WORLD SPARROW DAY

About:

• The first World Sparrow Day was celebrated in 2010 in different parts of the world.
  
  
• The theme for this year is “Monitor the Sparrows & other common birds".
  
  
• The World Sparrow Day secretariat is urging people to monitor sparrows and other common birds this year using the Common Bird Monitoring of India, a citizen science initiative of Nature Forever Society.
  
  
• Nature Forever Society is a non-government organisation (NGO) run by Mohammed Dilawar, who's an internationally acclaimed conservationist.
  
  

Threats

• The need for marking this day was felt due to the tremendous decrease in its population.
  
  
• The house sparrow is on the verge of extinction. Increased use of pesticides, change in the pattern of buildings and gardens missing from the houses have become the main factors why the number of sparrows has declined sharply in the past few years.
  
  
• Also, the radiation from the mobile and the TV towers has also been a cause of the death of sparrows. Birds navigate by sensing the earth's magnetic fields and mobile radiations are known to disturb them and interfere with birds' ability to move around.