As a three-year-old growing up in Palakkad, Kerala, Sangita Iyer would often visit a temple in the vicinity. There, while the adults prayed and sat in silence, she would marvel at a bull elephant domesticated by the temple authorities.
Its long trunk, the body big enough to hide the temple wall, and gentle eyes, were enough to captivate the toddler’s attention.
“I still remember how my grandparents and the elephant handlers felt comfortable enough to leave me with the elephant, totally unattended,” she recalls.
But the curious, inquisitive young girl who would grow up to become a journalist was showing the traits of asking hard questions even at that young age.
“Why are there shackles on the elephant’s legs if I don’t have them?” she would ask her grandmother. Even when the amused adults would try to convince her that it was hardly anything to be worried about, Sangita would continue asking questions that perplexed her family.
It was this childhood bond that she formed with the majestic beasts and a chance documentary she shot later, which steered Sangita towards the path of elephant conservation.
Courtesy: Sangita Iyer.
Today, apart from directing films and drafting supreme court petitions, she has created a charitable trust named ‘Voice For Asian Elephants Society’ (VFAES), which is based in California but fights for the rights of elephants in India.
“In June 2013 I ended up in the Wayanad district in Kerala where I witnessed a wild elephant being rescued. The majestic animal with enormous tusks had fallen into a trench. It was extremely emotional and deeply gratifying to witness the way people were working hard to rescue the hapless animal” begins Sangita in an interview with The Better India.
“Fast forward to December 2013, and a chain of events that took me to the temples of Kerala where I was absolutely devastated and utterly shocked by what I saw. Several elephants had been blinded, many had raw bleeding wounds on their ankles, the heavy chains cutting into their flesh, and almost all of them had enormous tumours on their hips. Despite such physical disabilities they were being forced to parade beneath the scorching sun, deprived of a proper home, food, and water.”
At the time, Sangita was living in Canada and had a graduate degree in biology and a postgraduate degree in broadcast journalism and production.
Being a videographer and a trained journalist, she had brought her camera with her to Kerala in 2013. Upon seeing the terrible conditions that the elephants were kept in, she began filming what she saw, but without a proper plan about whether she would compile it or keep it as a raw record.
The total video footage was 25 hours, and it featured the plight of captive elephants.
Courtesy: Sangita Iyer.
Although that wasn’t the plan when she began filming, Sangita was inspired to compile the material and make a documentary—Gods in Shackles. The exposé about how the poor wild animals are caged, beaten, starved and tortured to follow man’s instructions hit a raw nerve with the audience.
“The film has touched me so deep that I not only sympathise for our temple elephants but also feel like doing something to save them from the bestiality of our society,” is one such review.
The film was representative of the torture that captive animals go through all over the country, and it was Sangita’s way of issuing a call to action.
“The documentary was screened at the United Nations’ General Assembly on the inaugural World Wildlife Day in March 2016 and has won over a dozen international film festival awards, including two best documentaries of the year in 2017. It was also screened at the prestigious International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa,” she tells The Better India.
In August 2014, some of the footage in Gods in Shackles found another audience. The Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Bengaluru used still shots from the movie to file a petition in the Supreme Court to ensure the protection of elephants in captivity—especially in Kerala— which is home to the largest elephant population in India.
“Between November and May (2013), there [were] more than 3000 festivals conducted in Kerala, most of them exploiting India’s heritage animal, the endangered Asian elephants, as deemed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These majestic animals are reduced to slaves, and rushed from one festival to another, standing on hot iron planks behind the truck, paraded beneath the scorching sun and deprived of food and water,” says the petition.
Three years later, in September 2017, Sangita took the lead to file an intervention application and reexamine the topic to bring it to the court’s attention.
Courtesy: Sangita Iyer.
“The reason I filed the intervention application is that elephants are Schedule 1 animals that are afforded maximum protection. They were also declared India’s heritage animal in 2010. But despite these special titles, elephants don’t receive the protection they deserve. Globally there are around 35,000 Asian elephants, and they have been declared an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). India has around 60% of the global elephant population, making it imperative to protect them in our country,” she explains.
The issues that the wise, social elephants face are not alien to us. Every month, we read about the accidental death of a poor elephant who happened to walk outside of its forested area.
It is the ever-expanding human population that is encroaching upon their territory, and yet, rather than being compensated, the animals are subjected to poaching, captivity, and constant torture.
Courtesy: Sangita Iyer.
“Furthermore, as asserted by many climate scientists, human activities are exacerbating climate change, leading to further decimation of the wild habitat through floods and other weather-related events, leaving no place for the wildlife. Elephants are doomed in captivity and the wild. They have been kicked out of their own homes. This is the tragic reality of our precious heritage animal!” insists Sangita.
Through films that touch the heart and petitions that force the brain to think, Sangita and VFAES have been fighting for the rights and protection of elephants in India. Although the journey has been deeply fulfilling, there have been insane challenges to overcome as well.
“Old habits die hard, and it is tough to change the cultural attitudes that have seeped into people’s minds for over centuries. When I began to speak out against the exploitation of elephants in festivals, the festival mafias began to call me an enemy of culture and sent harassing emails to intimidate me,” she mentions.
During the screenings across Kerala, the Chief Minister and the State Police Chief gave her 24/7 police protection. In fact, before the documentary was screened in Thrissur, the hub of the elephant entertainment industry, the bomb squad tested the famous Kairali theater.
“It seems like my fate was decided when I was three years old. Decades later, here I am, trying to unshackle the shackles that confine these majestic animals. And I am eternally grateful for my grandparents who fostered my special bond with elephants. They deserve a fighting chance, and I am determined to be their voice until my last breath,” she concludes.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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The forest can be a dangerous place. Not only for the unfamiliar visitor but also for the vulnerable animals. In a tiger reserve as dense and vast as Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh, the risk of illegal wildlife poaching is especially high.
Considering the complications of poaching and the high-risk jobs of forest officials, IFS officer Ramesh Pandey introduced a mobile application in his department to phenomenal results.
Within a year of its introduction, M-STrIPES, which stands for Monitoring System for Tigers-Intensive Protection and Ecological Status, has been instrumental in catching 200 poachers in a patrol field that covers 2,50,000 km!
The Better India spoke with Pandey to get a better sense of how a mobile application was the catalyst in decreasing poaching activities in Dudhwa.
IFS Ramesh Pandey.
“The model of M-Stripes was developed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2010. However, it was only in 2018 that it was transformed into an app. That made things easier for field officers, and I decided to utilise it in Dudhwa. India is home to close to half of the world’s Tiger population, and it was in our hands to protect them. And if an app was going to help us, why lose the opportunity?” Pandey says.
One can imagine the difficult work of a forest guard. They have late and long working hours in the jungle where carnivores like tigers and bears, as well as vulnerable herbivores like elephants, live. Even a slithering snake could prove fatal while the guard is patrolling the jungles. However, patrolling is an essential part of their duties.
Pandey tells us that one stumbling block at the very beginning of M-Stripes’ journey was the fact that the forest guards, working in the forests for years, were accustomed to working with a stick and a walkie-talkie.
Most were not very comfortable with technology, and some had also gone down the slippery slope of avoiding work altogether. But, the IFS officer was determined to make this initiative work.
The uniformed guards patrol the dense Dudhwa forests.
“In June 2018, I introduced M-Stripes in Dudhwa. Many forest guards were apprehensive because it would track their walking routes, and the time they spent in the forest. But I convinced about 15 of them that the app was not to punish the non-performers but to reward the good workers and I wasn’t lying. It is essential to recognise those who do their job in earnest,” the 49-year-old official says.
If you use mobile applications frequently, it is very easy to understand the app. It basically tracks the user’s route using GPS.
The user can also upload photos and selfies on the app’s database, which solves two purposes—help authorities track who goes in the forest. Secondly, clicking photos of pugmarks, animals, birds, and reptiles shows how specific species are thriving in their territories.
The authorities, like Field Director Pandey, would track these activities to know who was working in the forest at what time.
“Say 40 people are using M-Stripes and everyone is doing 20-30 rounds a month. Once we get all the data from their phones, we check the number of rounds, hours and times of day.
From that, we understand if there is an unpatrolled gap and try to fill it,” he says.
(L) Another patrol session and (R) the activities are tracked on M-Stripes.
What began as an initiative for 15 people, soon spread like wildfire. More forest guards understood that the tracker was getting them recognition for their work, along with improving the forest they loved so dearly. Soon enough, they downloaded and used the app diligently.
Today, the number stands at nearly 200 users! The authorities, on the other hand, have reviewed the records of these officers every day since June 2018!
Sharing his thoughts on poaching in Dudhwa, the IFS officer says, “When it comes to poaching tigers for their skin, rhinos for their horns or elephants for ivory, the wrongdoers are not just underprivileged individuals trying to make ends meet. They are a part of a nexus that is paid by extremely wealthy people to kill animals for a shallow benefit. And so, it is imperative that we take strict action against them.”
Among the hundreds of poachers, was also international golfer Jyoti Randhawa who was caught with a .22 rifle fitted with a silencer, 80 cartridges, as well as wild animal cartridges.
Gradually, machaans (cottages) were also built in Dudhwa to encourage tourists to keep a strict vigil in the forest. Together, the consistent patrolling resulted in the identification and capture of 200 poachers!
Sharing his thoughts on poaching, the IFS officer says, “When it comes to poaching tigers for their skin, rhinos for their horns or elephants for ivory, these poachers are not just underprivileged individuals trying to make ends meet. Rather, they are a part of a nexus that is paid by extremely wealthy people to kill animals for a shallow benefit. And so, it is imperative that we take strict actions against them.”
From the outside, it seems unlikely that a mobile app can help capture poachers. But the numbers recorded in the last year speak for themselves. Although poaching is a topic of debate among conservation experts, IFS Pandey believes that putting an end to wildlife poaching is a crucial step in the protection of wild habitats. With M-Stripes, he is ensuring this and how!
(Edited by Shruti Singhal)
Images Courtesy: IFS Ramesh Pandey
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The world looked a lovely shade of blue, disturbed only by the scattering yellow-white sunlight. Sumer Verma had dived into foreign waters, and yet, this environment was so familiar.
He had been diving since 1997 and each experience was equally familiar, yet unique. This particular dive, in 2014, was one-of-a-kind though.
Although Sumer had always felt a profound quiet and peace when he reached underwater, this dive, in Ecuador, had a thrill. The waters had sharks! And no, they were not deep in the ocean, far away from him. He could see them, not one, not two, but hundreds of them!
“I have dived thousands of times but this particular experience would go on to become one of my most cherished,” India’s first underwater photographer and cinematographer tells The Better India.
Sumer, a Mumbai man, had travelled to Lakshadweep back in 1997 for a leisure trip. And there, he found his passion, one that he followed for twenty years!
Sumer Verma, 8,000 dives strong.
“I was just a city guy experiencing the islands, and it wasn’t just the dive that opened my eyes to the beauty of this planet. This experience started as soon as I reached the islands. During the dive too, I was mesmerised by the beautiful coral reefs and the fish. I felt weightless while my body floated. It was almost like being in space!” he exclaims.
Irreversibly hooked to scuba diving, Sumer, like anyone else, started sharing his experiences with his friends and family. However, he did not have the equipment to capture videos or photos underwater at the time.
As his loved ones started demanding photos of this wonderful realm that he was experiencing every year, Sumer bought a basic camera that could help him capture videos. And that combined two of his hobbies—wildlife photography/ cinematography and scuba diving!
A school of sharks swim very close to Sumer.
But as glamorous as the career sounds, it did not have many prospects.
“Only in recent times has this job started becoming profitable. And this is the only job I’ve had, after struggling at it for twenty years. Firstly, the equipment costs lakhs, which is a huge setback. And more importantly, since I am yet to get a commission or regular buyers, I have to pay for the travel and dives too,” the 44-year-old shares.
A hotel here, a wildlife enthusiast there, helped, by buying his pictures. But that did not stop Sumer from capturing amazing photos in the oceans. It’s a beautiful planet affected irreversibly by human activities, he observed.
And Sumer wanted to capture the beauty to show exactly what we are killing—with our plastic, chemicals, and acids, dumped in the oceans every day.
A clown fish peeps from the reefs.
Sharing his thoughts about this, the photographer says, “The more images I share, the more people become aware of the magnificent world. I know that one image cannot change everyone who sees it, but there is hope. I can bring awareness to those not as privileged as me to see marine wildlife. We can’t keep shaking people up but we can touch their hearts and move them with beautiful pictures. That is my aim.”
