Kerala tourism may duck the bird flu impact

Hundreds of ducks floating on the vast sheets of the backwaters under the canopy of a blue sky. A half-clad, dark, lanky man on a small wooden canoe driving the cackling ducks with a long pole, like a shepherd his flock. This is one of the endearing pictures that most tourists visiting Kerala’s Kuttanand region carry back home.

That photo-op may not be quite the same now.

The bird flu that broke out in the region a fortnight ago has devastated the duck population in Kuttanad, one of the major duck farming areas in the country. Already, close to two lakh birds have been mass-slaughtered by farmers and the ‘death squads’ sent by the Health Department to prevent the transmission of the H5N1 virus to poultry and domesticated birds. When the culling is over in a few days, authorities estimate, about half a million ducks would have been put to death.

The H5N1, a ‘highly pathogenic’ strain of the influenza virus, killed more than 10,000 ducks in Kuttanad before the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal, confirmed the avian flu outbreak and the Kerala Government sounded a red alert. The government stepped in quickly and announced a culling drive. Farmers were offered a compensation of ₹200 for each adult duck culled.

Duck farming has been a traditional ancillary occupation for rice farmers in the Kuttanad region, which covers parts of Alappuzha, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts. The backwaters’ heartland, Kuttanad, carries the moniker ‘rice bowl of Kerala.’ It is one of the few places in the world where farming is carried out below sea level (often 4 to 10 feet below the MSL). In the past, ducks had a symbiotic relationship with the farms — once the harvest was over, ducks flocked to the fields to feed on the leftovers and the birds’ droppings enriched the fields.

The farmers reared the flocks between two cropping seasons for the bird’s meat and eggs — ducks weigh as much as 4 kg and lay 160-200 eggs a year. Duck meat and eggs are delicacies in Kerala and hence fetch a decent extra income. The cost of rearing them is low as the ducks mostly fend for themselves. There is also a nomadic type of duck rearing where farmers and duck minders leave the village with thousands of ducks, looking for ricefields and water bodies where the birds can feed. Rice field owners get eggs in return for allowing the ducks to feed on their fields. Nomadic duck farming has greatly reduced due to fall in rice cultivation.

It will take a couple of years for duck farmers to recover from the bird flu devastation. But, the flu has not just damaged duck farming. It has a much a wider impact on Kerala’s tourism, whose USP is the backwaters of Kuttanad. Experts says that since the outbreak has been containe, the impact would not last long. Many tourists, fearing the bird flu might affect humans too, have packed up or cancelled their visits. The fear of a dent in tourism revenue was the key reason for the Government’s emergency response.

As of now, it seems, Kerala’s tourism will duck the impact.