Caged trills.
Tamara Caridad Mesa González 19 agosto, 2019
According to an old proverb, who gets up early, God helps. I would dare to say that it helps some, because others sentence them to the deepest pain.
Some time ago I have observed how in places in our city, such as The Fraternity Park, popularly known as Peñas Altas Park, a group of people gather to illegally market bird species that, although they may not seem so, many of them are in danger of extinction.
From early morning they arrive with the cages. They hang them from the bushes and wait for a passerby to fall in love with the song of the little feathers. Although in some cases the end is another, like the bets for those copies that make their trills more durable, the situation is the same, nothing changes their sad condition of captives.
Do the vendors know in what state of conservation the species that are marketed there are? Isn’t the traffic of birds as merchandise a crime that directly threatens our wildlife?
Tiles, Butterflies, Verdón and other birds are exhibited daily unconsciously caged. Despite being regularly observed in the Cuban environment, they constitute winter residents who migrate in this time of the year in search of the right climate for their living conditions.
The province of Matanzas has the best bird corridor that the Island owns, given the presence of ideal ecosystems for this, however, despite the regulations; today the control of this activity is insufficient.
How many times have we not seen children and young people hunting birds for entertainment? Will we have to wait for these species to disappear to start taking action?
The main problem in this situation is the lack of knowledge of the population. Studying wildlife and knowing its conservation status is a necessity that acclaims nature, touches entities such as CITMA and the Ranger Corps to publicize the development of species and their evolution.
The duty to take care of nature is ours. If we do it now, tomorrow may not be too late.
• Photos of Félix Raúl Figueroa Morales
