thane nearly three weeks after seizing 79 protected birds during a raid on a pet shop in mumbra the thane forest department along with volunteers of ngo wildlife welfare association released 64 of the rescued birds in the creek zone near bhandup pumping station on saturday morningwhile the health checkup conducted by the civic veterinary clinic revealed that these 64 birds were now physically fit to be set free nine others including three ruddy shellducks and six doves have been kept under observartion for medicationin a raid conducted on an amrut nagarbased petstore in mumbra on april 24 members of wwa ngo the forest department and mumbra police seized various species of birds protected under schedule iv of the wildlife protection act from the plum headed parakeet and scaly breasted munia to the purple swamphen and the migratory ruddy shellduck these rescued birds had been kept in shabby conditions in cages while two of these died on the way to the wwa facility then four others died over the past two weeks these birds are wild and cannot survive in captivity many of them suffered shock and weakness while the wings of some had been even clipped said aditya patil president of wwawhen the cages arrived at our facility two scaly breasted munias were already dead over the next few days two more munias and two red headed buntings also died patil added after weeks of regular supply of food and water and medication another medical checkup was conducted by the civic veterinarian after which the wwa team and the forest officials finally released the flock on saturdaycaging these birds is a risk to mortality this is why we had been pushing forest department to release the healthy ones at the earliest said rohit mohite wwa core committee member