Village Turns Off Street Lights for a Month to Save a Bird’s Nest

A village in India made an incredible sacrifice to save a nest of birds. In Potthakudi, a village in the Shivaganga district of Tamil Nadu, people kept street lights off for 35 days so a bird could lay eggs and let them hatch in peace.

Source: The News Minute/Youtube

After a local employee found a bird had nested on the switchboard that operated the city’s streetlights, he started to watch the bird’s behavior. He found that when he turned on the lights the bird flew away. Karuppu Raja is in charge of operating street lights in the village and quickly became concerned with the bird’s welfare.

He convinced people in the village to keep the lights off via a Whatsapp group message. Students went door-to-door to convince residents and campaigned on social media to keep the lights off until the bird’s eggs had hatched.

“Most villagers thought of this as an opportunity to give back to mother nature and agreed. But, some people thought this was an extreme step for a little bird,” said Karuppu Raja. 100 families agreed to keep the lights off until the bird was safe enough to leave the switchboard.

Read more One Green Planet news about India, check out these articles:

• PETA Calls Out India for Elephant Treatment
• Villages Offering Free Rice in Exchange for Plastic
• India’s Locust Invasion
• India’s Marine Cemetary for Extinct Animals
• This Village Plants Trees Each Time a Girl is Born

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