Relentless work for the past 20 years has today resulted in a platform where Sumer can be called one of India’s first underwater photographer/cinematographer.
What a thrilling sight it is to swim alongside a hammerhead shark.
Apart from this, he works as a managing partner at Lacadives India, India’s first dive centre. Sumer has also founded Luminousdeep, an organisation that provides high-quality underwater images and videos, on-demand. He hopes to keep showing his followers the wonders of the underwater world and translate the amazement into awareness to conserve it.
One of Sumer’s most iconic photos is of Rajan, the last swimming elephant in Andaman.
Rajan was brought to the islands in the 1970s to transport wood, but later went on to star in a number of films, including the 2006 drama, The Fall. The beloved and celebrated swimming elephant breathed his last in 2016 but Sumer was fortunate enough to capture him in his frame before that.
Sharing his experience, he says, “It was surreal. We swam together for half an hour and it was one of my most magical dives. He was so gentle and happy in the water. May his soul rest in peace.”
Rajan—Andaman’s beloved swimming elephant.
Check out more images from Sumer’s dives here:
Beyond our lands lies a world almost completely unexplored by humans.
A place that extraordinary creatures call home.
How did we humans come to destroy this wonderful world?
It was late in the night when the loud clucking of chickens woke up a neighbourhood of the Bochagaon village in Kaziranga, Assam. Swiftly, the adults gathered near the pen and saw a large snake devouring a hen. Lanterns and sticks in hand, the villagers surrounded the snake keeping a safe distance. In any other circumstances, the frightened villagers would have killed the outnumbered reptile, but this time, they called ‘the man who speaks nature’.
“Ten years ago, the villagers would have lynched the snake without a second thought, and I can’t completely blame them. However, there’s a growing awareness about the importance of each element in the wilderness and the villagers respect snakes now,” says Manoj Gogoi, a 44-year-old father of two, in conversation with The Better India (TBI).
What he is too shy to say is that he has been an important cog of this wheel of change in the mindset of the populace. It is not merely the adults though, who have come to understand nature better. Young children too are showing a growing understanding that wild animals need to be protected.
A boy went running to the Corbett Foundation office, a turtle in his hand. “He told us that his family wanted to keep the turtle as a pet. The boy requested the parents to set the turtle into the wild and so he “stole” the turtle and brought it to us. He wanted us to leave it in its natural habitat. Such is the impact of Manoj,” Dr Naveen Pandey, the Deputy Director of the foundation’s office in Kaziranga tells TBI.
Gogoi nursing a young jungle cat back to health.
This self-styled naturalist’s remarkable journey and experiences have won him many well-deserved accolades. In 2014, Corbett Foundation honoured him with the “Wildlife Warrior” award and last year he became the focus of a documentary called ‘The Man Who ‘Speaks’ Nature’ directed by award-winning Assamese director Dhritiman Kakati.
So what pulled Gogoi to dedicate his life to wildlife conservation?
“I was born in the Kaziranga area of Assam. I grew up in the lap of nature teeming with rhinoceros, leopards, beautiful Himalayas birds and snakes, even venomous ones. It is a familiar environment for me since childhood. Naturally, I developed a genuine fondness for the wild,” smiles Gogoi.
Growing up, Gogoi knew what he wanted to do, and he was determined to move mountains for it. Although he left his studies after his matriculation exam, Gogoi went on to pursue a one-month course at the Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai in 2006.
When a wild animal trusts you with water and food, it speaks volumes about your kindness.
The educational journey, as well as the beginning of his career, played a remarkable role in cementing Gogoi’s passion for saving the wild. Like his father, who was a linesman in the State Electricity Board, Gogoi could have secured a government job. But he decided to chart out an unconventional career path—one that his parents were not too sure of in the beginning.
“He (his father) would get very tense for me as someone told him that catching wild animals is illegal and I can be jailed,” he told East Mojo.
Gogoi pursued his call of rescuing and rehabilitating birds, reptiles and mammals alone for a long time. But at times, people would call him as late as 2 in the night and eventually, he decided to organise a team of enthusiasts like him. With 11 like-minded people, Gogoi started his organisation—the Naturalists for Rehabilitation of Snakes and Birds (NRSB) in 2007. Today, the organisation is 100 volunteers strong.
Continuing to contribute to NRSB, Gogoi also worked as a driver with Assam’s State Tourism Department but his course in Mumbai helped him secure work as a tourist guide in a private resort in 2013. For a long time, Gogoi made ends meet with a meagre monthly salary of Rs 1500 and the, at times, generous tips from tourists.
Birds stuck in traps, injured animals and wandering snakes in Kaziranga have hope, all thanks to Gogoi.
“Foreign tourists tip you very well. During peak season, my income would exceed Rs 60,000-Rs 70,000 in most months. I used to spend the lion’s share of that money on rescuing animals,” he says.
No wonder that NRSB’s name spread far and wide, and calls began pouring in for the rescue of large and venomous snakes. This was a positive sign as people were now choosing rescue instead of killing.
“A large crowd gathers to watch the operation. I take that opportunity to educate people about the importance of snakes. I tell them how killing them is not the solution to their problems and how untrained handling of the reptile can be dangerous. Of course, the awareness was not imparted immediately. However, about ten years later, I can see the difference in their attitude. Now, they call me instead of lynching the snakes,” he says.
Change came in 2013 when having heard of Gogoi’s work, Corbett Foundation approached him with an exciting proposal—starting an office in Kaziranga with Gogoi working in their rescue department. Gogoi gladly accepted this offer as he knew that it would not only help take care of his family’s expenses but also widen the range of the rescue operations. The foundation also assured him of bearing the cost of all wildlife rescue operations. “
All of his operations are well documented in the office. We note everything from how far the site was to what time of the day or night we were called to rescue the animal. Manoj hasn’t turned down a request even if it is about 60 km from where he is,” informs Dr Pandey.
The following year, 2014, the foundation bestowed on him the award of ‘Wildlife Warrior” for his dedicated and proactive work.
Brave against venomous snakes and gentle towards rescued animals.
“It has been a phenomenal journey so far, one that I hope continues for a long time to come,” the naturalist says adding that he only started documenting his rescues in 2007 and the total number of the animals rescued has exceeded 5,000 already.
This number does not take into account the birds and snakes that he rescued in 2005 and 2006.
Gogoi is also involved in conservation education programmes arranged by the foundation. Through such programmes, he tells stories of rescue with such passion that leaves the kids inspired.
“I have learned mostly through experience, and each animal is as special as the other. So far, I have rescued rhino calves, leopards, barking deer, wild boar, jungle cat, fishing cats and other mammals that fascinate tourists on safaris. I have also rescued a 14-feet-long King Cobra—a real threat to my life.”
However, for Gogoi, the most memorable rescue story is of the three tiny kingfisher babies that he saved when they hadn’t even opened their eyes.
“I raised them till they could fly,” he shares proudly.
A wildlife enthusiast who is translating his passion in the rescue of innocent animals, Gogoi certainly is a star. But he rarely owns up to it. Thousands of animals owe their lives to the naturalist who believes it to be a duty to rescue them and take care of them until they are well enough to go back to their natural habitats.
Interestingly, just as we finished our interview, Gogoi received a call informing him that he has been conferred the 2019 Passion Award by India Star Book of Records.
The awards seem to be pouring in and knowing the genuine love Gogoi has for animals, I feel this award is just the tip of the iceberg!
(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)
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“Any place so dense with trees that you can’t even walk in it.” Dr Akira Miyawaki’s definition of forests tries to bust the myth that wilderness and urban civilisation are mutually exclusive terms. Even at the age of 91, the botanist is trying to encourage people to start growing forests right in their backyards. The reason for this relentless pursuit of planting in areas brutally shorn of all green life due to urbanisation is for all to get closer to nature.
Nurture your forest with the very best of organic composts. Don’t just rely on the market, but make it yourself! Purchase compost makers here.
Since the 1970s, Dr Miyawaki has been perfecting a peculiar method of afforesting urban areas. This process, which aims at creating mini forests and self-sufficient eco-systems, came to be known as the Miyawaki method. The Better India has covered several stories of individuals who have created a forest in a small space of land following the Miyawaki method. And this time, we had the honour of meeting with Nishino Fumitaka, the last disciple of the revered Japanese botanist.
What does it mean, to be the last disciple of Dr Miyawaki whose method has a faithful following world-wide?
(L) Nishino with (R) Nochi at a Benglauru police station that grows a Miyawaki forest.
“Nowadays, academia is relying more and more on online research. Very few people actually go out on field and conduct surveys. But trees, plants, forests cannot be understood online or in books. You have to visit them, observe them to truly understand them. In that sense, I can start with a survey, specify and produce saplings and make a forest. As one package, no one else can do it,” Nishino explains in Japanese with Nochi Motoharu translating for us. Nochi too has learned the technique from Nishino and is growing Miyawaki forests in Jordan.
Together, they explain how one can make a mini backyard forest, what points one must not overlook and the impact that such forests have had in Japan so far.
Monoculture plantations Vs Multilayered Miyawaki forests:
Shubhendu and Nishino examine a young forest grown by Afforestt. Image Courtesy: Shubhendu Sharma.
One of the most important points to note while going for such plantation is that you are aiming to create a forest—a self-sufficient ecosystem. This essentially means that you have to plant several plant species of varying heights, width and characteristics. Only their symbiotic relationship will make the forest survive without any interference.
Secondly, we must note that all the species you plant have to be native to that area. And this needs authentic research. Not every plant you see around—even in a large number—is native to that area. Eucalyptus, for instance, was brought to Karnataka by Tipu Sultan in 1790. The tree, native to Australia, spread to several parts of India since. However, it is not a species native to India.
Shubhendu Sharma, the founder of Afforestt stresses on the fact that you must resurrect the inactive soil before you start planting trees. He says that human activity that did not consider the importance of topsoil or microbes living beneath the surface has killed it. Which is why you don’t see trees growing in areas where once thrived a forest. To ensure that the forest you plant doesn’t have a short lifespan, you must make the soil alive again.
Only when you consider all the above points will you be ready to have a forest in your backyard.
How to grow a Miyawaki forest:
Can you believe this forest in just two years old? Location: Near Bengaluru airport. Image Courtesy: Shubhendu Sharma.
“Use native species. Plant them in your cities randomly. Include soil building and mulching as a part of your practice,” Nishino puts it simply. Together with Shubhendu, he goes on to explain the steps to grow a Miyawaki forest.
The very first step is to visit a natural forest closest to the city. Here, as you venture deep into the jungle, you will start noticing certain species of trees that you never see in cities. You will also notice that certain city-dwelling plants are not a part of this forest. This is the first indication of what plants or trees grow naturally in that area and what is planted for beautification.
When you list the native species (you can take the help of the forest department in this too), you divide them into four categories – shrub layer, sub-tree layer, tree layer and canopy layer.
Go to your closest nursery, ideally, a forest department-run, to get the saplings of these finalised species. The forest department will get you authentic native species at subsidised rates. Nishino stresses on the importance of good quality roots of the saplings. Although roots are not visible to us and hence can be ignored, their health is crucial to the growth of plants. As Shubhendu suggests, you can also get seeds germinated in forests.
The foundation is always the most crucial aspect. Image Courtesy: Shubhendu Sharma.
When you have an adequate number of saplings, test the soil where the saplings will be planted. Soil with decomposing leaves, insect activity and a mild-petrichor is alive. If your soil doesn’t show these signs, bring it to life!
“Mix some locally available biomass to improve its nutrition capacity, nutrition content, percolation capacity and water-retention capacity. You can use coconut husk, sugarcane bagasse or the husk of some locally available crops. Nutrition also comes from manure,” Shubhendu explains.
Dig the soil about 1 metre deep and mix three types of biomass.
You have to artificially introduce microorganisms to this soil. Compost tea or Jeevamrut are good examples of such microorganisms which are present in cow dung, cow urine or soil from a natural forest. These will begin the cycle of reviving the soil and make the bed ready for plantation.
After the land is ready, you can begin the planting.
“Plant no less than three saplings per square metre,” Nishino suggests, adding that these saplings need to be a mixed group of trees, shrubs and canopies. These will, of course, be different species and have to be planted in a random fashion.
Once planted, cover the land with mulch so as to stop the water from evaporating. Note that you are growing a forest anew and so, you need to create favourable conditions for a couple of years before letting the forest grow independently.
