Mysuru: Indian cartoonist RK Laxman may have frowned on the new story emerging from the changing environment: the crow is flying away. The artist was particularly fond of the Indian crow, which found a perch in many of his sketches.Paul Greenough, who is researching this common bird and its drastically diminishing population, is coming out with a book 'Save The Indian House Crow' which chronicles how crows are migrating to foreign countries due to unfavourable living conditions.Greenough, an environmentalist who has published papers about tiger conservation, tiger reserves and done a project on jungles, has started focusing on the Indian House Crow. "Due to loss of biodiversity, the number of animals, plants and insects is decreasing annually by tens of thousands. It is very rapid growth threatening the natural environment. Instead of writing about tigers and elephants, I thought of writing about crows because of their close proximity to humans, just like dogs and cats. The crow is very human friendly, and this migration needs intervention."Due to urbanization, electromagnetic waves generated by big towers and the cutting down of trees, crows are no longer comfortable in cities. Apart from this, food is not freely thrown but is packed in plastic and thrown into trucks, leading to a lack of food. Crows used to spend a lot of time on the ground, but now, due to absence of these foods, they are finding difficult to survive in cities and migrating to countries like Singapore, Netherlands, Malaysia, West Asia and Africa, said Greenough.The crow has come a long way from being the friendly companion cawing around the house. Earlier, elders at home would have their meal only after giving a bit to a crow, which is said to represent ancestors. Even now, during post-funeral rituals, people feed crows in the name of family elders, but it is increasingly becoming difficult to find crows. These days, priests pack food in a bag and tell family members to give it to crows wherever they find them in big numbers."In Udaipur city in Rajasthan, one can hardly find any crows; Mumbai has a good number of crows, but in most cities, including Mysuru, the crow population has come down drastically. This bird has been around since the Mohenjo-Daro period," the researcher said.His request to save the bird: Stop cutting trees and start placing food to crows, which are as intelligent as the chimpanzee, and are also called the musical sound track of India."If the crow species vanishes, the koel, which is dependent on its nest, will vanish too. So we should start giving importance to preserve the crow, which is people-friendly. We should also tell children to start feeding crows," Greenough added.R Uday Kumar

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