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2nd January 2022

Rural belt in Talwandi Sabo under bollworm attack.
Apart from this, residents in the rural belt are quite upset as pink bollworm has attacked the cotton crop on vast swathes of fields for long, and there seems no solution in sight.
Farmers had to push for the government to act and announce compensation to the people affected by the pest control attack.
It can again become a major issue in the forthcoming elections this time.

The cotton bollworm, corn earworm or Old World bollworm is the larva of a moth, which feeds on a wide range of plants, including many important cultivated crops.
It is a major pest in cotton and one of the most polyphagous and cosmopolitan pest species.

(Source: Punjab Tribune)

The state forest and wildlife authorities are on alert at Harike Pattan wetland after scores of migratory birds were found dead under mysterious circumstances in Pong Dam sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh.
With the advent of winter, birds through the Central Asian Flyway have started converging in a number of clusters at Harike, India’s second largest wetland, in Tarn Taran district.
The winged guests are expected to stay in the wetland till March.
Gitanjali Kanwar, Coordinator, Aquatic Biodiversity, WWF (India), said around 60 species of birds migrate from around 33 countries in Europe and Eurasia.
Flocks of Greylag goose, bar-headed geese, common pochards, red-crested pochards started coming here in October.
Species like brown-headed gull, Eurasian coot, marsh harrier, Pallas’s gull, shanks and sandpipers had arrived early. Besides, other species of birds in Harike include tufted duck, Eurasian wigeon, grebes, ruddy Shelduck, common teal, Northern Pintail.

Harike is one of the largest man-made wetlands in northern India, which shares its area with the Tarntaran, Ferozpur and Kapurthala districts of Punjab.
The wetland and the lake were formed by constructing headwork across the Sutlej in 1953. Since then, the wetland, which covers about 41 km2, has become a favorite destination among rare varieties of avifauna.