Tanzania kills millions of birds to save rice fields

DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania has culled millions of quelea birds to prevent them from destroying rice fields, using drones and planes to monitor commercial farms, the country´s plants and pesticides watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides Authority (TPHPA) which is also responsible for controlling desert locusts, killed five million quelea birds in the northern region of Manyara last week where about 1,000 acres of commercial crops were under threat. “We killed swarms of five million destructive birds and now we are monitoring other zones,” Joseph Ndunguru, acting director general of TPHPA, told AFP by phone.