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NW China raises birds to ward off locusts

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-20 11:11

URUMQI -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is helping the breeding of millions of birds and fowls along the Sino-Kazakh border to protect farmlands from locusts being hatched in the Kazakhstan side.

Xinjiang is building nests on the pasture along its border since this Spring to attract starlings, a kind of migrating birds that mainly feed on insects, said Mu Chen, expert with the Regional Locust and Rodent Control Headquarters on Sunday.

Locust and rodent control staff also fenced the red birds' habitat to protect them from bothers.

The regional government in early April warned that the locusts would enter adult stage before mid-July and fly across the border, threatening thousands of hectares of crops and pastures in northern Xinjiang.

Satellite remote sensing observation showed lakes on the Kazakhstan side along the border shrank by 58,000 hectares between 2007 and 2008.   The shrinkage would lead to the increase of wetlands, hotbeds for locusts, experts said.

Nothing but stalks would be left when a cloud of locusts ravaged a crop field, experts said.

The local governments also spent money to encourage farmers and herdsmen to raise more fowls and ducks, to join the starlings in the fight against invading locusts.

"We have trained technical staff and residents how to observe and prevent locusts. We also use aircraft and other equipments to prevent and kill locusts," Mu said.