Black-necked Stork - in Culture

In Culture

The Mir Shikars, traditional bird hunters of Bihar in India had a ritual practice that required a young man to capture a Black-necked Stork "Loha Sarang" alive before he could marry. A procession would locate a bird and the bridegroom-to-be would try to catch the bird with a limed stick. The cornered bird was a ferocious adversary. The ritual was stopped in the 1920s after a young man was killed in the process. Young birds have been known to be taken from the nest for meat in Assam.

In Australia, an aboriginal creation myth describes the origin of the bill of the "jabiru" from a spear that went through the head of a bird. The Binbinga people often consider the meat of the bird as taboo and eating its meat would cause an unborn child to cause the death of its mother. The Jabiru is known as "Karinji" and is the totem of a group known as the Karinji people.

The difference in iris colour among the sexes was noted in 1865 by A D Bartlett, the superintendent in charge of the collection at the Zoological Society of London. The similarity in this aspect with the African Saddle-billed Stork was noted by Bartlett and commented on by J. H. Gurney. Charles Darwin who corresponded with Bartlett was well aware of this and used it as one of the examples of sexual dimorphism among birds. John Gould in his handbook to the birds of Australia noted that the meat of the bird "... has a fishy flavour, too over-powerful to admit of its being eaten by any one but a hungry explorer."