Friday, November 06, 2009

Cigarette Man, The Poacher

Spied a strange man in the playground shooing a Spotted Dove off a knurled tree root. The bird finally ended on the grass strange the bird didn't fly away.Grabbed the binoculars to have a better look as a flightless bird could only mean a decoy bird for a trap. Strange man sits on the bench and starts to smoke and then make cooing calls of the Spotted Doves. Definitely a poacher at work. Decided to grab the camera that was set-up downstairs to photograph sunbirds. Not long after cigarette man gets up and moves something into my line of sight while he chatted on his mobile. Another cage and a decoy bird.The folks in my neighborhood do not tolerate poachers and we will do what we can to protect our natural assets which include a number of prized avian singers. Called the authorities but things move so slowly. 45 mins after my call still no one came to stop the man.
Cigarette man decided he had enough as the birds just weren't responding to his calls. In total, he disarmed three traps and shoved three birds into a small bamboo cage.Walked to his van with his traps and those poor birds. No wonder they weren't cooperating with him to attract other doves.Glad that he left empty handed. The pair of courting Spotted Doves were in my backyard blissfully unaware of the drama playing out in the playground. Here's one sitting on the roof with a Glossy Starling.

2 comments:

Shawn said...

Good record shots, Shirls. Its really sad to see that there are still poachers in Singapore. Hope that man is either caught or never gets to catch another wild animal. He should stop it. :(

Shirls said...

All I can say is there is a lot of red tape, and I am rolling my eyes at how ineffective the way things work.