By
Gifty Amofa, GNA
Accra, Nov 30, GNA –
The Ghana Wildlife Society on Saturday schooled pupils of the Wildlife Society
Club on the need to preserve birds in their environment.
The members, from
selected schools in Accra, were trained on using drawings to decorate their
glass doors and windows to protect the birds from bumping into them and dying.
This is under the
“Spring Alive Project,” sponsored by Heidelberg Cement Group and supported by
Birdlife Partnership, the biggest conservation entity with partners in 122
countries to raise awareness of birds, the threats they faced and how to
minimise them.
It is dubbed “Love
bird? Get yourself a decoration glass window”.
Ms Louisa Kabobah,
Conservation Education Officer asked the children not to litter, especially
with plastic waste as they sometimes entrapped the birds and suffocated them to
death in their quest to look for food.
She said birds that
also migrated from Europe and Asia to Africa due to the change in whether, also
faced a number of threats such as pollution, habitat loss and collision.
The Conservation
Officer said since they travelled with the help of the sun, moon and stars,
depending on the time, they mistaken high rise buildings with lights in the
night for the natural lights only for them to bump into them and die.
She said they
sometimes crashed into glass doors, which they see their reflections or those
of trees they want to land on, thus by decorating them with drawings they could
be saved from untimely deaths to help them contribute to the ecosystem or the
environment.
Ms Kabobah said the
children could better help protect them from the dangers by ensuring that they
put off their lights in the light, decorate their windows or doors with
drawings, stop littering and others.
Nhyira Ewurama
Djamwaa, sharing what she learnt with GNA said it was wrong to scare or kill
birds because they were part of nature.
Mr Dankwa Acheampong
of St Theresa’s School advised Ghanaians not to hunt for birds because they
beautified the environment, adding that fishermen should not also catch them
when they land on their nests for flies.
Spring Alive is an
international project to encourage children’s interest in nature and the
conservation of migratory birds and to get them to take action for birds and
other wildlife as well as to participate in events organised by BirdLife
Partners.
Spring Alive brings
together children, their teachers and families to record their first sightings
of five easily-recognised migratory birds: Barn Swallow, White Stork, Common
Cuckoo, Common Swift, and European Bee-eater.
GNA
