A day after the inauguration of the Pokhara International Airport, writer Ganesh Poudel remarked on Facebook that the vultures displaced by the new airport had relocated to his farm house.
“Possibly their stop for the night after the last blow,” he wrote. “Like me, they too will soon be removed from the valley.”
Poudel’s family, for generations, had lived in the area where the new airport now stands. “Thousands of people were forced to move to build this airport, destroying social and cultural relations. We have even disrupted the lives of the many birds and entire ecosystems,” he added. “This is an airgrave, not an airport.”
While people whose land was occupied for the construction of the airport have received compensation and relocated, the safety of the birds including vultures, who also called the area home, has been largely ignored.
The flight path to the Chinese-funded airport crosses the habitat of vultures and eagles. Even before the completion of the airport, conservationists had raised concerns about the safety of endangered birds and the risk of potential bird strikes at the new airport. But the local government that was tasked with relocating the landfill site has failed to do so.
Every winter flocks of birds migrate to Pokhara, travelling thousands of kilometres, for its warmer climate, lakes, wetlands, overall greenery and open spaces.
For the same reasons, indigenous birds of the valley do not leave – and this has been true even after the new airport began its operations in January. Even when the noise from the airplanes does ward them off for some time, they quickly return.
“Many birds, including vultures, have spent their entire life-cycle here,” says Manshant Ghimire, chairperson of Pokhara Bird Society. “Just as it is difficult for a person to leave the place where they were born and raised, and grew old, it is the same for the birds.”
Prior to building the airport, the area was a large pasture for cattle. In addition, the nearby landfill site was perfect for vultures to fly, forage and flourish.
According to journalist Krishna Mani Baral, when the horses, donkey and other animals that grazed on the fields of Pokhara died, the vultures would take care of the carcass. For years, many birds, including the Dungar vulture, golden vulture and small gray vultures, have made the landfill site their home due to the abundance of food there.
For the past five years, bird conservationists have routinely asked the authorities to move the landfill site before the inauguration of the international airport to conserve the endangered species before too late.
Conservationists, however, remark that government agencies are not yet sensitive and serious about this. Pokhara Municipality has not yet found a proper alternative for the landfill site. In fact, a few days after the airport opened, a steppe eagle struck an airplane and died.
“To ensure the safety of airplanes, these birds must be properly relocated from the area to prevent deadly accidents,” says ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral.
Pokhara is home to nine different endangered species of vultures which have undergone considerable decline in recent years. The White-rumped vulture (Gyps bengalensis), Slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostis), Red-headed vulture (Sarcogyps calvus) and Indian vulture (Gyps indicus) are in the IUCN critically endangered list.
Conservationist Hemant Dhakal believes that the city should coordinate with scientists and ornithologists to safely relocate the vultures. “Aircraft activities could also be reduced between 10am to 2pm when vultures are most active,” he says.
According to Dhakal, who has been monitoring vultures for 10 years and is part of the IUCN Vulture Conservation Group, the airport at present uses firecrackers and sirens to drive off vultures. “It is an inhumane way and can send a bad message internationally,” he adds. “Such insensitivity can also lead to human and wildlife accidents and defame Pokhara.”
Vultures, like most birds, breed only once a year. At this time of the year, young hatchlings are just growing in their nests, and the adult vultures have no choice but to return to the airport. Baral adds, “Constructing such a big project and failing to find an alternative habitat for birds has gravely affected their lives.”
Vultures, despite their bad reputation, are integral to the ecosystem. In their absence there will be no scavengers to dispose of carrion, leading to disease outbreaks among humans and cattle. Nepal has established itself as a pioneer in vulture conservation over the years, and just when the birds are showing signs of coming back, lack of management and attention can reverse all our past gains.
12 years ago, Nepal Bird Conservation Association opened the ‘Vulture Restaurant’ in Kaski that provided food for the birds. Nepal is the first in the world to open such a food centre. Operated and managed locally, the centre provided these carrion birds uncontaminated food and was key to reviving vulture populations. In the past, vultures would leave Pokhara and go to the forest area around Kaski, but now that the forest has also decreased, they are at risk of being displaced from there too.
“Before starting the project at the international level, environment impact assessment (EIA) is done and if it is found that it will cause major damage, even big projects have to be postponed,” says Dhakal. “In the case of Pokhara, the concern around vultures were not covered in the first EIA. It was later covered in a supplementary environmental assessment, but they were also not serious.”
Looming over all this is the real problem which will soon begin in four to five months when the hatchlings will grow to fly and scavenge themselves.
Translated from the Himal Khabar original by Aria Parasai.
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