Nguyen Thi Gai, 80, woke up one morning to find the Hong (Red) River had risen to only 5m from her door.

In recent months all her neighbours fled the village for higher ground, after a change in the river's flow caused landslides throughout Nhan Thinh Commune, Ha Nam Province, destroying what were once the homes of 200 farmers.

Despite the dangers of the encroaching river, Gai remains in her home caring for the thousands of adjutant storks that have nested in her garden every spring for 30 years.

They roost, ironically, in a bamboo garden Gai and her husband planted following the war in 1975 as a dyke against the river.

"She is a very strange woman," said Nhan Thinh Commune People's Committee Vice Chairman, Nguyen Trong Toan. "She helps birds at any cost, while other people try to kill them for food or sell them for money."

The old woman still remembers the day in 1975 when her husband heard the cries of a young bird in their garden after a hurricane. A fledgling had fallen from its nest and the couple returned the bird to its parents.

From then, Gai was committed to protecting the birds. More and more storks found their way to her garden where they were cared for rather than killed.

"I still remember storks making their nests at the tops of the trees, replacing the green of the bamboo with the complete white colour of their feathers," said Gai's daughter, Tran Thi Tien, 45.

Despite long hours spent farming their rice fields, as well as the noise and stench the birds produced, Gai's family took the time to care for the storks.

"I think that birds are like people. They need a house to live in, food to eat and help in difficult times. Young birds need the care of their parents," said Gai.

"We looked after the birds carefully. My children and I used to pick up young birds or eggs that fell from the trees after storms and would raise them ourselves," she said.

Gai and her family had to contend with poachers sneaking into her garden in an attempt to kill the birds.

"We had to wake up at midnight to protect them from thieves who intended to catch them for food or sale," she said.

The river continues to swallow more and more of the land in Gai's commune and she knows it is only a matter of time before her home and garden will succumb to the same fate as her neighbours' plots.

Even in the face of the rising river, Gai will not abandon her birds.

"Some of my neighbours advise me to leave the birds, but I think I would rather live in poverty than live far from them. It is my fate, " Gai said.

Home, sweet home: Ngoc Nhi stork garden is one of the famous natural bird preservation areas in northern Viet Nam. — VNS Photo Tien Thanh Changlings: Chicks have a longer life expectancy in the Bac Lieu bird reserve. VNA/VNS Photo Thanh Hai Under threat Bird flu, responsible for the deaths of many domestic birds in Viet Nam, is also believed to have affected the region's wild and migratory species.

The bigger picture

Gai is but one individual committed to protecting storks in Viet Nam. Throughout the country, local and national authorities along with committed citizens are involved in a concerted effort to protect thousands of wild birds.

BirdLife, an international non-governmental organisation, estimates of Viet Nam's 800 bird species, 200 of them, including several species of stork, live along the coasts and in wetlands.

Minh Phuong, an ornithologist at BirdLife said Viet Nam's birds account for 9 per cent of the world's total bird population. The World Wildlife Fund Indochina estimates there are 15 endangered bird species in Viet Nam.

To protect, as well as profit from, the country's avian diversity, several privately owned parks throughout Viet Nam have been established to let people see and learn about these animals.

The 1.5ha Tan Long stork garden in Soc Trang Province is home to hundreds of thousands of storks and other birds.

The garden contains about seven types of storks including white storks, black storks, red-headed storks and vac (night heron) and is also home to co quam (ibis).

It opened in the early 1980s but has not had Gai's success in battling hunters.

Huynh Van Muoi, the 68-year-old owner, said many storks had gone missing as a result of poachers.

"The rice fields of Thanh Tri District had flocks of birds in past years, but the numbers have reduced dramatically on account of poaching.

"I feel pained when people hunt the storks. I have tried to talk to them many times but they don't listen to me," Muoi said.

New challenges

Though the owners of bird gardens are committed to protecting storks and other fowl, poachers are much easier to exclude from their parks than the current bird flu epidemic.

Avian flu, responsible for the deaths of many domestic birds in Viet Nam is also believed to have affected the region's wild and migratory species. There are currently many projects aimed at protecting Viet Nam's wild birds, said a BirdLife expert.

Yet, many who became involved in establishing bird gardens now face new challenges associated with bird flu, including temporarily closing their aviaries. Owners of bird sanctuaries, however, continue to work at preserving and protecting Viet Nam's wild birds.

Ngoc Nhi stork hill, owned by Phung Doai Hoc, in Ba Vi District, Ha Tay Province is typical of a growing number of eco-tourism sites catering to stork watchers.

His garden is populated by thousands of storks due to its extensive bamboo forests – a preferred nesting site.

The garden's owner initially saw the potential of the area and bought 2.5ha of forested land in 1992.

His garden now measures 7ha since the local Cam Linh Commune People's Committee agreed to sell him the adjacent property.

The committee's chairman, Phung Cong Van, said the authorities had been guided in the management of the area by scientists from the Ha Tay Science and Technology Department, Ha Noi-based University of Natural Science and Forestry College.

Hoc said his garden is home to eight types of storks, including co trang (white storks), co lua (fiery storks), co trau (black storks) and co ruoi (small storks).

The science and technology department has counted 96 different birds in the garden, along with 200 different plants.

In 1996, the communal people's committee issued a regulation protecting storks in the area.

"The people's committee bans people from hunting storks, and allocates the protection tasks to police and militiamen. The commune now has only nine registered shotguns, and their owners have pledged not to use their guns to shoot the storks," Van said.

"Illegal hunting is rare in the commune, due to people's awareness about protecting the environment."

But he said the storks' behaviour made it impossible for one commune to protect them, as storks typically roam over 20sq.km to forage for food.

Increasingly, however, bird flu, not poachers, has become Hoc's biggest problem. Ngoc Nhi stork hill, like every other garden in the country, has been forced to close.

No bird flu cases have yet been reported in any of these popular gardens, but many have taken measures to check the spread of the disease.

"Soldiers and veterinarians are overseeing the garden in an effort to prevent bird flu," Van said. "Luckily the garden is surrounded by forests and rice fields, so I think it can hardly be affected by outside diseases."

The deputy director of southern Bac Lieu Province's Bac Lieu bird sanctuary, Nguyen Van Buoi, said his staff had been joined by veterinarians to patrol his garden around the clock.

"We have cleaned the local ponds at a total cost of VND6 million (US$382) to create a better and healthier environment for the birds," he said.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Pham Khoi Nguyen, said the ministry was determined to protect local bird species.

"We have to protect and maintain the gene source of local bird species," he said. "We should especially protect birds listed in the World Red Book.

"While we destroy chickens affected by the avian flu, we have to protect natural birds like storks." — VNS