Udalguri, June 25: The Tangla Municipality Board (TMB) in Udalguri has ruthlessly destroyed the habitat of innocent cattle egrets by chopping down bamboo trees where the cattle egrets had been living for many years.

The local administration had issued a notice on June 8 to a group of residents of the area that the bamboo grove needs to chopped down as it may result in the spread of Covid-19 virus. The notice stated that the excretion of the birds has resulted in an ‘unhealthy’ atmosphere.

As the residents didn’t take any action, the Municipality Board cut down the trees on Thursday which destroyed the nestlings.

Assistant professor of Wildlife Sciences, Don Bosco University, Nilutpal Mahanta filed a complaint against the local administration for destroying the shelters of the birds.

“The local administration has misled the people by stating that birds excreta can lead to the spread of Covid-19 without any scientific proof,” Mahanta said.

Mahanta said that the grove was sheltering over 300 egrets out of which mostly were newborns.

“They were many other options that could have been adopted to solve the issue instead of chopping it (bamboo trees) down and leave the poor egrets to die,” Mahanta said.

A WTI rescue centre team of Kaziranga was on its way to save the rest of the birds at the time of filing this report.