Research conducted in the last 04 decades have revealed that the humble House Sparrow has disappeared from 18 districts in the country.
This was revealed by Environmentalist and Attorney-At-Law – Jagath Gunawardena, who was addressing a programme at the Science Faculty of the University of Colombo, which marked the World Sparrow Day.
He further noted that following a request made to the Ministry of Environment, the House Sparrow has been declared as a protected species.
He added that the slow disappearance of the House Sparrow had begun with the spraying of the insecticide called Malathion to combat Malaria. With the increased use of mosquito coils in the 1990s, the bird had gradually become extinct in the Uva, South and Central provinces as the chemicals in the coils had severely affected their egg producing levels.
At the present, the House Sparrow had become a rare species with the same trend being reported from India as well.
Meanwhile, Nisali Dayananda of the Young Zoologists’ Association, who had conducted a research on House Sparrows, had also said that losing habitat is also a major factor in their fallen numbers.
