Fight for the flight of black kites

Meet the protagonists of the documentary, All That Breathes, that won the World Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

What started in the year 2003, with the rescue of a solitary black kite, two decades later has turned into a passionate mission to save and rehabilitate raptors or birds of prey. Wildlife Rescue, founded by two brothers, Nadeem Shehzad and Muhammad Saud, has been involved in more than 23,000 rescue cases of raptors and birds since getting registered in 2010.

Black kites swarm over Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla Fort (Photo: Anushree Fadnavis/HT)

The work and selfless commitment of the brothers towards rescuing black kites in Delhi, was given a tribute in filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s documentary All That Breathes, that emerged as the winner of the World Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

A still from the documentary, All That Breathes

The saviours

Loud squeaky whistles welcome you, the moment you enter vicinity of the bird rehabilitation centre, located on rooftop of a nondescript residential building in North Delhi’s Wazirabad. At any given point, the rooftop that has been converted into flight cages, is home to at least 100 raptors, most of them being black kites.Their numbers double up during baby season.The top of the cage is left open, for birds who have recovered and are fit enough to fly out on their own. This building is also home to one of the brothers, whose family stays on the floors below this rehab centre.The building adjacent to this, houses the clinic and intensive care for the critical cases.

The Wildlife Rescue Facility in Wazirabad, North Delhi (Photo: Nadeem Shehzad)

There have been 19 rescue cases today, that also includes a barn owl with a fractured wing. Saud sits at the operating table and gives first aid to a dazed black kite. It suffers from a wound caused by manja (thread made of nylon or cotton and coated with powdered glass), used for flying kites. The bird will be later operated upon by the veterinarian, who works part-time with the team.

Most of the bird hospitals in Delhi are run by Jain temples. Followers of Jainism practise non-violence and eat a pure vegetarian diet. As a result, birds of prey are ineligible to be treated, due to their dietary requirement of meat. “We rescue raptors and water-birds, most of which are carnivores and cannot be treated at the Jain Temple’s Charitable Birds Hospital. There’s just another centre, Wildlife SOS, which feeds them their required diet,” said Shehzad.

Birds are kept inside flight cages. Critical cases are kept inside the clinic in the adjacent building (Photo: Nadeem Shehzad)

A blanket ban was implemented on usage of glass-coated thread or Chinese manja by Delhi government in 2017. However, most injuries reported are inflicted with manja. “We have been doing research on the damage that kite flying season does to birds. A manja wound is so nasty that it cuts through tendons, muscles and even bones. The wound looks like it’s been cut using a sharp surgical scalpel. Our main concern in such cases is that how does one get the bird air borne again? It’s tricky and the surgery requires extreme precision,” said Shehzad.

Over the years, the team along with the in-house veterinarian has researched extensively on mending such injuries, with the help of other vets and doctors. “We have pioneered a new way of fixing such injuries. We have even presented it at one of the biggest annual wildlife conference in Los Angeles — National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association (NWRA), 2018,” said Shehzad.

Cost of the pandemic

The two years of coronavirus pandemic has dealt a blow to the financial condition of Wildlife Rescue. Donations have dried up and the brothers are running the centre, using their personal funds. The birds at Wildlife Rescue are fed some 12 kilograms of chicken and red meat, every day. Distress calls for rescue, often must be ignored due to lack of funds which makes movement across a megacity like Delhi, impossible. “We just received a call, to rescue a kite electrocuted by Metro power line. Had no choice but to refuse. Hope they send the bird over to our facility. Refusing such rescue cases makes me feel guilty, but what do we do? We don’t even have enough money to sustain this centre for 10 days.”

Muhammad Saud gives first aid to a black kite at the clinic of Wildlife Rescue (Photo: Nadeem Shehzad)

Depending upon the funds available for a particular day, Salik Rehman, bird caretaker at the rescue centre, travels by public transportation to attend few calls. “We get around 5 individual calls in a day, now. However, most inflow of injured raptors is from various veterinary hospitals around Delhi, including Jain bird hospital. We ask them to accept the bird for us and to not turn it away. We collect it later for treatment.”

Though it’s not officially stated, but Delhi has one of the highest population of black kites. These scavengers are a common sight, spotted swarming around areas abundant with food supply such as the Ghazipur Fish and Poultry market. Why do they care so much for these scavengers, whose existence isn’t threatened?

“If we don’t care, then who will? No one has more expertise than us in treating and rehabilitating them. They are important for the health of Delhi. I would guess that there are 50,000 kites in Delhi. A single kite scavenges and eats around 50 gram to 100 gram of decaying and rotting stuff everyday. This means that 2,500 kilogram to 5,000 kilogram of rubbish is eaten by them every single day. Just imagine what will happen, if there are no scavengers like black kites in the city?” said Shehzad.

Twitter: @namyasinha