House sparrow is a common Indian bird found in close association with human habitat and has been dwelling with human beings since many moons ago. It is a friendly bird both to the humans and to the nature and ecosystem because its young ones feed on many types of farm and other types of worms and pest that otherwise would destroy our food grains and crops. It has always been an important part of the ecosystem acting as the biological pest control method due to feeding habit of its young ones.

Lately there has been a very drastic and dramatic decline in the number and quantity of houses sparrow so much so that it almost achieved the verge of getting extinct entirely from the earth and from the Earth ecosystem. There have been incidences in countries like China where total deliberate removal of house sparrow result in mountanious decrease of farm crop production which again establishes the importance of house sparrow on earth and in our ecosystem. As has already been stated that it is hanging from a thin thread and was about to get extinct but now the situation has improved because awareness of people, ornithologists, social scientists, and bird watchers could hear the alarm that was about to ring and they started doing and adopting measures with which the whatever remaining population of house sparrow can be preserved. It was thus allowed to mate and hence increase in number. The efforts bore their fruits and now it can be said that house sparrow is no more at the verge of extinction and has also been multiplying and is flourishing in many regions of the world including several places in India.

Bharatpur city of Rajasthan is one such place where immense increase in houses for a population was observed and this case study paper is based on personal visit, personal collaboration, and personal experience of the researcher in this regard.

Bharatpur City is located in Rajasthan and is called as eastern gateway to Rajasthan. The region shares a strong history of being dominated by Jatt rulers in the 17^th century who did not allowed the Mughals to conquer them. It was never under the British rule either because a treaty was signed between Britishers and the rulers at that time. In 1947 with independence of India the state accepted to come under the umbrella of Indian dominion. Bharatpur is situated 50 km to the Western side of Agra and lies in the golden triangle hence has an easy approach. Besides its foods and palaces Bharatpur is famous for its Kevladevo National park also known as Bharatpur Bird sanctuary which is called as the ornithologist Paradise. Many species of reptiles, turtles fishes, along with around 400 floral species adorn the land of this Bird sanctuary along with more than 300 bird breeds. It is also known as a famous wetland site for migratory birds from across the seas which include the famous Siberian crane and many more. Our point of study is a bird species not from the bird sanctuary but from among the general masses. This investigative work was carried out in the region of Bharatpur City to established, analyze, and examine status and abundance of house sparrow (Passur domesticus) in the localities of Bharatpur area.

We are still in a phase of recovery from the global Covid-19 pandemic. But yes for sure people have become more concerned with their habit and habitat, they have started to learn the value of life not only of their own life but also of other living creatures that make life so worthwhile. There was observed a high upsurge in purchase of animals that can be kept as domestic pets during the Covid- 19 times because the entire nation was under lockdown and there were not any considerable outdoor activities to perform. So for stress relieving, companionship and leisure many people opted for bringing pets particularly dogs. It was also the time when due to restricted movement of goods and people the overall atmosphere and global ecosystem changed to become better with reduced number of noise and air pollution. This situation was a positive reversal of the deteriorating global ecosystem, for other living creatures including human beings. Many people both bachelors and family men dedicated more time in soothing activities like yoga meditation and spending time with nature which also became the time to observe birds particularly sparrow in our condition. There were two major time frame in a day - dawn till 7:00 a.m. and dusk from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. when more number of sparrows can be spotted in a region owing to various activities and the harm caused is less because level of pollution and human intervention both are reduced (Bapat, 2022).

Many creatures from wildlife have successfully and beautifully adapted to urban environments now living with harmony to the urban society (Klump et al., 2021). House sparrow is one such wildlife Avian creature that has been living with human population, in close vicinity since many moons ago. House sparrow is one such adaptable creature that has become an absolute neighbor to human habitation feeding on whatever comes its way from kitchen scraps to grain found in animal excreta and from living in the personal garden to whatever place it can conquer in homes of human beings the electric meter, roof-top chimney, hall, backyard any other artificial nest that has been deliberately installed. The bird was so common until the end of 20th century that nobody ever thought that it would become endangered and come to the verge of extinction in next 20 years of 21st century. But yes this is true and now house sparrow has been listed in the Red Data Book.