In most parts of India, you also need to water the plants (about 3 litres per square metre per day) twice every day. “That is not the case in Japan and we need not water the plants at all. However, a change in climate and groundwater levels in India means that you may have to water them regularly, for the initial days,” Nishino explains.
If need be, you will also need to provide support to the plants that will grow vertically quickly. A bamboo stick should suffice.
Lastly, look out for signs like the activity of insects and growth of fungus on the soil. If you see bugs, earthworms or butterfly or mushrooms on the soils, it means your forest is thriving.
Nishino, who has been working closely with Dr Miyawaki since he was a child spoke about the impact that the plantation of native species has had in Japan.
Nishino explains the importance of native trees.
In one instance, the Tsunami waves had wiped out most plants in an area. The native trees, however, still stood strong, protecting the houses in their midst. These trees, of course, were planted very close to each other and this “unity” increased their strength.
In another instance, he visited a landslide site where only the native species had their stronghold while the other trees succumbed.
“The native species might be able to protect in the case of a natural disaster as opposed to alien species. And not just that, this method also protects the unique culture and vegetation of the region,” he explains.
This thick and dense forest will protect us from air pollution and also block loud noises.
We visited a police station on Richmond road in Bengaluru that nurtures a 400-square-metre Miyawaki forest. Chandrashekhar, the DYSP at the station tells us, “The temperature is 5°C lower than the surroundings. We feel fresh as soon as we enter the premises and also more energetic. The men have started watering the trees without instruction now and that shows they have grown fond of the forest.”
The project, just 13 months old, has already grown over 7 feet tall and is thriving with over 20 native flowering and fruit trees.
Growing a forest with this method is not an easy task. But the end result will be deeply satisfying. Nishino informs us that although he has seen a handful of failed projects of the Miywaki method in Japan, the number is very small as compared to the total number of forests successfully grown. And he stresses that overlooking crucial factors such as the plantation of several species- of varying characteristics or native plants- has been the cause of these failures.
Regrowing forests is the need of the hour and you could help contribute to it. Who wouldn’t like to live in a forest and still have access to all the luxuries of a city? A Miyawaki forest helps you do that. Now that you know how to grow one, get to it!
“I strongly believe that tiger conservation, or conservation of nature, is not a drag on development. Both can happen in a mutually complementary manner. All we need is to reorient our strategy by factoring in the concerns of the tiger in sectors where tiger conservation is not the goal. This is a difficult task but can be achieved. Our genius lies in ‘smartly’ integrating the tiger and wildlife safeguards in various infrastructures at the landscape level…”
—Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Last month, the images of India’s first dedicated and functional undercross for wildlife on NH7 (44), which passes through the ecologically sensitive Kanha-Pench Corridor famous for its tigers, made waves on the internet.
Further, what took conservationists by surprise was the snapshot (caught on a trap camera) of a spotted deer being hunted by a pack of wild dogs at the Pench National Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
“Just some dholes chillin in the drizzle! Vast spaces under one of the NH44 underpasses like this one seem to be a perfect pitstop for these beauties. This is one of the two 750m wide underpasses on the highway, the largest & first of its kind in the world!” pic.twitter.com/P1mnoQwvk2
Experts at the Wildlife Institute of India dubbed these developments as “exciting” because wild animals were finally using the underpasses created for them to cross roads safely.
A WII study has 468 captures of 15 species during 90 days monitoring of animal movement, including the tiger. Balancing India’s infrastructure development needs and wildlife protection has always been a very difficult proposition.
This debate once again reared its head when the NH-44 was expanded to four lanes, and as a consequence, a full-grown leopard and tiger were killed in vehicular traffic.
Following the Bombay High Court’s directives, the National Highways Authority of India constructed nine underpasses along NH-44, offering a safe passage for animals who no longer are expected to cross roads at risk to their lives.
These cave-like, concrete underpasses are layered with natural soil so that they resemble the natural habitat of the animals. The underpasses are fitted with CCTV cameras to monitor the movement of animals.
A view of world’s longest and India’s first dedicated underpass for #wildlife on NH7/44. It is passing through the Kanha Pench Corridor. A WII study has 468 captures of 15 species during 90 days monitoring of animal movement, including tiger. Hope for the best. @bhlab_indiapic.twitter.com/Qu18AqOAky
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) July 4, 2019
It was in 2016, when the roads ministry sanctioned the construction of 25 leafy underpasses for wildlife movement as part of 10 national highways that pass through wildlife sanctuaries and forests.
In the past couple of months, more than ten tigers have been seen using these paths.
Last month, the Wildlife Conservation Trust, a Mumbai-based NGO, presented a report which outlined some key points with regards to evolving policy solutions that would both safeguard the wildlife and maintain our infrastructural needs.
There were two critical problems they identified:
“First, most corridors were not spatially defined and therefore remain unknown. This situation is further accentuated by a dearth of quality maps in the public domain. Secondly, timely information on [the] proposed project was missing in the public domain, which negatively impacted specific corridors, thus hindering our ability to implement legally-mandated safeguards on time and at minimum cost,” the report stated.
It went on to express: “Through this comprehensive mapping exercise, we identified a minimum of 150 ‘legally explicit‘ tiger corridors between PAs in the Central Indian and [the] Eastern Ghats landscape, and discovered that only 26 of these were actually identified and tagged by the state and central governments. We were able to obtain data on a staggering 1,699 linear infrastructure project proposals across 11 states, which were overlaid on corridor maps. 399 of these passed through tiger corridors that could/would negatively impact connectivity. The proponents of 345 of these proposals were clueless about the impact on wildlife corridors. In some instances, linear projects bisected corridors, where ecologically viable alternatives were not possible.”
The NGO has reached out to government agencies like NITI Aayog, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), State Forest Departments and civil society to alert them to these concerns.
Prima facie, these underpasses seem like a reasonable solution to a grave problem, but critics regularly point out that the underpasses are too little and poorly designed to achieve complete safety, particularly the problem of waterlogging.
Looking for traces of animals passing through this underpass. (Source: Twitter/Milind Pariwakam)
“The most reasonable thing to do is to leave protected areas on their own. But as the government has decided to go for such projects, the implementation agency must do things which are necessary for the survival and dispersal of wild animals. There should be corridors connecting the habitats. See, forests are not healthy when they are in islands, and animals need to travel between them. Therefore, we need better connectivity,” says Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Service Officer, speaking to The Better India.
“It’s premature to declare these underpasses a success. Even if it is positive, it should not be an excuse to openly start building linear infrastructure in wildlife habitats,” adds Kaswan, who is not associated with the project.
Ultimately, the objective is to ensure endangered species should not face any threat to survival from humanity’s intrusion into what was originally their habitat.
32 years ago, in the Visakha agency area, Visakhapatnam district, a coffee merchant and a humble homemaker bore a son, and decided to name him Phaneendra. A name that finds its roots in Indian mythology and means the ‘king of serpents’ or ‘snakes.’ Yet, unlike his name, growing up, Phaneendra was terrified of snakes. At 32, Phaneendra, who graduated from the NTR Veterinary College Gannavaram as a veterinarian, has rescued and rehabilitated more than 300 stray and distressed wildlife animals!
From snakes, monkeys, mouse-deer, and leopards, he has tended to an army of animals in the past decade.
Phaneendra works with the State Animal Husbandry Department as a field veterinarian, but his work goes much beyond his call of duty.
When he isn’t tending to distressed animals at his clinic, ‘Paws N Claws’ in Rajahmundry, the veterinarian,who also serves as a Wildlife Veterinary Consultant, attends rescue calls from the Andhra Pradesh Forest Department and people who call him at all times.
In addition to rescuing, he also nurses stray wildlife to health and ensures their safe release into the wild.
The Better India (TBI) got in touch with Phaneendra to get a glimpse of his journey.
Stepping into the world of animal rescue
“My earliest memories of love blooming for animals and birds is from when I was as young as six years old. It was a tradition in our household to raise our poultry, but it broke my heart when my family sacrificed it for consumption. I remember putting up with a fight with my parents, to convince them that if they wanted, they could get meat or fish from the market, but I wouldn’t let them raise poultry for food.”
As he grew up and observed his siblings opt for conventional professions like engineering, he felt an incredible pull toward working for animal welfare.
After five years of hard work, when he got into the veterinary field, a realisation dawned upon him.
“During the five-year course, we were taught to rescue everything from an ant to an elephant in distress. While in practice, I realised domestic animals still had humans around them to nurse and care for them or rush them to a vet in times of crisis, but the wildlife that strayed away from their habitat were voiceless and had no one to reach out to. And so, I started visiting forests in East Godavari district in search of any injured or distressed wild animals I could help,” he informs.
From working at the Chennai Snake Park and crocodile bank to wildlife sanctuaries in Shimoga, Karnataka, he also travelled to the Jurong Bird Park managed by Wildlife Reserves Singapore and worked with zookeepers to understand the best practices for animals, birds and reptiles found in the Asian subcontinent.
Two years ago, at the insistence of IFS officers—the husband-wife duo, Anant Shankar and Nandini Saralia, and in recognition of his work, the Forest department sent him to pursue a course at the Wildlife Institute of India.
The officers were also instrumental in nominating him to be part of an intervention in wild animal health course. Organised by the University of Edinburgh, UK, the month-long certified course was held at the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Alwar district, Rajasthan and hosted only 26 participants from 26 countries.
First rescue
Phaneendra’s love for animals goes is unlimited
Phaneendra’s first rescue that continues to remain close to his heart is that of a baby monkey. When he was working out at the local gym, he heard some commotion going on outside. When he checked out, he saw that a baby monkey had strayed from its group. In distress and in search of food, it was running into shops and homes.
“When I saw people bullying the baby monkey and throwing stones at it, my heart twinged in pain. I remember looking at the monkey in the eye and feeling its distress. I yelled at people to leave it alone. When I offered him a banana, the monkey – who was breathing heavily – settled in my lap and fell asleep. This was the turning point of my life,” reminisces Phaneendra.
He later brought the animal to his clinic and fostered it for a week. It soon had a new name, Pandu. Extremely naughty, Pandu couldn’t be left alone. So he travelled with Phaneendra everywhere he went. But the vet knew, he couldn’t get attached. The baby belonged to the wild.
“I tried taking him to the spot where I found him, but every time I returned, he would be eagerly waiting for me. So after a few days, when I had given him the rabies vaccine, I took him to a nearby park where a group of monkeys were living on a tree. I brought lots of bananas. So when the pack came down to take the bananas and returned, Pandu followed too.”
One of his most daring rescues was that of a leopard in the Godavari Delta Area in February 2019.
Phaneendra is never too scared to lend a helping hand to wild animals in distress
The leopard, deemed a man-eater by the media, had attacked four people before climbing onto a 90-feet high coconut tree.
Phaneendra, who was in Vijayawada at the time, immediately left for the rescue spot after receiving a call from his Divisional Forest Officer.
The plan was laid out. The only way to capture the animal and rescue it, was tranquilising it. A non-lethal air gun, often used for incapacitating the target animal, temporarily impairs the animal’s physical functions. The use of tranquiliser guns has a long history of risking serious injuries to both the person capturing the animal and the target as well.
And therefore this is a special skill that can only be performed by certified-wildlife veterinarians.
Under regular circumstances, this would be done by a tranquilising expert from the rescue team of the Vizag zoo. But since the man had gone for higher studies to the US, the role of tranquilising the leopard became Phaneendra’s.
This was his testing moment. But his course with the University of Edinburgh had prepared him for this.
“The leopard is a tactic animal. Despite the net traps that we had laid, at 1:30 AM it took a single leap from the 90 feet tree, crossed over the nets and escaped into the fields.”
The real problem cropped up when the rumours of the leopard being spotted in the village started making rounds on WhatsApp. Women and children were advised to not step out of their homes.
From pythons to larger predators, Phaneendra rescues all wild animals
Phaneendra and his team did not sleep a wink.
On 14 February, he was notified that the leopard, after escaping a coconut plantation, had entered into a thatched hut.
Everyone from the Vizag rescue team, forest department authorities, an animal ambulance, CRPF, local MLAs and DSP were at the spot. This time, the team was at a better footing to react to any situation at hand.
The only way the animal could be tranquilised was for Phaneendra to climb the makeshift roof covered by coconut palms, dig a small hole through it and dart the animal sitting in the mezzanine attic.
“My focus was to save that leopard. At 5.30 pm when I tried to dart it the first time, it was so alert that it not only dodged it but almost attacked me. We slipped off the roof into the heavy net enclosure traps and sustained scratches. Mine was a close shave to death. One wrong step and it would have leapt and torn me apart. My family begged me to abandon the rescue. But I didn’t,” recalls Phaneendra.
