Activists urge probe as flamingos wander away from wetlands
The flamingo was allegedly killed in a hit-and-run accident
For the first time in the history of the flamingo city of Navi Mumbai, some pink birds were seen walking along Palm Beach Road in the wee hours of Friday, claimed Navi Mumbai-based Environmentalists.
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“We saw one bird rolling and trying to stand on the service road off Palm Beach at the NRI signal and tried to rescue it. After a while, the bird collapsed and died,” said 22-year-old cinematographer and bird lover Hamraj Khurana. He alerted the NRI police which kept the bird aside as nobody else could be contacted at that time. “This is a case of a hit-and-run and the CCTV camera in the vicinity ought to have recorded the incident that occurred around 1.45 am,” Khurana added.
Khurana noticed another flamingo walking on Palm Beach Road, later, and posted a video on his Instagram page.
“It is bizarre that the flamingos came out of their wetland habitat and landed on the road,” NatConnect Foundation director B N Kumar said and called for an investigation by the environment department.
“The DPS Flamingo Lake is dry and few birds that land there could be struggling to get food. The NRI wetland is dirty and hardly any flamingos land there. We observe thousands of flamingos landing at TS Chanakya wetland during the high tide in Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary (TCFS) and hundreds of bird lovers thronging the area,” Kumar added.
NatConnect has once again appealed to Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) to push the City and Industrial Development Corporation to hand over the DPS Flamingo Lake and save biodiversity.
Environment lover Rekha Sankhala expressed her shock at the death of the birds and appealed to motorists to be careful when they speed away on empty roads. NMMC which erected solar lamp panels at TS Chanakya removed them after environmentalists protested as the structures could impact the birds in the wetland. CIDCO was also forced to pull down a gigantic sign board at Nerul Jetty after seven flamingos died as they crashed into the structure.
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