'Protecting birds protects our health'- DG, Nigerian Conservation Foundation

At the World Migratory Bird Day, WMBD, the Director General of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, NCF, Mr Adeniyi Karunwi disclosed that birds can protect Nigerians from health and economic problems due to the roles they play in ecosystem.


World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) was initiated in 2006 and is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. Each year, on the second weekend in May, people around the world take action and organize public events such as bird festivals, education programmes, exhibitions and bird-watching excursions to celebrate WMBD.

According to him, birds forestall exposure to anthrax, rabies, tuberculosis and other deadly diseases in the society while rendering free sanitation services valued at several millions of Naira. Urging Nigerians to protect birds, he noted that birds like vultures, considered non useful to people should be accorded such protection as they are “natural environmental sanitation officers.”


He said a single vulture provides a scavenging benefit valued at around N2, 308,200, about $11,600 over its lifetime, however regretting that birds are sometimes illegally hunted, targeted for sport shooting and trapped in their numbers for pets and meat, leading to a marked decline in all species of migratory birds.

He therefore condemned the fact that the skies are almost silent in the country because of the over 90 per cent decline in vulture population, adding that “vultures clean up carcasses and waste from our urban centres and landscapes that would have been harmful. ‘’They are equipped with an immune system that allows them to breakdown waste and carcasses without any harmful effect to them and without any risk of passing diseases to the human populace”, he stated.

He noted that bird scavengers are replaced by dogs and other domestic animals, stressing that their proximity to humans makes the risk of exposure to these diseases higher because they are not equipped to process carcasses and waste in a non-harmful way.

According to him, due to the decline in the number of birds, they are no longer able to perform their functions and other biota, which are ill-equipped for such tasks, are called into action with a dangerous consequence on the human population. Nigeria, he observed, is home to migratory birds.

Birds, according to him, migrate southwards from Europe to winter in Africa and pass through dangerous terrain to get to their wintering ground in Nigeria and other African countries.

‘’They are sometimes illegally hunted, targeted for sport shooting, and trapped in their numbers’’, he added.