No respite from a caged existence

AHMEDABAD, JUNE 7: They come in bright hues - flourescent pink, green, orange and canary yellow. About 60-70 of them, cooped up in a smal...

AHMEDABAD, JUNE 7: They come in bright hues 8211; flourescent pink, green, orange and canary yellow. About 60-70 of them, cooped up in a small, dirty cage ravenously peck at broken bajri. One lies dead, disregarded by the others who scramble over one another to grab a bite of the scattered foodgrain, barely enough to feed 10 of them.

These are the Indian version of the life-like toy chicks introduced last year in Japan. The only difference is that these are for real and come cheap at Rs 5 a pair for the coloured varieties. The plain ones are sold at Re 1 a piece.

Another rusted cage houses two brown Zebra Finches and a white orange-beaked one. Blood oozes from the latter8217;s injured neck but it goes unnoticed by the vociferous hagglers around. Elsewhere, rabbits lie stashed away in small wire-mesh cages bundled one over the other without food and water, almost unconscious. Parrots make futile efforts to flee their entrapment by biting into the cage wire. The wings of some have been clipped.

Vendors line up near Delhi Chakla, Juhapura and the Sunday market under Ellisbridge with their wares. Budgerigars small colourful parrots of Australian origin are priced at Rs 100 a pair, Zebra Finches 8211; white and brown Rs 100-110, pigeons and parrots for Rs 150 and rabbits Rs 300 a pair.

The bird-sellers buy chicks in lots from poultry farms on the Ahmedabad-Sanand-Kheda highway. The lots of 150-200 chicks, priced at around Rs 200, consist mainly of males which are discarded as they are of no use to the farms. Once bought, the vendors colour them in cheap fabric paints which wash off in a few days and the chicks are ready to be sold as toys for children. It is no surprise to see a bird-seller doing rounds of the old city on a bicycle with a small cage stuffed with 200-250 coloured chicks.

Sadly, these birds never reach adulthood. Most of them die of starvation in the crammed cages and others due to colours which affect their eyes and block the pores on their bodies.

Selling birds and wild animals is illegal and is punishable under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act PCA, 1960. The Act covers all domestic and wild animals, say Kamala Nehru Zoo Superintendent R K Sahoo and Dr Harish B Jhaveri of the Animal Welfare Board of India.

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Though poultry, farm and laboratory animals rabbits, guinea pigs and white mice are permitted to be sold, Chapter III e of the PCA Act specifies that the cage or any receptacle in which the animal or bird is kept should measure sufficiently in height, length and breadth to allow the animal/bird reasonable opportunity for movement. This is never followed.

Such crime is punishable with a small fine of Rs 10 to Rs 50. Subsequent offence committed within three years are fined only Rs 25 to Rs 100 or with imprisonment which may extend to three months, or both.

The consignment of Finches and Budgerigars lands from Mumbai and other markets outside Ahmedabad, says one of the vendors not revealing the details. 8220;But the government norms on wild life protection has made our job a bit difficult,8221; he says. He, however, manages to earn around Rs 300 a day.

Says Sahoo, the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972, is applicable only to Indian species.