On a wing and a prayer

Pigeons, parrots, crows, and budgies. Vultures, barn owls, and sparrow hawks.

These birds don’t usually hang out together.

But there’s nothing usual about why these birds have involuntarily ended up being in one place: they’re patients in the Charity Birds Hospital in Old Delhi, India.

The city’s oldest bird hospital, with approximately 3,000 patients, was founded in 1929 by the late Shri Laccho Mal Gotewale. Finding an injured pigeon nobody wanted to take care of, the Jain established his hospital, with just a few birds, in one room in his home. The hospital, which moved into the grounds of the Digambar Jain Lal Temple in 1952, now admits about 50 birds daily. Up to another 40 birds arrive for outpatient treatment every day.

The hospital treats an average of 30,000 birds every year for free from donations largely given by Jains.

The birds are fed grain or fruit, while the infants often have to be individually fed Cerelac, a milk or baby feed, with a spoon or dropper. Disabled and paralytic birds are also fed by hand. Rehabilitation takes an average of two to four weeks. The birds are then set free.

Flying toy kites, (the strings are sometimes coated with glass to cut a competitor’s kite) swirling fans, road accidents, cats, dogs — and monkeys — are major causes of injuries. Torticollis, a viral infection, and panamixoviruses virus are also common illnesses, said Dr Nawnit Kumar, 35, one of two vets in the hospital. Torticollis can cause the head to lean to one side. A strain of panamixoviruses causes the highly contagious Newcastle disease among pigeons.

“We have about 3,000 patients, with about 2,500 pigeons and about 100 parakeets,” said the vet, who’s been working in the hospital for two years. Rock pigeons, which like to nest in buildings, often inadvertently come into contact with moving fans. Most of the pigeons are kept in a very large space on the rooftop.

Rashmi Dubey, from Trinagur, a Delhi suburb, arrived with three parakeets after the hospital was officially closed for the day. She’d been given four non-flying birds several days prior. One had escaped, so she decided to bring the remaining three to the hospital. “I wanted to release them, but they cannot fly,” she said. The birds will be transferred to a bird sanctuary, the vet said, as Rashmi was given a receipt for the tiny creatures.

The vet, who also works part-time in a cat and dog home, and who previously worked with cows, treats the birds’ viral diseases and fungus infections with antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, and vitamins. He also does a lot of suturing. The vegetarian patients remain as inpatients until better. If they’re permanently disabled they can call the hospital home.

Their carnivorous counterparts, including eagles, hawks, kites, and falcons, however, are quickly — metaphorically speaking — shown the door.

They cannot be fed meat in the hospital located inside the well-known temple for religious reasons.

Jainism, one of the oldest religions in the world, prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. It also emphasises spiritual independence and equality between life forms.

The carnivore birds, which sit in a separate netted area from their vegetarian counterparts, are a sad and far cry from their magnificent flying relatives that grace the Delhi skyline. The injured unfortunates are usually collected on alternate days by Wildlife Rescue.

The not-for-profit non-governmental organisation, which was founded by brothers Nadeem Shehzad and Muhammad Saud, is based in the family home. Some 130 raptors are taken care of on their rooftop. It’s surrounded by an 8ft-high wire mesh. When the birds are well, they can simply fly away.

“From my childhood, I’ve been rescuing animals,” said Nadeem, 35, who arrived at the hospital with his 32-year-old brother Muhammad to collect six black kites.

Nobody was taking care of injured birds when the brothers started rescuing them a decade ago, Nadeem said. Like the founder of the Charity Bird Hospital, the brothers started rescuing birds after coming across an injured kite. They brought it to the hospital, but staff then refused to admit it. They returned the bird where it had been found, but later saw it had died. “We felt very bad,” Nadeem said. Individuals, police, fire department, and different veterinary hospitals contact the brothers with injured creatures.

The magnificent rescued hunting birds that can be saved are operated on.

Under local or general anaesthesia, steel wire and pins are used to repair injuries that take anything from 15 minutes to two hours’ operating time. Muhammad, 32, learned how to deal with injuries from the internet, books, and a family friend who’s an orthopaedic surgeon. He dispenses antibiotics, preforms most of the operations, and is also the birds’ primary carer.

Birds with very serious injuries the brothers cannot deal with are euthanised. Gangrene may have set in, or the wing bone is too badly exposed for Muhammad to be able to do anything about it.

An astonishing 90% of their birds’ injuries are caused by flying kites. Road accidents and monkey attacks are other causes. “Big eagles eat baby monkeys. Monkeys are faster than birds and they attack the birds and also destroy their nests and eggs,” Nadeem said.

“Some cuts from flying kites are so serious it can even chop off a wing in mid-air,” said Nadeem, who, with his brother Muhammad, works in the family business of making soap dispensers.

After about two weeks, the injured birds’ bandages are removed. Depending on the severity, the birds can usually fly after another two weeks.

Feeding carnivorous birds doesn’t come cheap. Kites, which are scavengers, are fed lung, liver, and buffalo meat. Vultures are given raw eggs. And owls like meat. About 12kg-15kg of meat is purchased daily. It costs 25,000-30,000 rupees per month, or €296-€355, Nadeem said. They pay most of the costs; family donations also help.

Kites and vultures can be housed together on their rooftop, but other species like owls, which are aggressive night hunters and attack other birds, are kept in a cage in a bedroom.

When asked what the brothers get back from such a great investment of money and time, Nadeem replied: “There’s no one to take care of them, and someone should. Our life is worth something. We helped an animal and that’s the satisfaction.”

With just over 4m followers in India, the Jains are a religious minority in their own country. For long periods of time, it was the state religion of Indian kingdoms and was widely adopted in the Indian subcontinent. Jainism, however, has been in decline since the 8th century due to the growth of, and oppression by, the followers of Hinduism and Islam.

But the Jains’ belief in non-violence towards all living beings and equality between life forms offers a universal and timeless message.

And taking care of hapless birds in a metropolis of 20m people beautifully personifies their humanistic philosophy.

Charity Birds Hospital is opposite one of Delhi’s major tourist attractions: the historic Red Fort. It’s also situated smack-bang in the middle of the noise and chaos of Chandni Chowk, a very busy thoroughfare in frenetic Old Delhi. The hospital, which is known far and wide, is open from 8am to 9pm every day. Visitors are welcome.

* For more information: charitybirdshospital.org