Human beings in 21^st century have become so engaged and engrossed in their various aspects of work and life that they seldom find enough time to calm down and interact with nature which is the reason why disappearance of house went unnoticed for a couple of years. But lately people and organizations both domestic and global have raised questions on this steep sparrow decline. They are also taking preventive and curative measures to restore whatever sparrow population is available and ensure that they propagate more during the breeding season so that more number of house sparrow can inhabit the planet. Social media is one important tool that can create awareness among the large number of people for no loss and expenses.

The process of urbanization started particularly after the industrial revolution and has been expanding since then. It seems like a never ending phenomenon and it also seems like it will end-up  in engulfing whatever available stretch-land/ dump land/ forest land and wasteland is available on the lithosphere (Deepalakshmi et al., 2019).

Ever since the dawn of civilization human intent to conquer the earth and tame the forces of nature has remained strong. The expansion of urban cities has always occurred at the cost of natural and rural habitat. When seeing through the length of ecology changing urban environment present various kinds of survival challenges for birds of any particular region and the challenges incorporate availability of food, presence of predators, amount of human element, enhanced level of various pollutants, miss-use of chemical and light along with acoustic pollution (Gil and Burman 2014). These kind of challenges present before the Avian species question of survival where many of the avian creature have been found to adapt and adjust according to the changing environment and scenario house sparrow is one such bird that is easily adaptable to stressful circumstances

There are certain bird species that modify the ecological changes to their advantage and house  sparrow is one such bird (Costantini et al 2014). The city resources we are talking here also relate to - number of predatory animals (Evans et al 2015); augmented temperature more than the expected moderate level (Tryianowski et al 2015); level of competition for available resources and food in contrast to the nearby non-anthropogenic areas (Marzluff 2016). 

Research Area and associated Methodology

This research paper which is talking about sparrow population in Bharatpur city region is incomplete without acknowledgment and detailed description and acknowledgment of Ms kavita Singh. She owns more adjectives adorned to her name than the researcher can think of. First of all she is a woman with the family and kids to be taken care of by her. And this household responsibility is the full-time job in itself and in India particularly for women it is said that they are good for nothing but only cooking and cleaning. I feel sorry if the statement hurts but the actual ground reality of condition of women in India still is not known to most of the people in the society and the talks of feminism, super power females, and women empowerment are worthy only in public speaking debates. But Miss Kavita Singh has proved that even a normal homemaker like her can make all the difference if she decides and is determined to achieve. Ms Singh is the administrator of a Facebook page (sarve bhavantu sukhine) that urges the people to save the sparrow.

She was searched, found out and contacted through social Media (Facebook) initially later on telephonic interviews and Whatsup messages. The beauty of her words cannot be captured here in English because the interview was conducted in the local national language spoken in Bharatpur which is Hindi. But if her words can be translated she says that as –

we welcome our holy gods in our home and plead them to stay with us and bless us is the same feeling with which she and her team members install sparrow houses in various regions of Bharatpur City.

She does not own any personal NGO. And by not doing so she says that she has the feeling of liberation, she is not bound to be present at any certain place for a certain amount of time. She herself is a free bird of course without wings but has a saved hundreds of creators with wings and without wings but with four legs and a tail. Here the researcher wants to say that she not only works for sparrow preservation but is also an animal activist and serves to take care of stray animals found on the road or abandoned by their masters. When she was asked that does she not fear about getting a dog bite or getting infectious diseases from already diseased animals she replied with a smile that stray animals are more passionate and loving than the domestic ones. They are like god's children who live on the mercy of others and hence they cannot live around having an aggressive behavior.

 They have to be humble and well behaved if they want to grab some food and survive on the planet. It is mostly the domesticated pets that attack or harm human beings. Stray animals do that randomly and only under certain situations. What a beautiful and pure description of the attitude of animals that live around us and we don't even notice them.

