I moved to Coimbatore from Bangalore in 1997. Back then I didn’t know much about the ancient system of water tanks and lakes. However, in 2011, I started birdwatching and in 2014, a small group of us started a bird count in Perur Lake. That’s when I really started understanding the importance of these water bodies — how they support a huge ecosystem, and sustain not only endemic birds but also migratory ones.
Over the last decade, we have found a lot of changes in the waterbodies, mostly through human intervention. Due to this, the ecosystems are failing. For instance, Perur Lake had many small natural islands on which birds would alight or sometimes nest. During the dry spell in 2016-17, the sand in the lake was mined, depriving the birds of these. Other lakes have systematically been ‘beautified’ too, without giving importance to the natural flora and fauna of the place.