At 11:30 PM when he tried for the second time, he was able to dart it from a distance of 10 feet. The 20-hour rescue operation was a success. The leopard was transported to the Vizag zoo the same night and released into the wild two and a half months later.
2018 was also the year when the young vet shot to fame for rescuing 15 python eggs from a village, 7 km from Rajahmundry.
“Had I reached five minutes late, one of the bystanders would have crushed the head of the mother python under his boot. I rushed to the spot and put the 15-feet-long python and its eggs in the trunk of my car. Taking it to the forest academy, I put the python in a drum. The next day she had escaped. I couldn’t abandon the eggs. So I decided to artificially hatch them in an incubator at my clinic. I took the advice of senior vet friends abroad.”
In artificial hatching, it is crucial to maintain the ambient temperature and humidity, since it defines the sex of the babies. In his very first attempt, Phaneendra was able to attain rare success, where eight males and seven females were born. He will soon be presenting a paper on this at a national wildlife veterinarians conference.
All those who have witnessed Phaneendra’s work first hand, hold him in high regard.
Speaking with TBI, senior vet, Ravi Kiran says, “A lot of us are veterinarians. But Phaneendra is an out-of-the-box vet. He also goes out of his way to cater to the needs of the strayed wildlife. Many of us only learned about rescuing wildlife during our course, but Phaneendra is putting his knowledge into the application by conserving and rescuing wildlife.”
Srichakra Pranav, a budding wildlife conservationist and researcher adds, “All vets do not pursue wildlife, some out of lack of interest, others because it is not the best paying job in India. But Phaneendra has been doing a great job. His work is voluntary and driven by passion. When my field assistant rescued five abandoned civet kittens, Phaneendra took them in and trained them to hunt before releasing them into the wild. Also, with the leopard tranquilising, the success rate in the first attempt is as low as 60 per cent, but he did it in one shot and for all such operations that he has undertaken, he has zero mortality, which is exceptional!’
We couldn’t agree more! The braveheart animal rescuer is indeed an exceptional human being who listens to the voiceless, and treats them with the care and respect they deserve.
Baba Dioum, the famous Senegalese forest engineer and conservationist, once said, “In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”
This is an approach that drives many wildlife conservationists.
But how do you get ordinary citizens who aren’t invested in wildlife conservation to care about other sentient beings inhabiting our incredible planet?
This is precisely the question that the Karnataka Forest Department is looking to answer through India’s first blue-chip natural history film called Wild Karnataka, scheduled for a full-fledged theatrical release on 17 January 2020.
Backed by stunning visuals showcasing the breathtaking natural wildlife of Karnataka, this 52-minute film hopes to evoke feelings of awe, love and eventually, understanding about natural wonders among everyday people, wonders that exist in their own backyard.
With narration from the iconic Sir David Attenborough, music from Grammy Award-winning composer Rickey Kej and cinematography by a world-class team of Indian filmmakers like Kalyan Varma and Amoghvarsha JS at the helm, Wild Karnataka hopes to get more ordinary Indians invested in wildlife conservation.
“There is a general consensus in the wildlife conservation community that awareness holds the key. If I have to tell you about needing insurance for your house, you need to know why. You need to know what you are insuring, what you are getting insurance for, and what is the value of the house, etc. In the context of wildlife conservation, a small section of the population understands the answers to these questions. But there is a large percentage of this country which is not even aware of what biodiversity lives in our backyards,” says Amoghvarsha JS, in a conversation with The Better India.
Wildlife documentaries have mostly been shown in confined spaces like schools, colleges or seminars. If you open a blue-chip documentary like Wild Karnataka to an audience not invested in wildlife conservation through multiplex screenings, you have a shot at making them care about these things.
For example, I’ve only seen a tiger in the wild once during a school excursion to Nagarhole National Park. That image of a tiger in full flight has never left me. It’s the image that got me invested in stories or initiatives related to tiger conservation.
“See, you can’t expect people to save the tiger unless they care about it. The first step is to help people fall in love with nature. Once you do that, they will automatically care for it. People from Karnataka should take pride in their wildlife. We all know wildlife is under threat in India. This film will help people get in line with conservation. When the time comes, they will step up to save a particular species of animal or a patch of forest,” said Kalyan Varma, in an earlier conversation with The Better India.
Any landmark moment in human history, whether it’s the abolition of apartheid or slavery, or the dawn of the feminist movement, began with a change in consciousness. Take the plastic ban, for example. Why did people decide to participate in it even though it’s hugely convenient and has a massive economic lobby behind it?
It was awareness about plastic’s debilitating effects on the environment and the consciousness that it’s our responsibility to address the problem urgently.
“Our animals don’t come out in protest when their habitats are under danger. Who can be their voice? Us. We have to take the message of wildlife conservation to the masses because they don’t have access to quality documentaries, talks, podcasts, or reading material. Pursuing wildlife filmmaking, visiting national parks and going on safaris is expensive and time consuming. What is the quickest and cheapest way we can bring this experience and build a sense of wonder and awe, particularly in children?” asks Amoghvarsha.
Into The Wild: Amoghvarsha JS
In the age of digital media, where content is constantly consumed, the makers have a very special opportunity to tell this story.
The first step towards mainstreaming wildlife conservation is a change in consciousness. Amoghvarsha is a product of David Attenborough’s films, and he is making films today. There are researchers, conservationists and lawyers battling against illegal encroachments or poaching, and they are all the products of the media they have consumed.
If even a fraction of those who watch this film are inspired to work towards wildlife conservation, the makers have done their job and proved why it is so important for quality wildlife documentaries to go mainstream.
Further democratising the process
“You can’t expect people to save the tiger unless they care about it,” said Kalyan Varma.
Working as ace wildlife photographers and filmmakers, Amoghvarsha and Kalyan Varma have travelled the world working for a whole host of notable international publications and production platforms, including National Geographic. But although their work did get broadcast internationally, it wasn’t readily available in India.
“It was a shame that we hadn’t made a documentary about our own state or backyard. There were questions surrounding funding, acquiring permissions to shoot, and logistics, among other things. There was no precedent for the work we were doing for Wild Karnataka. This is the first Indian wildlife documentary to go on the screen as a full-fledged release like a Bollywood film,” says Amoghvarsha.
Fortunately, the filmmakers had the backing of the State Forest Department, particularly with logistical assistance and sponsors who bought into their vision.
“We have also made a Kannada version of this film, and the plan is to showcase it in rural areas. Our objective is to reach about 50,000 schools. So, while the world can see our work on various platforms, even children studying in villages can watch and relish it. At the same time, we want regular people to go to theatres and watch it with their children and families. This is a classic family entertainer,” says Amoghvarsha.
Most wildlife documentaries are in English. Children studying in local government schools across small towns and rural areas can’t access these documentaries and find them hard to understand. For the Kannada version, therefore, the team has roped in famous Kannada actor-director Rishabh Shetty. They have started running pilots in these schools, and the first cycle of their outreach will include 5,000 schools. For audiences outside cities like Bengaluru, it’s critical to present these films in the vernacular.
Memorable moments built on a unique narrative
Watch Wild Karnataka this Friday!
There are extraordinary moments in this film, including the sight of otters chasing away a tiger at the Kabini Wildlife Sanctuary. Many of us understand wildlife in the context of predator and prey, but the animal kingdom is a lot more complex.
In the film, there is a remarkable sequence where a sambar deer fends off a pack of wild dogs to protect her young ones. The sight of an underdog taking on a pack of predators and a mother protecting her young ones presents core human experiences as well.
“We have adopted a very different narrative style in this documentary. Rather than talking about it as a wildlife documentary, we want it to be seen as a family entertainer. Instead of a time pass Bollywood flick, take your parents or kids for this incredible visual experience and come back with some knowledge. If people loved Jungle Book, they will love this visual experience even more because the animals are real,” says Amoghvarsha.
The makers don’t want this to become merely a niche film for wildlife lovers. There are around 20 sequences in the film, whereas a typical wildlife documentary will not have more than 12-13 detailed ones that address animal behaviour. In Wild Karnataka, you’ll see a new animal every two minutes and something is happening all the time to keep you engaged.
These 52 minutes should just fly by. In fact, Amoghvarsha tells us that he had to keep reminding their post-production partners that this film is for people who haven’t really seen wildlife before.
At the end of the day, however, it’s about telling a good story.
In funnelling over hours of footage measuring 60 TB of data into just 52 minutes, the makers of this unique film hope to tell a story that will not only influence future wildlife conservationists but also usher in a generation of filmmakers and photographers who will document the earth’s natural beauty for decades to come. With their work, more people in the future will care and the wonderful cycle of wildlife conservation will continue.
“My mantra for youngsters wanting to get into wildlife filmmaking is simple. Start with what you have. There are fantastic mobile phones with which you can shoot a full film. People have this impression that wildlife media is an expensive affair. It’s not if you’re willing to put in the time. Bengaluru, for example, has many parks with plenty of flora and fauna. Pick a story and a subject that is easily accessible because it’s not about the equipment, but how you tell a story. If you’re good, others will notice you. If Wild Karnataka succeeds in capturing the attention of mainstream audiences, then one day, you could also be that person awaiting the grand release of your film at multiplexes across India,” he says.
Shaaz Jung’s life changed when he first encountered Scarface, an alpha male leopard, in the jungles of Kabini, Karnataka. It was 2010, and Shaaz had finished his course from the Utrecht University School of Economics in the Netherlands, and was all set for a lucrative career in the United States. During the four-month break, he decided to spend some time with his parents, who are famed eco-tourism operators.
“My life changed when I encountered Scarface, who was 1.5-years-old at the time. We developed a close connection because he was a brash young leopard taking over territory, and I was a young man looking to make my mark in the world. We were both passionate and wanted to explore the forests together. As he grew more comfortable in my presence, he led me into some of the most beautiful parts of Kabini, and showed me some of its oldest trees,” says Shaaz, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India.
Instead of taking up a corporate career in the United States, he came back to the forests of South India, where he spent most of his childhood. He decided to study leopards here and help establish the Bison Resort in Kabini as a naturalist and guide.
After two years, he picked up the camera to identify and study individual leopards, beginning his sojourn as a wildlife photographer, and eventually, a cinematographer. Of course, his parents’ association with ecotourism, conservation and wildlife over 30 years gave him a solid platform to pursue his interests.
Ten years after seeing Scarface, the ‘Leopard Man of India’ has delivered The Real Black Panther, a documentary which stunningly weaves the tale of a young panther Saya, in collaboration with National Geographic Wild. Set in the Nagarhole Tiger Reserve, the documentary explores his love for Cleopatra, the most dominant female leopard, and efforts at challenging Scarface, the ferocious leopard king.
Can Saya win Cleopatra’s heart? Can he become the jungle’s top cat?
Melanistic leopard
Saya is a melanistic leopard (black panther), and the only one in the forest. It’s rare to find one.
Spotted for the first time in 2015, Shaaz has been tracking, observing, and documenting him since. In the past, black panthers have only been studied through trap cameras in places like the dense forests of Malaysia.
However, when the opportunity to tell Saya’s real and unscripted story presented itself, Shaaz approached National Geographic in 2017.
“I have spent the last ten years at the Nagarhole National Park, studying leopards. When Saya became a regular figure in our forest and took it by storm, we approached National Geographic. We aimed to tell the story that showcased the beauty of his life and journey over three years,” he says.
Tracking Saya
The magnificent Saya.
He’s a needle in a haystack as the only one of his kind in the forest. Unlike tigers, leopards are very elusive and nocturnal because they’re not the apex predators in Nagarhole.
Theforest is home to tigers, wild dogs, and other predators. That makes it more difficult to tell the story of leopards, leave alone one melanistic leopard, who is not just surviving but thriving against the odds of natural selection.
This leopard lives in a dry deciduous forest like Nagarhole, which stays dry for six months in the year, and wet for the remaining six.
“Saya doesn’t belong there, which means he had to adapt. This adaptive melanism makes him unique. He developed these beautiful characteristics and little quirks that you had to understand to track him. Since his skin wore a black coat, it would absorb heat faster than the average leopard. Also, unlike most leopards, he loved the rains. Whenever there was a thunderstorm, we would see him climb a dead tree to enjoy it, whereas other leopards tend to take cover under a thick undergrowth. Understanding these characteristics based on weather and habitat was the key to tracking him,” argues Shaaz.
