2 sides to every story!

When out and about in the market, one often sees men with cages on their shoulders filled with sparrows which flutter and scramble over each other trying to escape from the confines of the cage. There is no food or water in the cage and the birds are obviously distressed.

This practice of caging sparrows and selling them is common, especially in winter, because certain people believe that sparrow soup is good for you during this season, while sparrow meat is considered good for your health, not only here but in many countries around the world. This information is available on the internet, with many food specialists giving recipes of how to cook sparrows in different ways.

Sparrows - along with other birds – are not a farmers’ friend when grain crops are ready to be harvested or are being harvested because they eat the grain. During this time men are hired to keep the birds away by waving wildly and making loud noises, or using large nets to catch them by the dozens. Harvesting of two different kinds at the same time!

On the other hand there are many people who feed sparrows because they like to see birds in their house and also because they eat worms and insects that ruin and destroy plants of fruits, vegetables and flowers. As they say there are two sides to every story.

That is as the case may be but it certainly is not a pleasant sight to see these poor things in such a miserable condition. Now and again some kind hearted soul will buy the whole lot in one cage or even both, after bargaining with the vendor, and set them free because they feel – and rightly so – that it is inhumane, while others do it to receive blessings for this act of kindness. Now and again these birds are set free forcefully by activists who abhor the practice.

And here’s a tit bit of interesting information. Since sparrows are considered a nuisance species, it is legal in the United States to humanely kill these birds under federal law!