Mr. Le Van Chia's bird garden (also known as Mr. Hai Chia, 80 years old, residing in Tra Con commune, Vinh Long province) is facing the risk of being "erased" after many years of continuous illegal bird and stork hunting.
Mr. Hai Chia said that due to old age and weakness, he is no longer able to guard the garden of about 2.5ha - where thousands of wild birds have been residing for nearly 20 years. If the hunting situation continues, he plans to cut down the garden to let the birds fly away elsewhere.
According to Mr. Hai Chia, recently many subjects regularly use cannons and homemade guns to hunt birds at night and during the day. On average, several individuals are shot down each day, including many rare species listed in the Red Book.
He said that currently the garden has thousands of bird individuals living such as storks, hawksbills, hawksbills and especially rare storks and snails. For many years, the family has agreed to give up large income from the longan garden to protect the natural ecological environment for the birds.
Next week, I will directly go to the Provincial People's Committee and the Vinh Long Provincial Forest Protection and Biodiversity Sub-Department to report for the last time. If there is no solution, I will cut down the garden to let the birds fly away to another place to reside," Mr. Chia said choked up.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Mr. Tran Tri Quang - Chairman of Vinh Long Provincial People's Committee - said that he has assigned the Department of Agriculture and Environment to coordinate with forest rangers and police to go to the locality to work with Mr. Hai Chia next week to inspect the reality, advise on handling directions and rectify the situation of illegal bird hunting.