The forests of Nagarhole are thick and dense. There are lantana trees that are not indigenous to the country growing like wildfire. The undergrowth is so thick that the moment you witness the big cat, it disappears.
Shaazand the Nat Geo WILD team would spend 10 hours a day, and see him twice a week. Sometimes those sightings would range between just five and seven seconds.
Sighted at a distance.
Mainly, the challenge was to tell his story not by merely spotting or documenting him, but by following him closely. This meant capturing his efforts at courting females, attempts at hunting, overthrowing other resident males, dominating their females, and camouflaging even in broad daylight. This also contained a perfect little love story, which worked well with National Geographic’s aim to highlight real stories and celebrate our ‘Real Love’ of these magnificent creatures.
“Saya, for example, loves one particular female leopard called Cleopatra (Cleo), because she is stunning. Tracking Saya for the past five years, we know every single pathway, and the trees he loves to climb depending on the season, which females interest him, and where he spends time in their territories. It has been an unbelievable journey,” elaborates Shaaz.
For the most part, the physical characteristics of Saya and other leopards are the same. The only difference is in the colour of the fur because he lacks the agouti gene, which regulates the distribution of black pigment within the hair shaft.
“We track leopards by listening to calls made by the langur and the spotted deer. The way they call for other aggressive leopards like Scarface, Torn Ears or Saya is similar. However, to specifically track Saya and not another leopard, we needed to understand his pathways. The jungle has pathways created by elephants which walk through the dense foliage creating different openings. Just like humans, big cats also tread these openings so that there is not too much foliage that scratches them up. The key was to understand the pathways Saya took and where they lead, which were often places that other leopards wouldn’t venture into,” says Shaaz.
Assisting Shaaz and the crew closely was the Karnataka Forest Department, whose guards also helped them track the leopards.
Saya catches his prey.
For survival, Saya began taking over territories where pathways led to evergreen and banyan trees or those that did not shed their leaves throughout the year. These paths would invariably lead to evergreen patches or trees like the big banyan and rocks that cool the earth on a hot day. That very Jungle Book-like part of the forest became a haven for Saya, although other leopards didn’t like it much because of the high density of tigers in the area. It may have been scary, but he found a way to coexist with them.
He would climb trees with black barks, being camouflaged in their shadows, rather than stand out in daylight.
This is how he would hunt as well.
“As the first people in the world to document a melanistic leopard so closely, observing Saya has thrown up some fascinating insights. In a habitat not conducive to his kind, it’s incredible that he is not only surviving but also thriving and dominating. He has overthrown leopards double his size and courted three female leopards on one tree, all at the same time, which has never been documented before. We don’t yet have the answers to why someone like Saya thrived in Nagarhole,” he admits.
Shaaz Jung
Nonetheless, understanding and following Saya has been an incredible journey for Shaaz and the Nat Geo WILD team. In two years, the team has witnessed many beautiful moments. In wildlife filmmaking, the first thing many learn is to respect the animal.
“You want to give the animal space, where they behave naturally. When they are aware of your presence, they behave unnaturally. In the first year, we parked at a long distance and captured his behaviour. We would switch off the car and spend hours in his territory. And this allowed him to get comfortable with our vehicle. One of my most memorable sightings was a day in March 2018, when it was scorching hot with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. Saya was panting very heavily. There was no water body or shade in sight, except the shadow our car cast on the ground. He walked right towards us and sat in the shade for more than two hours. That was the perfect example of coexistence and trust, which we built over these years,” he says.
For a larger purpose
It pains Shaaz to explain that the documentary scheduled for telecast today on Valentine’s Day, is not just about his passion or love for leopards. He believes these creatures have taught him more about life than humans. He wants viewers to get inspired and understand flora and fauna around them.
“These leopards taught me how to love, move on and live by the day through their little struggles, triumph and victories. Humans worry about tomorrow, the day after, and the next year. Cats live for getting their food, water and other necessities each day. They don’t care about the passing of time. They do not care about how old they are or whether they are going to die in a few years. In teaching me to live by the day, they helped me understand the circle of life and that we are all a part of it. Scarface may be a leopard, and I, a human, but at the end of the day, we are all animals,” he concludes.
The Silent Valley National Park in Palakkad is one of the most well-known tropical forests in India and is home to a wide variety of rare species of flora and fauna including the endangered lion-tailed macaque.
In 1970 when the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) proposed a hydroelectric dam that runs through the Silent Valley submerging almost 8 KM of the forest, many environmentalists came together in protest and standing at the forefrunt of the protests were the tribal communities living in Palakkad. Eventually, the project was scrapped.
Maari, a Muduga tribal, grew up listening to his father standing in the frontlines, fighting to protect their green home. And it left a lasting impression on him.
It is no wonder then that Maari became a conservationist, dedicating his entire life towards preserving the environment. And for the same reason, he was bestowed with Kerala Chief Minister’s Forest Medal this year.
Early Life In The Silent Valley
Maari with Prince Charles
Maari has been a part of the conservation of the Silent Valley forests in Kerala’s Palakkad municipality since childhood. His father, Letchiappan, had helped numerous environmental scientists and conservationists from across India study the biodiversity of the Silent Valley during the late 1970s.
Maari had also accompanied his father on most of these guided tours where he would point out the peculiarities of each of the rare species found in the forest.
Discontinuing his formal education in the 7th standard, Maari joined his father at the age of 16, who was also assigned as a temporary ‘watcher’ at the Silent Valley.
“My father knew every single detail about the place since he was brave enough to go into the deepest regions of the forest,” explains Maari.
Silent Valley, Palakkad
Currently a conservationist at the Poochipara region of the Silent Valley, Maari interacts with eco-tourists and environmentalists on a daily basis.
He points out that he has had the opportunity to learn a lot from the researchers he’s guided in the past few years. He would point out rare species to them and they would teach him the name. Today, he can name 134 species of orchids in the Silent Valley along with the names of different birds and insects.
“In 2013, I had the chance to meet Prince Charles who had come to visit Kerala. I even had the opportunity to speak to him for a while with the help of a translator. At the time I didn’t know that it was a big deal, but now I do,” laughs the 48-year-old conservationist.
Besides conservation and being the ‘keeper’ of the Silent Valley, Maari also enjoys taking pictures of all the exotic creatures that only his eyes have witnessed.
A Picture captured by Maari
“I’m not a professional photographer, but I love to capture whatever I see in the forest as a form of documentation. A range officer that used to work here gifted me a camera in 2002 and I’ve been taking photos ever since. I don’t keep any of the pictures, I submit them all to the forest office,” he explains.
Encounters With The Wild
“Whenever I take tourists and researchers into the forest I tell them a few simple things. If you spot an animal, don’t get scared and don’t make noises or run. The key is to be silent. The second thing and the most important thing to remember is that this is the animals habitat, if you don’t do anything to them, they won’t do anything to you,” he explains.
“There are so many encounters that I’ve had with the wild animals. A few years back, I was guiding a few researchers through the forest and we spotted a lone elephant. Everyone hid behind trees on seeing the tusker. When the elephant heard our footsteps, I saw him reach out with his trunk to find us. But luckily, he couldn’t reach in completely,” he says, relieved.
But for Maari, the scariest encounter was with a wild tiger.
“I was alone that day and was trying to clear my path of the twigs and leaves in the forest. Suddenly, I looked up and right next to me stood a wild tiger staring right at me. Then for the next 15 minutes, both the tiger and I were imitating each other. When I sat down quietly, he also sat. When I got up, he also moved back. Then suddenly, when I made a loud noise, the tiger ran away. The next day when I came back to the same spot, I found the remains of a Sambar Deer lying there. That’s when I realised that I had encountered a hungry tiger,” he explains.
Leopards, bears, tigers, stray wolves, snakes, there’s a long list of animals that Maari has encountered. But rather than being scared, this man has embraced these experiences that have brought him closer to the wild.
Silent Valley Today
Life in the forest has been full of obstacles and difficulties for Maari. Even during the Kerala floods in 2018, Maari was forced to spend multiple days in the forest alone as all the paths and roads to the forest were flooded.
Furthermore, his visits to his home are limited to once every 15 days. Maari says that his wife Pushpa and his three children Mithun, Lakshman and Sreerag love life in the forest but don’t have the kind of passion that he’s developed for it.
Every year the Kerala government presents the Chief Minister’s Forest Medal for exceptional efforts by individuals who have worked for the development of the society and the conservation of the environment. This is one of the highest honours that Maari has received so far.
He has also won several other environmental awards in the past, including a conservation award instituted in memory of former Chief Conservator of Forests N Madhavan Pillai and also the prestigious P V Thampi environmental award.
Maari receiving an award
Maari’s selfless efforts and contributions to save the rare ecosystem of Silent Valley is unparalleled and we applaud him for being an inspiration to many forest officials and conservationists.
Our history is replete with stories of elaborate big game hunts, particularly of tigers and leopards, that were a favourite pastime of royal families in the Indian subcontinent. These events were often staged to showcase their royalty, power, wealth and, of course, machismo.
Officers of the British government routinely hunted down these wild cats with reckless abandon, alongside their Indian vassals that ruled over nominally sovereign ‘princely states.’
Post-independence, however, the killing of tigers escalated. Hunters from around the world gathered in India with local travel agencies promising them marquee trophies of animals including tigers, elephants, lions and the rhinos, amongst others. And leading the pack were the Maharajas.
Serious scientific research in the field of wildlife conservation only began in the country when renowned wildlife biologist, George Schaller came to India in the 1960s. Prior to his arrival, most of the stories surrounding wildlife were written by Britishers who were working with the Raj when hunting was allowed whether he was Jim Corbett or anyone else. People were fascinated more with the aesthetics of tigers and eventually killing them, and we saw the gradual disappearance of the strongest cats from the gene pool.
After visiting a series of forest areas like Kanha, George Schaller wrote a popular book titled ‘The Deer and The Tiger’ published in 1967, which offered a detailed account of the ecology and behaviour of Bengal tigers and four species of the hoofed mammal.
However, wildlife conservation in India really took off in the early 1970s, which saw the enactment of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), the establishment of Project Tiger (1973), signing onto the Stockholm Declaration (1972) and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora (1973).
Kailash Sankhala, the first director of Project Tiger, would go on to play a fundamental role in turning the tide for wildlife conservation in India, particularly of tigers. He was probably the first Indian field officer who did real field research work in understanding the secretive lives of tigers from their behaviour, population dynamics to daily activities.
Territorial fight between two full grown #tigers. Listen with headphones. Powerful Roar & it’s echo from Indian #forests. Via WA. Today project tiger has completed 47 years in #India. pic.twitter.com/hiLonKXrif
— Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) April 1, 2020
Early Life
Born in Jodhpur on 30 January 1925, Sankhala studied biology in college despite his father’s wish that he study engineering.
Following college, he did his Master’s from Jaswant College in Jodhpur before earning a postgraduate degree in Forestry from the Indian Forest College in 1953. The same year he joined the Forest Service in Rajasthan, a “place that shaped me and my future career,” wrote Sankhala in his book ‘Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger.’
“Before his passion of conservation was ignited, he was responsible for issuing hunting permits. One day sometime in the early 1950s, he killed a tiger which transformed him. It was a real turning point. He was riddled with guilt, which eventually led to him becoming a conservationist. He spent the remainder of his life protecting the tiger and its habitat,” says Amit Sankhala, the Managing Director of the Bandhavgarh Jungle Lodge, and grandson of Kailash Sankhala, in an email interview with The Better India.
Kailash Sankhala (Source: Amit Sankhala)
It’s something Kailash Sankhala notes as well. “Even today, the scene is as fresh as it was that morning, and the open eyes of that tiger have haunted me all my life. To overcome my guilt, I have dedicated my life to the cause of tiger preservation,” he writes in his book.
In 1956, he sent a letter to the Wildlife Board of Rajasthan with an appeal to stop the shooting of tigers and thus became one of the first conservationists to speak up for their protection.
Nearly a decade later, when he was appointed Director of the Delhi Zoological Park, he convinced the Indian Board of Wildlife to institute a system that would track the export of tiger cubs, requiring exporters to clearly explain how they obtained them.
For the Tiger
It was during his time as the Director of Delhi Zoological Zoo from 1965 to 1970, when his work around tigers really began to pick up. Despite protests by the local media, he stopped making animals perform for the general public while revamping the quarters where tigers were kept more like their natural habitat. He also started conducting some of his initial research on tigers nearby and travelling to different parts to get population estimates.
