NAVI MUMBAI: The unhealthy and wrong practice of feeding oily, junk food like wafers, gathiya snacks to wetland birds along the creek and seaside has led to accidental injuries for three seagulls at the Airoli bridge on Tuesday. Fortunately, an animal activist noticed it and immediately sought help to rescue the seagulls.

"It is a very bad practice to give potato chips and such similar snacks to the birds, since it can lead to accidents as seen along the Airoli bridge today. One of our members, Chandramani Yadav , witnessed how morning joggers and walkers offer junk food along the side of the bridge for the birds. This leads to a large number of terns, gulls and other wetland birds swooping down to eat the snacks, while the road traffic zips past at a high speed on the bridge. Three seagulls were injured as a result, after unknown vehicles grazed past them," said activist and honorary wildlife warden of Thane Forest, Sunish Subramanian.

He added that the three seagulls were rescued by his group, Plant and Animals Welfare Society (PAWS-Mumbai) and later given basic first aid. "Later in the day, as the condition of the disoriented seagulls became better, we released them near the Flamingo Park in Airoli, in the presence of forest officer, Seema Adgaonkar ," added Subramanian.

In the past few days, many citizens and activists have also raised similar objections of how birds are fed unhealthy snacks at Marine Drive, Gateway of India, and also along the Vashi creek bridge by 'ignorant' individuals.

"After today's Airoli bridge incident, I have written an official letter to the state forest department urging them to raise awareness against this growing trend of feeding junk food to birds. It is rather fortunate that the three injured seagulls recovered quickly. But, in future there can be fatalities and the bikers and motorists may also become accident victims if there are too many low flying sea birds on the roads and bridges," he stated.

While the range forest officer, Seema Adgaonkar, was unavailable for comment as she texted back that she was busy in a meeting, another forest official informed that they are planning to set up posters or banners along the bridge site to request citizens not to feed snacks or other forms of processed food items to the sea birds, since it does not suit them and can also cause road accidents.

Veteran naturalist and bird watcher, Sunjoy Monga , commented: "There should be mass awareness drives about this unhealthy trend of feeding junk food to wetland birds. I have also noticed in Allahabad (in Sangam site) how people are feeding hundreds of birds oily snacks. Seagulls basically scavenge for organic food along the seacoast and creeks."