Many people have joined Ms Singh in her initiative of saving the sparrow willingly and now   large crew of people works for sparrow preservation our study area. They make their own sparrow houses which they make available to other people and even ship them to various parts of India at a very reasonable rate. Special houses made by them are installed free of cost at public places like parks, gardens, temples and the new initiative is to extend installation of sparrow houses to regions like Mukti Dham (a place where deceased bodies are bought for performance of final rituals, according to Hindu mythology). She and other people are making people aware through campaigns progressions and storytelling sessions that sparrow has always been an important and intricate part of human civilization and it should stay with us and for our next generation to come. She's well aware of many scientific facts regarding sparrows and she gives example to local people that how a society without a sparrow will suffer because of many diseases that are caused by various kinds of insects and pests because sparrow feeds on them making the ecosystem clear of those infectious organisms. As she is the face of a common man and she belongs to the local masses people do understand what she says people can relate with her. And when they are enlightened they promise and pledge to help her in her initiative and thus.....the number of members in her ‘Gorriya bachao campaign’ gets wider and longer ...as is well said in Hindi-

Akele he chale the safar mein lekin....

Log milte gaye ....karwaan....badta gaya ...

Importance of social media just cannot be overlooked in any field or aspect of life in this 21^st century. Social media provides a platform where people meet, exchange information, post important information and personal stories, communicate with other people with their liking and even with strangers to gain inside of new fields and new ventures going around in the globe etc. 

Not only these, there are other aspects of social media where it can be used to create public awareness among general masses regarding various ongoing aspects of life. Many like-minded people assemble under the umbrella of social media and create their own websites/ pages/ online portals and other such things. It is also the most modern means of advertising and business. In short it can be said that no aspect of human life has remained untouched from the effect and influence of social media. As has already been mentioned that social media can be used to create mass awareness among masses regarding current burning issues that can be related to any field be it politics games environment and else. By this description the researcher wants to lead the audience towards usage of social media precisely saying Youtube & Facebook by Ms. Kavita Singh of Bharatpur to create awareness about declining sparrow and to urge and plead people to assemble under the umbrella of her Facebook page to save the sparrow. She has been really successful in this venture of here. The link of the Facebook page has been provided in the end in the reference section. Amazingly the researcher came to know about such commendable work done by Ms Singh thorough a Facebook page itself. After which he was contacted, personally interviewed the authenticity of the Facebook posts and videos were verified. Only after full satisfaction and reliability the foundation of this paper was laid/written.

This is an ecology based study that utilizes the elements of participatory observation content analysis and semi-structured interviews. Observations were made on the basis of interview sessions and streaming of live videos on the Facebook page of Ms Kavita Singh. On this page real life interaction with the followers and live videos streaming is also available which actually establishes the connection between the content creator and the actual audience. Semi-structured interviews with some residents and other volunteers were conducted over scheduled telephone calls and each detail was precisely noted to generate data and conclude promising results. A total sample size of 200 was attained (including interviews, Facebook feed, comments etc). These were equally distributed among 100 people of young generation (born in 21^st century and 100 older citizens born in late decades of 20^th century)  The interviews were based on preservation of wildlife and awareness of people regarding disappearing while life particularly houses sparrow.

Sparrow population was although found in almost all regions (Fig. 1) of Bharatpur but was reported more in the eastern zone and the reason attributed is its close proximity with Ghana Bird sanctuary. This Bird sanctuary is a World Heritage site and has proper protection and conservation of various floral and faunal species that attract not only birds from a across the seas like Afghanistan and Siberia but also provide enough foraging ground, insect population, favorite roosting/nesting site for house sparrow. Therefore more sparrows are found in adjoining areas of Ghana Bird sanctuary which lies towards the east of Bharatpur. The West side of Bharatpur supports least number of sparrows but their number has still increased from around 30 in 2018 to 158 in 2022 (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 – Region wise distribution of no. and %age of sparrow spotted by respondents from Bharatpur in 2018 (before national lockdown)

Both categories of respondents had their own reasons for looking after and supporting sparrows. The young age respondents did it for pleasure (10%), for mental peace (22%), for personal happiness (38%), nature care and restoration (16%) and rest 14% for giving back to nature (Fig.2). The old age respondents did it for time-pass (25%), to combat loneliness (30%), selfless service (18%),  for humanitarian act (12%) and rest 15% want to give live sparrows as heritage to future generations (Fig. 3).