In 1967, he investigated the sale of tiger and leopard furs in markets across Delhi and published those findings on the front page of The Indian Express. Two years later, he pleaded before the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to protect the tiger whose numbers were rapidly declining.
In fact, by gathering public support on this issue in the national and international media, he persuaded the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to ban tiger hunting altogether. Even some of the Maharajas saw the wisdom of this plea.
“Going on Tiger Hunts, was a regular pastime of the Maharajas. They could never imagine that one day there would be Indian jungles without any tigers in them,” says Amit.
In May 1970, he was awarded the coveted Jawaharlal Nehru fellowship for his project titled ‘The Controversial Tiger: A Study of Ecology, Behaviour and Status,’ which truly enabled him to jump with both feet into the field of wildlife conservation. Under the fellowship, he set out to conduct an all India study to understand how many Tigers were still alive in India.
By September 1970, he had convinced Dr Karan Singh, the Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, to ban the export of tiger, leopard and panther skins or the products made from them.
For the next two years, he travelled across India to study the dwindling tiger population. Amid his project, Anne Wright, a leading voice for wildlife conservation, published an article in May 1971 titled Skin Shops, which describes in some harrowing detail the illegal selling of tiger and leopard skins in Kolkata. This was once again part of a concerted effort to raise the issue of tiger conservation into mainstream discourse.
After she was convinced of the problem by British conservationist Guy Mountfort, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi established India’s first Task Force on Tigers, headed by Dr Karan Singh. The Task Force on Tigers also included Kailash Sankhala, Anne Wright, Dr MK Ranjitsinh, an authority on wildlife, and Zafar Futehally, a naturalist and conservationist.
Former PM Indira Gandhi holding a tiger cub. (Source: Amit Sankhala)
Months later on 9 September 1972, the parliament passed the Wildlife Protection Act for the protection of plants and animal species.
It was a landmark piece of legislation which among other things, facilitated the creation of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, strictly restricted and regulated activities in them, besides banning the hunting of wildlife.
A few months later in April 1973, Prime Minister Gandhi established Project Tiger to “protect and restore natural habitats of tigers and to track and protect the remaining wild tigers in India” and handpicked Sankhala as its first director.
“My grandfather would spearhead Project Tiger by starting with nine tiger reserves. A major task was to relocate villages outside national parks so that there could be safer habitats for Tigers. The task was serious—setting up an administration, which will oversee the relocation of villages, creating park boundaries and developing community partnerships so that it’s all done in a harmonious manner,” says Amit. He held the post of director until 1976. However, his pioneering role in tiger conservation wasn’t merely limited to being the director of Project Tiger.
“The hallmark of his contribution, which many don’t know about, is the field research he conducted on tigers. When you read his book ‘Tiger! The Story of the Indian Tiger’, you will understand how scientifically he studied the animal. He would spend hours observing how tigers would behave, how they secrete pheromones, how they would mark their territories and the different calls they would make. All this initial research on tiger ethology and ecology was very well documented by Mr Sankhala. In my opinion, this is his most important contribution, which most people don’t underline as they should,” says Ramesh Pandey, a senior Indian Forest Service officer, speaking to The Better India.
(Source: Amit Sankhala)
Did his research, however, translate into on the ground conservation efforts?
Pandey seems to think so. “If you see a tiger in the jungle, it’s demeanour is one of composure and real poise like a monk. The needs of this very secretive animal are minimal. If you provide closure to a particular area of the forest, the tiger will breed, come out of distress, mark its territory, increase its range and manage on its own. By providing closure, you mitigate the scope for biotic pressure. It has immense potential to bounce back and adjust to adversity. In my opinion, he could see the composure the animal exhibited and that if it was provided with enough protection, nature would take care of the rest,” he says.
In India, much of what is understood about the practical aspects of conservation like territoriality (how animals use space to communicate ownership), overlapping of areas, prey-predator dynamics, provision of better habitat, food, shelter, water and the cover regime have primarily emanated from Sankhala’s work and experience.
“The tiger is a wanderer with no definite plan in mind. But within his ‘home range’ he has a mental note of such features as day shelters, waterholes and places where food may be expected. (His periodical reappearances at these places is sometimes interpreted as visits to guard his territory.) He seldom leaves his home range except to pursue receptive tigresses or when driven by desperate hunger,” Sankhala once wrote.
Despite stepping down as Director of Project Tiger in 1976, he continued to study and write about tigers (published three books in total alongside other works on wildlife conservation) and worked as the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan from 1978 to 1983.
After a lifetime of service to wildlife conservation, he was awarded the Padma Shri in 1992. He sadly passed away two years later on 15 August 1994, at the age of 69, but the legacy he leaves behind is immense.
Project Tiger began in April 1973 with 9 tiger reserves and a mere 268 tigers. Today, there are 50 tiger reserves across India and their numbers have grown beyond 3,000. However, much credit for this significant rise in tiger population must also go to the institutional mechanisms that have been put in place the past 15 years.
Despite the introduction of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) in 1972, the concept of conservation initially was only about delineating a particular area, giving it more importance and calling them national parks and sanctuaries.
In declaring an area as a national park or sanctuary, these spaces are given legal protections with provisions that those who violate the WPA will be sued and punished. But the WPA did not provide any prescription for conservation measures that could be taken.
What authorities earlier did was refer to national parks and sanctuaries as ‘tiger reserves’ even though that phrase held no legal value.
Moreover, Project Tiger was just a project which financially assisted tiger reserves declared by their respective state governments by giving them technical and miscellaneous guidelines, support for capacity building, training, scientific research, monitoring of tigers, census, etc.
However, everything changed with the news that tigers had disappeared from the Sariska Tiger Reserve in December 2004. There was a massive hue and cry all over the country surrounding the rapidly depleting numbers of tigers. Post-Sariska, a Tiger Task Force was constituted under the leadership of environmentalist Sunita Narain, who made some significant recommendations. The results of these recommendations were substantial.
A statutory body called the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) was set up in December 2005 to run Project Tiger. Moreover, tiger reserves actually became legal entities with core (inviolate areas with no human habitation) and buffer areas.
“Every management plan of tiger reserves today has to be approved by the NTCA. Earlier, states could write their prescriptions, but not anymore. The standard operating procedures (SOP) to be followed in tiger conservation have been clearly defined. Every year, you have to do camera trapping for population estimates, and every four years we are doing an all India tiger estimation involving the Wildlife Institute of India, where we come up with the photographic estimation of the total number of tigers in tiger reserves. We are working on how to establish functional wildlife corridors and how we can connect two meta-populations (a group of populations that are separated by space but consist of the same species) of tigers. We are also working out how tigers coming out to adjoining areas that are not protected are living and inhabiting there,” informs Ramesh Pandey.
A lot of the success in conserving tigers in India today is down to establishing this very institutional framework post-Sariska. Project Tiger is not just a project now, but a system which has all its verticals institutionalised from management, monitoring and evaluation, scientific research, SOPs prescribed and foresightedness of how to go ahead.
Yes, steep challenges do remain like rising human-animal conflicts, convincing populations living near protected areas the economic value of conserving tigers and other wild cats, establishing functional corridors for meta-populations and preventing further fragmentation of forest areas thanks to growing linear infrastructure (power lines, communication, roads).
But there is hope because in the words of Kailash Sankhala, “There seems to be something about India’s soil that inspires conservation and humbles man as only one thin thread in the web of the grand process of nature.”
With The Positive Collective, The Better India’s COVID-19 coverage is available to regional language publications for free. Write to editorial@thebetterindia.com for more details.
My kids are in the age group where superheroes are real to them, and most often, the stories they are interested in involves caped crusaders who perform heroic deeds and save the world. Tonight, I will tell them the story of 15-year-old, Mukesh Bishnoi – a real-life teenage superhero!
The Better India spoke to Mukesh, who narrates what happened on the night of 10 May 2020, when he faced his trial by fire.
A class 10 student, Mukesh is a resident of Bhalu Rajwa (Ketu) Village, near Balesar in Jodhpur district (Rajasthan), who recently showed immense courage in the face of mortal danger. On the night of 10 May 2020 Mukesh and his friend, Pukhraj were on a motorcycle conducting their routine night patrolling in the outskirts of the village.
“Since the lockdown was announced, every night a group of us patrol from 8 PM till 2 AM. This is to ensure that the wildlife in this region remains protected,” Mukesh explains.
Mukesh Bishnoi
It was then that Mukesh heard a gunshot. Without any fear or hesitation, these boys immediately rode towards the location and came face-to-face with four poachers who had just hunted a Chinkara.
Despite the fact that the poachers were armed with guns, were full-grown men, and outnumbered the two boys, Mukesh and Pukhraj confronted them. In the ensuing tussle, two of the poachers escaped with the Chinkara (Indian gazelle) first and thereafter the other two also managed to flee.
“They were four of them and they also had a weapon which I caught hold off, but I was pushed to the ground, and that is when they made their escape.”
The weapon that got left behind.
Mukesh and Pukhraj continued to search for them for almost an hour after the incident, but they had managed to escape.
When asked if he doesn’t fear for his life, he laughs heartily and says, “Not even for a moment. This is my duty and there is nothing to be fearful of.” In fact he also tells me that since the lockdown, this had been his second tryst with poachers.
The Chinkara is Rajasthan’s official state animal and has been accorded with the highest protection under India’s Wildlife Protection Act 1972.
The young braveheart.
But since the COVID-19 lockdown was announced in March, incidents of chinkara poaching have increased. And such brave volunteers like Mukesh have been helping the Conservation office.
The incident had been first reported by a grassroots level non-governmental organisation named Ecology, Rural Development & Sustainability Foundation (The ERDS Foundation), who also verified it, “He [Mukesh] is a young boy, having a team of few friends and working for Wildlife Conservation in Western Rajasthan. In the last one month, his team was able to crack two poaching incidents.”
A case has been registered with the local police station and the investigation is underway.
In this video, Mukesh is seen narrating the incident as it occurred. The future of India looks brighter in the safe hands of young, fearless crusaders such as Mukesh!
Back in 2002, Dr Dharmendra Khandal, an environmentalist volunteering with the Bombay Natural History Society (BHNS), started a solo bike journey from Mumbai to his hometown in Churu, Rajasthan, to conduct a survey on the dwindling state of vulture population in India.
In the 1990s, after several reports of an alarming decline in the population of vultures came forward, India had set up nine Vulture Conservation and Breeding Centres (VCBC) across the country, out of which BNHS administers three.
But, the bike trip was just the beginning of a 17-year-long journey of environmental conservation and anti-poaching efforts for Dharmendra, who today, heads an organisation called the Tiger Watch at the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve.
“A lot has happened since then and my work has also evolved from doing surveys to saving tigers and rehabilitating the poacher community. Honestly, in all these years of experience, I have realised that it is easier to catch and arrest a poacher, than to transform his mindset or that of the community. So through Tiger Watch we are trying to bring a more holistic change in the new generation, through education and skill development for alternative livelihoods,” says Dharmendra, adding that Tiger Watch works in tandem with the forest department as well as other rehabilitation NGOs like Dhonk.
Into the wild
A native of Ramgarh town in Churu district of Rajasthan, Dharmendra moved to Mumbai along with his family, in 2002 after completing his PhD in Wetland Ecology.
A budding environmentalist, he would work part-time in their family business of construction, while also volunteering at various city-based organisations.
“It was during that time when I got in touch with wildlife photographer and environmentalist Bibhas Amonkar, Isaac Kehimkar, who is known as the ‘Butterfly Man of India’ and Shubhalaxmi, an entomologist, and eventually started volunteering with BNHS. All of these individuals inspired me and solidified my passion to work in this field. After a year of gathering valuable experience, I got the opportunity to join the Tiger Watch as a field director which was then headed by Fateh Singh Rathore,” says Dharmendra.
The hands-on experience working in the wild, provided Dharmendra the much-needed insight to steer the cycle of positive change.
Recalling one such incident, he says, “One day, at the crack of dawn, forest guards from the Kachida chowki left to help a resident tigress called T-5 who had been moaning in pain all night long. On reaching, they realised that T-5 had died of illness, leaving behind two 3-month-old cubs. This is a very vulnerable age for the cubs and completely dependent on their mothers. Usually, the normal procedure involves capturing the cubs and transferring them to a zoo for survival, but they chose a different approach of raising them instead. Raising such young cubs, especially among humans, can be an issue, but the staff took it up by rearing them in the wild. Although the lack of proper equipment at the time posed a challenge of documentation, it was a start.”
