Feathered assistants in the fields

published on 10/30/13 10:17 AM

Photo: wikipedia.org

Montagu's Harrier, a middle-sized bird of the harrier family, is among the endangered species in Europe. It can’t be spotted in North Bulgaria for a long time and its population in the southern parts is rapidly decreasing, environmentalists alarm. Why should we protect Montagu's Harrier, as envisaged in a Wild Balkans’ project, kicked off in the spring? Because of biodiversity – this is the first answer. However, species like this one, along with Lesser Kestrel for instance are important assistants to humans, regarding agricultural activities in the fields.

“Montagu’s Harrier is a really interesting bird that nests in fields of wheat and barley,” head of the project Dr. Hristina Klisurova says. “We call these birds feathered assistants in the field, since they help us in the fight against vermin in agriculture. Montagu’s Harrier eats mice and other similar rodents that it chases across the fields.”

So why do these useful and quite pretty birds disappear? Pesticides, used in agriculture that are poisonous to rodents are the first reason – hence the poisoning of the birds via the food chain. The expanding mechanization of the fields is the other enemy, especially in the harvesting period. Here is the expert’s explanation:

“The first days of harvesting usually coincide with the last days, before the small birds fly away from the nests. Those often fall victims of harvester combines in the fields. They become unknown victims, since people, working with the machineries have nothing against the birds, but are not aware of their existence or do not know how to find and rescue them.”

Little Montagu’s Harriers, saved one way or another have often become patients at the wildlife rehabilitation center of Green Balkans in the town of Stara Zagora. The environmental organization launched this spring an information campaign in the areas of South Bulgaria, where the still surviving population of the species is concentrated – around the towns of Stara Zagora, Nova Zagora, Chirpan, Harmanli and Yambol.

“We spent the entire summer, explaining to people, involved in field harvesting activities how they could protect the offspring of Montagu’s Harrier,” Dr. Klisurova goes on to say. “Then after the harvest, in September, we kicked off an information campaign across the schools in the settlements mentioned. We try to inform the students on the negative consequences of the eventual disappearing of these feathered assistants from the fields. And those young people do understand us. If these birds disappear, farmers will have to start to use poisons against mice. They could easily go into the water, then, along the food chain – into ruminants, reaching humans via meat and milk.”

The curious thing is that not a single bird was brought in the center across the summer. This however is due mostly to the late harvest, than to the information campaign, Dr. Klisurova explains. The birds simply had the time to fly away.

The expert calls such hawks the secret environmental weapon of modern agriculture. Those save money for pesticides to farmers, providing at the same time almost entirely clean products for the market. By the way, bio production is really possible and applicable for these southern regions, as it could open the doors of local farmers to EU subsidies, unlike the Dobrudja Plain to the North, with its huge farms and high degree of mechanization and chemical usage.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev

По публикацията работи: Maria Dimitrova – Pichot

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Feathered assistants in the fields

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