Tags: Zoos and Animal Sanctuaries
By Anna Valmero
CANDABA, PAMPANGA – If Charles Darwin is still alive today, I would be willing to bet he’ll say the Philippines is so much richer in biodiversity— both plant and animal life —than the Galapagos Islands.
I’d like to show him that there is a treasure trove of life in our country, like avian species that we have to protect if we want them to live for the next generation of Filipinos to see.
Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP) president Mike Lu says the Philippine archipelago is home to more than 600 species of birds, 200 of which are endemic or can only be found here and nowhere else in the world. On its website, the group also has a list of rare birds that have been spotted in the country.
WBCP members are promoting bird watching in the country or the observation of birds in the wild, their natural habitat, using spotting scopes and binoculars or take photos using cameras with long lenses or through digiscoping.
On her blog, birdwatcher and photographer Trinket Canlas wrote about seeing black-winged stilts during the Asian Waterbird Census (AWC) in Candaba more than a year ago.
Another birdwatcher Anna Gonzales says they are witnessing a sharp decline in the number of water birds, which she says are more “aloof” that migratory birds they saw in the nearby town of Balanga, Bataan.
Gregg Yan, information officer of WWF-Philippines, wrote about the spate of hunting in the country as an eye-opener on how Filipinos should help protect bird life in the country before they end like the now-extinct dodo, which can only be seen in textbooks.
“Birds play a vital role in the environment, especially of the forests, by eating fruits and dispersing the seeds over wide tracts of land. Similarly, some nectar-feeders such as the Philippine Olive-backed Sunbird are important pollinators.
Seabirds improve the ecology of small islands by producing large amounts of guano which enriches (fertilizes) island soil, allowing less adaptable plants to root,” Yan says in his article.
So I make this call, not only because we are celebrating Earth Day this month, but because I sincerely believe we should do our part in conserving our birds. Let’s not wait for that day when we cannot even hear a single swallow chirping.
(Photos taken from http://katrinket.multiply.com)
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the birds are truly beautiful