From 2005, when the population of tigers was just 18, they have now been able to raise the number to 70 as of 2020. Around the same time in 2003, he also started his efforts of rehabilitating some young members of the Mogiya community.
Rehabilitation of Mogiyas
“The Mogiyas are a small community living in the interiors of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Their major source of livelihood is poaching and they are so desensitised to the act of killing from a very young age that bringing about a change in mentality of the community was one of the most difficult tasks,” shares Dharmendra.
Harimohan Gurjar, a member of Tiger Watch, with his team of 40 volunteers and coordinators, has been the eyes and ears of the organisation. “From monitoring the tigers in the wild, keeping an eye out for any illegal activities like poaching, getting inside information or tip-offs about poaching activities, traders, etc, to even helping nearby villages get their due compensation, we take care of it all. We are sort of the bridge between the communities and Tiger Watch,” he says.
He adds that busting the poaching racket at Ranthambhore was only the first step to a larger change. And that had to come with education. So around 2006, he started the Mogiya Hostel for the community children near the tiger reserve.
Today, there are almost 40 children boarding and learning at the hostel. Additionally, during the lockdown, Tiger Watch appointed four teachers who not only teach them but also travel to 12 nearby villages to teach.
Talking about the experience, Meethalal Gurjar, a teacher, says, “These kids come from very difficult backgrounds, and it is our job to help them have a choice and stay motivated throughout. Sometimes there is a bit of tension from the families, while other times, they are supportive. A lot of them are pushed into the business of poaching by their parents, so this hostel is their safe space to help them navigate through all of that to come out successful.”
Meethalal gives the example of his student, Jaggu Bawariya, who is currently enrolled in a BCom programme and is also trying to find some work to help his family. “It is these small successes that inspire me everyday to continue work for the kids,” he mentions.
Today Jaggu is a source of inspiration for many students at the hostel, including 10-year-old Karan Bawariya.
“I have been at home since the lockdown, but I really miss staying in the hostel with my friends and teachers. I want to grow up to be a teacher and serve my country in any way possible,” says the class 4 student.
Bhajan Gujariya, his father, is one of the few proud parents who is trying hard to give their next generation a life different from what he had. “If they continue on this path of educating themselves, they will only end up making me and my family more proud,” he says.
But the road to this has been marred with many obstacles.
“I remember once, an 18-year-old boy was taken by his father and brother to hunt a tiger. The turn of events put him in the front line with the tiger and he sadly shot it. The next day, the family took out a procession celebrating this as a success. His innocence was snatched that day. There are many such sad instances where the families try and bring down the kids. But through our efforts, we are trying to protect that and help these kids have a different life than what they grow up in. So, when even a single kid grows up to be an adult and decides to lead a different life, it is success,” concludes Dharmendra.
When the history of tiger conservation in India is written, there is one figure whose indelible contributions will never be forgotten. Known for his trademark long handlebar moustache, olive-coloured safari hat and dashing dark glasses, the late Fateh Singh Rathore remains the principal architect behind the success story that is the Ranthambhore National Park.
In February 2011, when the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) presented its lifetime achievement award to Fateh for his stellar conservation work, Divyabhanusinh Chavda, the then president of its India chapter, statedthat “Ranthambhore became the place which brought the tiger to the consciousness of people the world over” because of him.
As a ranger, warden and field director at one of India’s best-known tiger preserves, Fateh’s work in Ranthambhore, which emphasised on the natural regeneration of the habitat, constant engagement with local communities living in its vicinity that went way beyond consultations and an abiding love for the creatures who inhabited this dry deciduous forest — became the blueprint for what a successful tiger conservation strategy looks like.
Speaking to The Better India, Bittu Sahgal, the founding editor of Sanctuary Asia, who knew Fateh closely for over four decades, talks about a time in the early 1970s when there were barely any tiger sightings.
“When we saw a piece of tiger droppings (faeces) once in 10 days or even fresh pugmarks, we would come back to Fateh’s Jogi Mahal home, sit around a campfire under the great banyan tree and celebrate the fact that we had hard proof that tigers were actually walking Ranthambhore’s coming-back-to-life trails,” says Bittu.
From a time when the national park saw just transient tigers passing through, today it boasts of a population of over 70. Even after his near 10-year stint as Field Director (1978-1987) and post retirement from the Indian Forest Service, he continued to tirelessly work towards ensuring that both the national park and communities living in its vicinity thrived.
Having said that, credit for the success of Ranthambhore and its popularity must also go to his protege, fellow conservationist and close friend Valmik Thapar.
“Valmik had a major role to play in the resurrection of Ranthambhore. While Fateh did work on the ground, Valmik served as his sounding board and brought national and global attention to the tigers of Ranthambhore through books, films and media buzz, including international media. Valmik also managed to draw considerable political support for Ranthambhore. Sanctuary Asia magazine, which I have now edited for four decades, was born under the famous banyan tree there. Sanctuary then conceived and produced 30 weekly documentaries and docu-dramas including 2 on Ranthambhore. There was no clutter of channels then and through Doordarshan we managed to get 30 million viewers over a period that stretched for almost a year,” adds Bittu.
Born on 10 August 1938 in the Chordiyan village of Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, Fateh was the eldest of 11 children, and known for his “mischievous, cheerful and exuberant nature” according to biographer Soonoo Taraporewala. His father, Sagat Singh, was a police officer who also oversaw the family property near Jodhpur.
After graduating from Rajputana University in 1960, he worked odd jobs before his uncle, who had become the Deputy Minister of Forests in Rajasthan, offered him a job as a forest ranger in what was then the shooting reserve of Sariska. It was at Sariska where he found his calling in life encountering not just his first tiger, but also learning the art of tracking animals from an old forest guard there who stole morsels of meat from tiger kills.
Incidentally, the first tiger Fateh ever saw was the one shot by the Duke of Edinburgh in January 1961, for whom (alongside Queen Elizabeth II) he had organised a tiger hunt in an area which would later become the Ranthambore National Park.
After his posting as game warden at Sariska, he worked at the Mount Abu Game Reserve from 1963 to 1970. The next major landmark came when he was sent as part of the first batch of forest officers to be trained at the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, in 1969.
Six of the nine-month course at FRI was dedicated to field work, and under the able guidance of Saroj Raj Choudhury, also a legendary forest officer, Fateh learned the finer nuances of wildlife conservation. Choudhury took the young Fateh alongside other recruits all over India from the Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand to the Gir Forest of Gujarat closely observing all sorts of wildlife.
“Fateh knew he was a favourite with Choudhury. He soon got into the habit of sleeping with his shoes on, because he could never tell when Choudhury would turn up to take him trekking a moment’s notice, having recognized the keen interest and potential of the young man,” writes Soonoo in her book Tiger Warrior: Fateh Singh Rathore.
Ranthambore Beckons
After the course, Fateh was transferred to Ranthambhore in November 1971 as a Ranger, and then upgraded to the post of Warden. However, what followed was a time of great change in the wildlife conservation landscape of India.
While the population of tigers was estimated at around 40,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, excessive hunting and poaching had resulted in a significant drop, and in the early 70s opinion was unanimous that the tiger population had drastically gone down.
Consequently, the decade saw the enactment of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), the establishment of Project Tiger (1973), signing onto the Stockholm Declaration (1972) and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora (1973).
In April 1973, Prime Minister India Gandhi established Project Tiger starting with nine reserves to “protect and restore natural habitats of tigers and to track and protect the remaining wild tigers in India” and chose Kailash Sankhala as its first director, who, in turn, handpicked Fateh as a member of its first team.
“When Ranthambhore was chosen among the nine, most people thought nearby Sariska Tiger Reserve would be a better bet since it had more proven tigers and was relatively well-established. But Fateh and Kailash Sankhala took Ranthambhore on as a challenge, believing that two stars in Rajasthan’s firmament would be better than one. Ranthambhore became Fateh’s life. He definitely chose a tough battle. His life in Ranthambore soon became both a challenge and love affair,” recalls Bittu.
The Long Road
More than a highly qualified forest service officer, he was a local who came to know the terrain even better than the villagers who once lived inside what is now Ranthambhore’s core area.
“Fateh rarely spent much time at his office in Sawai Madhopur, preferring to be with his tigers and his team in the heart of the forest. He led his team from the front, walking trails, fighting forest fires and chasing herds of cattle out of the fragile forest. Standing with him on the upper reaches of the hills was a lesson in conservation. A map in hand, he would peer through his binoculars from vantage points and say, ‘That is where we will build an anicut to improve water availability for herbivores.’ However, carpet bombing the forest with one waterhole after another wasn’t for him. He wanted some areas to remain dry so that chinkaras (Indian gazelles) and other arid zone animals were able to thrive too. By improving the three key lakes, he managed to localise tigers and other wild animals, and this to a great extent reduced human-animal conflict. When he saw monkeys up in trees he would say ‘look at my free labour. They plant trees by scattering fruit seeds without being paid to do so’,” recalls Bittu.
Among the soundest pieces of advice Choudhury gave him was to ensure the texture of the land never changed, and that the roads should skirt water only at a few points, so that animals could have undistributed access to it.
“The roads were to be planned through all kinds of terrain, winding routes, on which the maximum speed should never exceed thirty kilometres an hour, Choudhury would tell Fateh. This sound guidance was followed meticulously, and the results manifested themselves brilliantly as the forest regenerated and animals returned to their habitat,” writes Soonoo.
What he also did was localise the tigers by organising baits.
“To localise the tigress with cubs and prevent it entering villages, he would tie a bait like the way Jim Corbett used to do to locate his man eaters. If he did not do this, the tigress and her cubs would all die from poisoning or trapping in nearby villages. Fateh was instinctive. The slightest sounds would cause him to halt in his tracks. There is not a trail his men walked that he did not know, even at night. After spending 30 minutes with a tigress and her four sub-adult cubs, we once had to walk five kilometres in the dark of night from Milak Talao to Jogi Mahal because our vehicle stalled. He knew his forest better than poachers,” says Bittu.
However, the toughest challenge standing before Fateh in 1973 was to relocate 16 villages inhabited in the core area of the Ranthambhore National Park. These communities were all inside living with their cattle and ploughing most of the land that would have normally offered grazing land for the deer — a key component of tiger food.
Alert Spotted deer in Rajbaug lake at Ranthambhore National Park. (Image courtesy Shutterstock/Sourabh Bharti)
“This was creating additional pressure on the forest park with the people living outside suddenly seeing more mature grasslands where they could take their cattle grazing. My father zealously protected the park, but he began to realise more and more that keeping people out of the park using force was not something that was going to last,” says Dr. Goverdhan, Fateh’s son, in a 2016 documentary.
“He went about his task (of resettling villages outside Ranthambhore) using a great deal of patience and tact, finding out from the villagers what they would want as compensation. Project Tiger ensured that the villagers were compensated with better land outside the park area, with five additional bighas of land being given to every male over the age of 18. They were also provided with money to build houses and dig wells, and were in addition given a health centre and a school, facilities that they had never had in the past…Once the villages were moved out, the forest began to regenerate on its own, becoming the incomparably beautiful Ranthambhore National Park, and in 1976, Fateh finally saw his first wild tigress there, naming her Padmini after his elder daughter,” writes Soonoo.
By 1976, he had managed to relocate 12 villages. However, the process wasn’t easy on him by any stretch. In an interview with Sanctuary Asia, Fateh recalled, “The people hugged the trees and wept. I was crying with them because, inside me, I knew they were paying the price for something they may never understand.”
“In those days, the objective of Project Tiger was to separate man and animal. In fact, there were about 25,000-30,000 cattle inside Ranthambhore at one point and it took a long time to ensure that livestock was moved out or they would leave no grazing for wild herbivores. Fateh’s logic was impeccable. He said if we ensure that herbivores have abundant food, water and shelter inside the forest, farms would be relatively safe from crop or livestock losses. But that is not to say there was no conflict,” says Bittu.
These tensions almost cost him his life. Fateh was almost killed in August 1981, when a group of 50 villagers attacked him. They brutally beat him up with sticks and left him for dead. He had to spend three months in the hospital.
“In August 1981, a group of disgruntled men from Uliyana village attacked me and left me to die with multiple fractures and a head injury. The villagers were angry as they could not take their cattle for grazing or cut firewood from the protected area of the forest,” he recalled in this 2011 interview.
