Breaking ice at Kashmir’s Hokersar Wetlands

SRINAGAR - Wild-life authorities have initiated a drive to break the ice in Hokersar Wetlands in Kashmir to help the migratory birds find food as they are facing lot of hardship due to frozen wetland.

The Hokersar wetland, located 16 kilometres from Srinagar is just one of the favoured places of hundreds of thousands of migratory birds. The vast expanse has plenty of food to feed the birds and the wildlife officials are striving to ensure a suitable environment for migrant birds.

But due to the frozen wet-lands in valley as it becomes difficult for them to find food for themselves, sensing the situations the wild-life authorities have started a drive to break the ice in the important circles of the wetlands in of Hokersar.

The authorities have broken layers of ice to provide feeding points for the birds after the cold wave froze many water bodies.

Gulam Ahmed Lone, a Wildlife Warden at Hokersar Wetland said, that they were breaking ice over the wetlands so that the migratory birds could feed properly.

“When the months of December-January starts the temperature starts dropping and it becomes very cold and our wetlands gets frozen, the birds experience great difficulty in feeding when the wetlands are frozen because their area of feeding decreases and we arrange for artificial food for them and we feed them and we break ice over the wetlands so that the migratory birds can feed properly,” said Lone.

Mohammad Ramzan, a range officer, said: “There are a lot of wetlands here and we maintain them so that the migratory birds stay here. It’s easy for us to break the ice over the wetlands as compared to the ground and feed the birds.”

The birds come here primarily from Siberia, Afghanistan, China, Central Asia and North Europe. (ANI)