Chandigarh: Meet Limca Book of Records holder Prince Mehra who has dedicated his life to birds
Philanthropist has been running bird ambulance since 1990; has performed last rites of 1,200 birds
Chandigarh bird ambulance: There is no higher religion than human service and to work for the common good is the greatest creed. And this is religiously being followed by Prince Mehra, a philanthropist from Chandigarh, who has been running an ambulance for helpless birds in Chandigarh since 1990.
His ambulance is not a big fancy vehicle, but a bicycle. Keeping environmental concerns in mind, he never switched to fancy modes of transportation and continues to use bicycle as bird ambulance.
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Whenever he finds the carcass of any bird, he performs the last rites. Not only this, if he finds any bird in ailing condition, he takes upon himself the responsibility of handing it over to People For Animals (PFA). And in this endeavour, he neither takes the help of the administration nor any organisation.
So far, Prince Mehra has performed the last rites of 1,200 birds and got 1,100 injured birds treated."The way humans beings are given a warm send-off upon their departure from Earth, in the same way birds and animals deserve the same respect. We often ignore dead birds lying on roads. Once I saw two birds lying in trash. It pained me a lot. I performed their last rites and it was from this incident that I got an inspiration. I always use bicycle as ambulance and keep looking for birds on the roadside," says social worker Prince Mehra.
"Due to smell of dead birds, environment gets polluted; and the situation worsen when the carcass is eaten by another animal. This pollutes environment," he added.
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Prince Mehra says in 2014, his name was included in the Limca Book of Records. He has also been honoured by many organisations.
"Whenever anyone reports bird-related news to the office of animal rights activist and environmentalist Maneka Gandhi, I get information over the phone here too. I try to handover sick birds to PFA at the earliest. And this service is free," he added.
(With inputs from Ankush Mahajan)