Fig.2 – Number and %age  of young age respondents for why they supported sparrow campaign

Fig.3 – Number and %age  of old -age respondents for why they supported sparrow campaign

Discussion - This study is a pioneering step in a small city of Indian state where effect of social

Media/ mass awareness (created through public efforts and social media) has been studied in preservation of house sparrow. This will evaluate the effect of installation of artificial nests on house sparrow population (when other survival factors are either created or are made favorable). Studies have been conducted in other parts of India for example in Rameshwaram conducted by (Pandian, 2023) had observed that artificial sparrow nest installation gave promising results; those nests were accepted/used by house sparrow and increase in their number was observed. No such research in any part or area of Rajasthan state was reported until this idea was thought of. Hence this simple idea was executed into action plan (one such study has been reported with a region of same name, but it should be noted here that here the country of study is Nepal (Chaudhary, 2020) making this study as the first totally dedicated study to the Bharatpur region of Rajasthan state (India) which is true as per the best knowledge of the researcher.

This study states that social media is different from mass media because mass media is a uni-directional and a single step process where only the voice of the reporters and authors is said, heard, and printed; the audience has no say. Sharing of knowledge regarding interaction of human beings with wildlife on social media platform is a two way process where people from likewise and totally different mindset can mutually contact, communicate, and share their views and contents. It was identified while the process of the research that uses on social media platform related to wildlife can be of many types but the researcher wants to state about two main categories of users- having strong and weak anthropcentrism.

In a similar Chinese investigation (Yin et al., 2023) based on magpies the percentage of both types of users was 7% and approximately 30% respectively. Respondents having strong anthropocentric attitude are seen to disregard wildlife.  They have cruel intentions towards them; they also sometimes objectify wildlife as elements of entertainment, that are meant to satisfy human needs; and their do not favor animal rights and welfare. This also comprise those group of people who engage in leisure hunting. Luckily in the study of ours no such category of people were found. Probably owing to our philanthropic attitude towards other fellow creators where we are taught since our early childhood that we should live and let others live, peacefully. Almost all the respondents in our study exhibited a weak anthropocentric attitude. They had developed family like relation love and affection towards the sparrow that came to inhabit the nest they had installed in their premises. They were keen about their safety, security, food, and drinking requirements. They felt happy to see the sparrow laying eggs, the patiently waited for the eggs to hatch and chicks to erupt out. They were overwhelmed with joy when the chicks developed into full grown adult sparrows and left the nest to explore the world through their own eyes and own flight. The sense of happiness, contentment, service towards the humanity was reflective on the faces of the respondents (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4-  Increase in no. of sparrows after Covid-19 phased cooled down

 The final conclusion from the study indicates that yes it is true that house sparrow is one of the bird which is endangered. But in many parts of India including our study area of Bharatpur people have started considering it as an important ecological problem and have already started working on the remedial measures to rescue preserve and provide opportunities to propagate and produce more of springs. In our study sparrows were found in abundance thanks to the efforts done by Ms. Kavita Singh, the volunteers and other locals of Bharatpur region. It was also observed that sparrow population before Covid-19 was ever known in 2018 has become better in 2022 after the pandemic phase is almost over.

It indicates that nature has a property to heal and repair itself if given the chance to do so. The number of sparrow population increasing after the lockdown phase is because of cleaner air, less pollution, less human intervention (Fig. 5). People have become more considerate regarding their fellow creatures (Gordo et al., 2021). They provide them food and shelter; and all these changes were noticed noted down and have been incorporated in the study by us because people did spent time in bird watching/ observing/ and reporting their observations.

Fig. 5 – Comparison of increase in number of house sparrow in various study areas of Bharatpur
One more conclusion that can be drawn from our study is that people awareness is a dominant and significant factor and if it is milked in the right direction it can cause a whole lot of change in many of the prevailing worldly problems and harmful situations. The final outcome from the study indicates that social media can become a tool for creating mass awareness and bring people of like mentality together. The final verdict stands (Fig. 6) that if we keep the efforts going on than no need to scare that sparrow will disappear because their number have propagated in enough number and they will stay with us for our next generations to see the sparrow not on the mobile or smart-phone screen but in reality.

Fig. 6 Positive outcome of successful sparrow restoration owing to public efforts
All of the five zones that were studied viz. north, south, east, west, and central exhibited Sparrow population upsurge when the numbers were compared between 2018 and 2022. This further validates the results and researches done earlier and during the Covid-19 times which state that pandemic despite of being devastating hazard for human population was a blessing in disguise for mother nature and other species. Because it reduced the pollution levels, it reduced the sea and air traffic, it enhance the air quality of many major cities and it allowed many species to propagate in number.

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