parrots, owls, nightjars, kingfishers, bee-eaters, hoopoes, rollers, wood packers, swallows, orioles, drongos, shrikes, mynas, minivets, bulbuls, crows, babblers, thrush, flycatchers, warblers, purple sunbird, flowerpecker, sparrows, buntings, and so many others continue to dwindle in numbers because of the receding green cover.

For the visitors to the sanctuary, it is good news that the Desang bridge at Akhoiphutia has made it easily approachable from Sivasagar town as the Dhai Ali has been improved with paver blocks.

The birdwatching tower and the shed in the sanctuary are in ruins now. It needs a bridge from the dyke for the visitors to reach the tower.