![]() In 1995, a bird hospital run by the Jain community nearby turned it away because it was "a non-vegetarian bird," says Saud, the younger brother. The brothers were particularly drawn to the black kite, Nadeem says, when they found an injured bird as kids but couldn't get treatment for it. They come from Russia, the steppes of Afghanistan and Mongolia." This, and the huge amounts of garbage that pile up every day, attracts hundreds of these scavenging birds. "The scraps from slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants are dumped in Delhi. Delhi is a gaping wound, and we're a tiny Band-Aid on it," says Nadeem, a wildlife rehabilitator and the elder of the brothers. ![]() Hundreds of these majestic birds, injured and being treated from cardboard boxes in that makeshift basement - it's cinematically riveting. "Once you visit their house and see their tiny, cramped, claustrophobic basement, you realize the constraints they work under and the sheer scale of the problem. The film tells of the brothers' lifelong struggle to save an unusual bird - the meat-eating black kites that have made the smog-ridden Delhi skies their home. And now it's been nominated for an Oscar for best documentary feature film - only the second Indian film nominated in that category after Writing With Fire in 2021. Shot over a period of three years from 2019, the documentary last year won both the Golden Eye Award for top documentary at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. "What happens to birds that fall out of the sky in Delhi?" The answer led him to two Muslim brothers - Nadeem Shehzad and Muhammad Saud - who would soon become the subjects of his award-winning documentary, All That Breathes. "After I went back home, I had to Google it," Sen says. Then, one bird just dropped to the ground in mid-flight. Shaunak Sen was stuck in a traffic jam one evening in 2018 when he looked up at the hazy, polluted skies of Delhi and saw dozens of raptors, birds with brown feathers, gracefully circling overhead. The brothers are featured in a new prize-winning documentary, All That Breathes, which was just nominated for an Oscar and is premiering on HBO on Feb. Over the past 12 years, they've treated nearly 26,000 of the raptors. In other words, the NZP area has witnessed an impressive recovery.įunded by the Raptor Research & Conservation Foundation (Mumbai), the research began last year and the final report of the initial survey was recently released by WII.Injured black kites at Wildlife Rescue, a clinic run by brothers Nadeem Shehzad and Muhammad Saud in Delhi. The recent WII report places the density in NZP at 87–118 nests per sq km. Malhotra conducted a study of National Zoological Park (NZP) and reported the black kite’s ‘nesting density’ as 25 nests per sq km by 2004-07 this had come down to five per sq km. The current density of this area has more or less remained stable. The number of black kites was estimated around 2,500, while analysing the 360-degree aerial panoramic shot at the hour of highest congregation.Īccording to the 1971 study by Galushin, the ‘nesting density’ of black kites at the North Campus of Delhi University varied between 50-80 pairs per sq km. To count the number of black kites in that locality, WII researchers developed the method of photograph-based count using software Image J. Ghazipur in Delhi remains a hot spot for black kites, with abundance of food in the dumping yard, a large number of slaughter houses, and chicken/fish markets located there. Galushin had conducted a similar study across 150 sq km and assessed the black kite’s ‘nesting density’ at 16.1 pairs per sq km. ![]() ![]() And for the past five decades, Delhi has been maintaining a stable breeding population of this bird, commonly known as ‘cheel’.ĭespite urbanisation and loss of green cover, Delhi’s black kite population has remained intact.Īccording to the report by the Dehradun-based institute, the bird’s ‘nesting density’ in Delhi is 15 pairs per sq km, which is almost the same as the figures for 1970s. Known scavengers, black kites consume about 100g of food daily and help dispose of wasteĪ recent study by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has brought a piece of good news for bird lovers in Delhi.Īmong the major cities of the world, the national Capital has the highest density of black kites (Milvus migrans govinda).
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