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At first glance, birds may seem to be peaceful, elegant creatures that do little harm to nature. However, one Bahraini scholar has spent years researching the Myna and has written a PhD thesis to raise awareness about what he dubs the ‘flying menaces’.
Nasser Baqer Assadullah, studying at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources at the College of Graduate Studies at Arabian Gulf University in Manama, has written extensively on the species and its impacts on biodiversity in the kingdom.
The Myna is a bird of the starling family, native to southern Asia, especially India. Some mynas are considered talking birds, for their ability to reproduce sounds, including human speech, when in captivity. The name Myna is derived from the Hindi language mainā which itself is derived from Sanskrit madanā.
The birds are prevalent in Bahrain and the GCC region, and recent environmental studies have shown that they are highly invasive and destroy the habitats of numerous other species.
In Nasser’s report, titled ‘Environment of Invasive Species and Risk Analysis of Exotic Birds in Bahrain: A Case Study on the Common Myna’, he argues that something must be done to preserve the kingdom’s local wildlife.
He said: “The negative effects caused by these alien birds is their transformation into invasive birds that cause economic or environmental damage. The Myna is the world’s first invasive bird and is in second place on the list of the 100 most pervasive invasive species on the face of the Earth, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the Invasive Species Specialist Group.
“Through my research, I’m trying to raise awareness and propose steps to identify exotic birds in Bahrain, to create a system to manage invasive birds, and to assess the invasive potential of the common Myna in invading the environments of other birds in Bahrain.
“To do this, I have spent years detecting the effects of the bird on local and exotic birds in the urban, agricultural and natural systems, and using this to predict the fate of birds in the future. In addition, I’ve introduced a risk analysis system for Myna birds that could be adopted to analyse the risk of introducing other birds.”
To conduct his research, Nasser raised a group of the Myna menaces in captivity at Al Areen Wildlife Park in order to find out the details of the bird’s behaviour and to facilitate the field observation in the ecosystems throughout Bahrain.
Surveillance under captivity was carried out with cameras, which monitored the behaviour of the bird over a 24-hour period, connected to a computer and a monitoring screen.
Nasser believes that swift action must be taken in order to protect Bahrain’s natural ecosystems in the face of rapid urban expansion.
He explained: “Bahrain has seen substantial progress in the sectors of transport and international trade, and at the same time seen vast population growth and rapid urbanisation.
“Whilst this is beneficial in some ways as Bahrain becomes more relevant on the world stage, it means ecosystems have become subjected to pressures that have led to the disruption of their stable biological diversity.”
These pressures have broken biogeographic barriers that determine the types of species of living organisms that inhabit their natural environments.
“Multiple transportation means have contributed to transporting many birds from their natural environments to new ones in cities with environmental factors that are completely different from their original natural environments,” he explained.
Due to cases of wild birds being illegally placed on sale in markets and escaping, some have been able to settle and to propagate, resulting in them crowding local birds out and, in some areas, even fully replacing them.
Nasser’s research is far from over, and he is preparing another report to learn more information about the origins of the Myna in Bahrain.
He is particularly interested in approximating the number of exotic invasive birds in the kingdom too, whilst answering the question of whether the Myna is naturally an invasive creature or whether external factors drove them to be so.
