Four Mysureans team up to feed birds and animals atop Chamundi hill

Mysuru: At a time when everyone is focused on the poor and needy during the lockdown period, four animal lovers from Mysuru are feeding birds and stray animals on the iconic Chamundi hills of Mysuru which usually depend on food provided by tourists.

Bankers Harish S S and Dharini D P and software engineers Nandish Gowda and Deepak Y share a common passion for animals.

They spend at least Rs 2,000 per day from their own pocket, taking 15 kg of maize, broken rice, wheat, and ragi for the birds, bananas, biscuits, buns for animals like monkeys and dogs. They provide water and food at 25 points atop the Chamundi hills.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Harish said, “Though Chamundi hills has been declared plastic free, it is yet to be strictly implemented. For the past six years, every weekend we climb up the Chamundi Hills steps, collect at least three bags of  plastic bottles and two bags plastics thrown by tourists. We try to educate tourists to conserve nature. We have also thrown over 500 seed balls with seeds of sandalwood, neem and other saplings. Of late we observed that during the lockdown period on one hand while tourism is banned,  on the other hand few volunteers who usually fed these birds including peacocks there and animals including monkeys atop Chamundi hills too had stopped it. With deforestation, animals are coming out of their territories in search of food and more so it is tough for them to survive during summer. So we approached DCP of Mysuru Prakash Gowda and took his permission to feed these animals and birds atop Chamundi hills,” he said.

He added, “Inspired by Sudha Murthy, even we aspire to serve and share our bit in our own way, so we are dedicating 10 percent of our annual income to such service oriented ventures. We plan to continue this venture to feed this birds and animals atop Chamundi hills, as long as this lockdown period continues as our bit as citizens of Mysuru. Our families support us too,” Harish said.