The silence of the sparrows

The cavities in the wooden bar roofs of our houses were their homes; their getting trapped in a room when the rope-held ventilator drop­ped shut was an emergency for mothers; their
helpless chicks were the first babies of other people we saw; along with the cow, they were the sacred other for whom the mother made the first roti; they were the flying squad that polished off the leftovers; their lively chatter filled our courtyards; their stubby forms hopping around grain-filled bamboo trays put out for drying teased us; their hasty group flights and landings were our early exposure to aviation delights.

This is the story of the house sparrow and its extraordinary bond with humans. The stout omnivore, once an integral part of our immediate environment, is fast disappearing. Conservationists attribute it to the unfriendly architecture of our homes, chemical fertilisers in our crops, noise pollution that affects acoustic ecology, noxious exhaust fumes from vehicles and the digital revolution.

When mobile telephony reached India in the late 1990s, the small avian was the first victim, or so thought common people. Experts thought differently, and a quarter century later, they are still researching — from Delhi and Mumbai to London and New York.

The research is not, however, linked only to conservation concerns. According to a Royal Society of London report last August, the bond between humans and house sparrows dates back 11,000 years, and the starch-friendly genes of the house sparrow tell us a story linked to our own evolution.

Involving scientists from Norway, Iran and Kazakhstan, the research found that the urban birds split from the wild population around the start of agriculture; they also had a pair of genes AMY2A that distinguished them from wild birds. The gene helps digest complex carbohydrates, the reason the house sparrow shares our love of starchy rice and wheat. Agriculture triggered similar adaptation in similar genes for three very different species: humans, dogs and sparrows.

House sparrows, like pigeons, crows and mynas, are cut out for city life, and just like us, they acquire the city traits. “The London sparrow is one of the institutions of the great metropolis and those that are London born and bred” are particularly smart and gluttonous, said a story in the New Monthly Magazine in 1869.

The population of sparrows in central London reported a gradual decline throughout the 20th century. According to a recent story in London’s The Daily Mail, in 1925, British ornithologist Max Nicholson, counted 2,603 sparrows in central London’s greenest park, Kensington Garden. In 2000, when he was 96, Nicholson did his last count, finding only eight birds there.

Other areas reported a similar plunge, and it was possibly linked to the harmful diesel particulates: the abrupt dip in the house sparrow population from 1985 to 1995 was matched by a corresponding surge in diesel vehicles in London.

Bringing the chirp back

Back home, although the population of sparrows plummeted abruptly 20 years ago, there have been vigorous conservation campaigns. About his World House Sparrow Day initiative launched on March 20, 2009, conservationist Mohammed Dilawar says: “The house sparrow and other common species were not considered conservation material by scientists, and common people were far removed from conservation as a subject; today, the sparrow has a high profile globally and its conservation has become a people’s movement.” In 2012, the campaign led to the house sparrow being declared as the state bird of Delhi.

Dilawar’s Nature Forever Society (NFS) focuses on simple, doable and affordable things, like nesting boxes on walls and water/grain bowls in balconies. NFS studies say posh areas, no matter how green, are not for the house sparrow. “It thrives in dense human habitats that have a generous food spill. It prefers Chandni Chowk to Lutyen’s Delhi and Bhendi Bazaar to South Bombay.”

There is, however, no statistical estimate about the impact of campaigns on conservation. But statistics may become irrelevant if the human-house sparrow emotional bond is re-established. That is all it needs to bounce back.

Fossil evidence from a cave in Bethlehem dating back 4,00,000 years suggests that the house sparrow shared its space with early humans. It simply cannot live without humans and is never found where we are not. The central message in the worldwide conservation campaigns is, let live the house sparrows and live as worthy humans.