With Diwali around the corner, people in the city are busy buying sweets, gifts, but some are also making beelines for owls. Based on a centuries-old tradition, owls make way to the Indian bird markets during Diwali to be slaughtered to make the goddess happy. Despite full awareness of the consequences, the traders are not discouraged to deal in the bird, especially during Diwali time. Traders from outside Delhi, mainly Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut and parts of Uttarakhand (Nainital and Haldwani) come to this market to deal in Owls. Twenty-one of these are major bird markets with an estimated annual turnover of between 20,000 and 50,000 wild birds, including a trade in owls.

Source: dna October 24, 2016 07:20 UTC