Despite the anguish, he was determined to not just produce results but also engage with villagers, eat at their homes and talk to them. “The forest and all its creatures were the creation of the gods, he (Fateh) argued over the village fires. Did not the goddess Durga, the slayer of demons, herself ride a tiger? No man had a right to disturb that divine creation. The forest must be left to grow back,” writes author Geoffrey C. Ward in Tiger-Wallahs: Encounters With the Men Who Tried to Save the Greatest of the Great Cats.
Besides compensation for resettlement, there were limited resources for actually cracking down on poaching and ensuring that the village economy more than just survived.
“Fateh’s friends and supporters would beg or borrow money when he needed it to keep tigers safe. Even money given to the State Governments from the Centre would go to Rajasthan exchequer and would often not be used for wildlife. Forest guards and wildlife were not quite high on the priority list for officials. Most guards lived in the surrounding villages and Fateh did all he could to ensure that they benefited from jobs and livelihoods created to protect the park. He wanted the village economy to be freed from dependence on forest biomass alone. Often money went towards repairing roads and protection trails. Other times it was for the creation of anicuts and other water harvesting systems including step wells from days of yore. He had no sympathy for poachers who would be sent to the police lockup instantly. But through all this, even when tensions were high, he would sit over tea with villagers or share a meal in their villages, while trying to explain why the forest and its wildlife had to be saved,” says Bittu.
Nonetheless, he also took a much more nuanced socio-economic approach to tackling poaching, and a lot of that work happened after he left the forest service in 1996.
“Fateh Singh’s approach to the poachers was unique, and very typical of him. He realised that the people who actually kill the tigers are not the ones who profit from the deed. They are very poor nomadic hunter-gatherers from the Mogiya tribe. Knowing that poaching cannot be curbed by jailing the poachers for a few days and then letting them off on bail to continue their occupation, he has been trying in the recent past to rehabilitate them by offering them an alternative livelihood,” writes Soonoo.
Tiger Watch
After his 10-year stint at Ranthambhore came to an end in 1987, he was appointed as the Field Director of the Sariska Tiger Reserve at the request of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who wanted him to replicate the same success there.
However, that didn’t happen because he came up against a district administration immune to the needs of tiger conservation.
“Just two years later [after my posting there], the collector, all of a sudden, allowed villagers to take their cattle into the park for grazing. More than 20,000 cattle entered the park, threatening the wild animals there. I resigned my job as a mark of protest. Soon I came to know that 16 tigers were missing. I became an eyesore for the forest department. I could understand their follies. I spoke the truth and was quite outspoken. They had every reason to hate me,” he says in a March 2011 interview.
Little surprise that more than a decade later, in December 2004, the disappearance of tigers from the Sariska Tiger Reserve made headlines.
Fateh retired from his official duties in 1996. In the following year, he established the non-profit Tiger Watch, which is today led by his protege Dr. Dharmendra Khandal. One of the primary things he wanted Tiger Watch to do was rehabilitate the Mogiyas, and improve the relationship between them, and the park.
“The Mogiyas are a small community living in the interiors of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Their major source of livelihood is poaching and they are so desensitised to the act of killing from a very young age that bringing about a change in mentality of the community was one of the most difficult tasks,” shares Dharmendra speaking to TBI.
However, their efforts to help the Mogiyas only picked up speed after 2004, when a survey conducted by Tiger Watch found that led to the shocking discovery of 18 missing Tigers from Ranthambore. These poachers were the foot soldiers of a vast nexus of wildlife criminals that crossed international boundaries.
“With the help of informants turned and procured from within the Mogya (Mogiya) tribe and active assistance from the local police force, Tiger Watch conducted several raids, and managed to clamp down on several poaching gangs operating in and around the Ranthambhore National Park,” says the Tiger Watch website.
“Tiger Watch initiated the Mogya (Mogiya) Rehabilitation and Education Programme which sought to bring the tribe into the mainstream by ensuring that the next generation received an education and were thus weaned away from poaching. The first to enroll in the programme were the children of the very poachers arrested in Tiger Watch raids with the police. The community, among other things, now has its first ever university graduates,” it adds.
Dharmendra says that busting the poaching racket at Ranthambhore was only the first step to a larger change. And that had to come with education. In 2006, they started the Mogiya Hostel for the community children near the tiger reserve.
Talking about the hostel, Meethalal Gurjar, a teacher, says, “These kids come from very difficult backgrounds, and it is our job to help them have a choice and stay motivated throughout. Sometimes there is a bit of tension from the families, while other times, they are supportive. A lot of them are pushed into the business of poaching by their parents, so this hostel is their safe space to help them navigate through all of that to come out successful.”
Working with the Mogiyas resulted in the Village Wildlife Volunteer Programme.
“Led by a man called Hanuman Gurjar, the 50-member team of village youth help monitor tigers. Overseen by Tiger Watch and the forest department, these pastoral herders are given a monthly stipend and smartphones with memory card adaptors for the camera traps which allow them to report their findings every morning to Tiger Watch via WhatsApp. They operate out of villages in an unofficial buffer zone on the peripheries of the 1,700 square kilometre tiger reserve and have become an unprecedented source of liaison between the forest department and local communities,” notes this GRIN News report.
They also play a critical role in mediating between forest authorities and local communities in the event a herder loses his cattle to a tiger kill to ensure accurate compensation.
Besides initiatives like Tiger Watch, Fateh, along with Dr. Goverdhan also began conducting healthcare camps in the villages through the 1990s, which eventually resulted in the establishment of Sevika Hospital in Sawai Madhopur in 1997.
Today, it’s a super-specialty hospital that specifically caters to low income communities in the surrounding villages. Similarly, the Fateh Public School was also started to deliver quality education to children living in the surrounding villages back in 2001. Both the hospital and school are run by Prakratik Society, a non-profit started by Dr. Goverdhan.
Tiger family a stroll one early morning at Ranthambhore National Park (Image courtesy Shutterstock/Archna Singh)
Legacy
Fateh passed away on March 1, 2011 at the age of 72 after suffering from a bout of lung cancer at his home in Sawai Madhopur, and the legacy he leaves behind is immense.
Visit the website of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a global agency with 134 member nation states, today and there you will find what Fateh knew back in the 1970s – loss of species will make the Indian subcontinent unliveable.
“Scientists and economists have discovered today that forests control the climate, forests harvest water. Species ranging from butterflies and bees to tigers and turtles are the gardeners of Eden. Fateh hated the idea of ‘planting trees’. Why should we plant trees when monkeys, birds and wild pigs do a better job of it by eating fruit and then scattering seeds with their excreta, he never tired of saying,” says Bittu.
When Sanctuary launched its Kids for Tigers educational outreach programme in 2000, Fateh master minded an incredible village contact programme for the magazine.
It started with a Kids for Tigers Festival in Sawai Madhopur that drew in almost 25,000 visitors from near and far. He brought in hundreds of village children who marched through Sawai Madhopur town. One such child was 11-year-old Govardhan Meena from Rawal Village, who is now in his 30s and married with kids of his own.
“Govardhan is now the virtual Pied Piper of Ranthambhore with over 15,000 kids from 45 villages in his vanar sena. These kids are taken into the forest that Fateh nurtured all his life. Many of their parents are now dependent on income from tourism and also from jobs created to protect wildlife. Govardhan does this through storytelling, tiger fests, slide and film shows in their villages. The tiger, he explains, is just a symbol for all of nature,” says Bittu.
One lesson that forest officers should specifically learn from his life is that their loyalties should lie only with the forests and not politicians or superior officers.
“Fateh lived a full and very rich life. His life was entwined with Ranthambhore. In between when he cracked down too hard, ‘the system’ struck back. When he was in advanced stages of cancer he was even prevented from entering the forest he loved, but then his son Govardhan Rathore and Belinda Wright of WPSI, managed to get him to take a last ride into the forest for which he had devoted his whole life. He just wanted to make sure that Ranthambore as a child grew up to be a strapping young adult that could actually survive without him. That was his abiding passion,” he notes.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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At the turn of the 20th century, the great Asiatic lions, which once roamed from Palestine to Palamau, began disappearing in large numbers across West Asia and North India.
The only consistent refuge they found was in Gir forestof present-day Gujarat. Even there, they had become victims of shikar (hunting) expeditions by British officials and princes, loss of habitat and conflict with cattle, owned by residents living in its vicinity.
Today, the protected area of the Gir National Park of Gujarat, which covers an area of 1,412 square kilometres, is a standard bearer for the conservation of the Asiatic lions in India. But the foundation of present day conservation efforts was laid by the Nawabs of the erstwhile princely state of Junagadh, whose territories covered large tracts of the forest.
Historians have stated that the Junagadh princely state’s efforts under the Nawabs of the Babi clan were among the earliest attempts in India at protecting a species for its own sake since many of these present day national parks and protected natural areas were once the old hunting grounds of Indian princes and British officials.
It was in 1735, when Sher Khan Babi evicted the last Mughal governor out of the region and created a dynasty of nine Nawabs which lasted until 1947. The focus of this article will be on the reign of the eighth and ninth Nawabs which was split by a decade of direct rule by the British colonial administration.
Without the intervention of these Nawabs, it’s safe to say that the Asiatic Lions would have all but disappeared from the Gir forest. Having said that, the first significant effort at conserving these lions came from the sixth Nawab Mahabat Khanji II (1851-1888) in 1879.
Angered at dwindling sightings of lions in his territory, he issued a set of rules which basically banned all forms of hunting and trapping of the animal unless they received specific permission from the state.
Supporting him in this endeavour was Lord Sandhurst, the Governor of Bombay. This was a significant order by any stretch because according to some estimates from 1875 to 1925 about 150,000 leopards, 80,000 tigers and 200,000 wolves were killed for sport or rewards while many others died without notice.
Despite their best intentions, neighbouring princes and British officials continued to pursue these lions. The next significant order came from the Nawab Rasul Khanji (1892-1911) in 1892, who banned the killing of the peacocks and passed a set of rules that basically stated that lions “could only be shot by special permission of the state for special reasons and circumstances,” according to this article in the Conservation and Society journal.
However, this did little to aid conservation efforts. Senior British officials and neighbouring princes were still keen on their hunting expeditions, particularly in forest areas extending beyond the jurisdiction of the princely Junagadh state.
Troubled by the lack of any serious attempts at protecting the lion population, Rasul Khanji wrote a letter to Lord Curzon in April 1901, seeking his support. In the letter, he stated while hunting was heavily restricted within the confines of the Junagadh state, they could not confine the movement of lions once they had left the princely state’s boundaries, and were thus vulnerable.
Rasul Khanji had feared “that this noble race will be extinguished by the hands of common people, unless the prohibition of destroying it is strictly enforced in all surrounding places [neighbouring states and smaller principalities] alike.”
All of these attempts at conservation were sparked by estimates by various British officials and news reports on the number of lions left in the Gir. According to one Major General William Rice in 1850, their numbers were less than 300. Thirty years later in 1884, the Kathiawar Gazetteer said that lions were nearly wiped out with a rough estimate of a dozen left. This was an exaggeration. In 1905, British political agent Major H.G. Carnegie estimated that the lion population was between 60 and 70 whereas the Junagadh administration believed that ‘at least 100 lions’ were left at that time.
“By 1908-09 the area of Gir forest under the charge of the Forest Department had increased to 1530 square km and a sanctuary for lions was set up covering an area of over 326 square km within it. It was the first of its kind in the British Indian empire to be followed a decade later by Kaziranga which was declared a ‘Reserved Forest’ to protect the greater one horned rhinoceros in 1908. This was the culmination of the steps initiated under Lord Curzon’s Viceroyalty in 1905 when it was believed that hardly 10 to 12 animals were left in the area. It was declared a Game Sanctuary in 1926,” notes the Conservation and Society article.
Having said that, Rasul Khanji occasionally gave into demands from senior British officials to organise shikars. When he died in 1911, his heir was a minor, and as the colonial government did not want to take any chances with their administrative control of this princely state, they officially took over for a decade till his heir Nawab Mahabat Khanji III came of age.
Under this decade-long stewardship of senior British official HD Rendall, ‘not even a Governor of Bombay … was invited to shoot in the forest’. When Mahbatkhanji came of age and took over in 1921, he rejected requests from Maharaja Jam Saheb Ranjitsinhji of Navanagar (of ‘Ranji’ cricket fame) and Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner to shoot lions.
Annoyed by these requests, he wrote a long letter to E Maconochie, the Agent to the Governor of Bombay in Rajkot, parts of which are worth quoting here.
“As a matter of fact the real point at issue is the ownership of lions and the political right of inviting distinguished visitors to Kathiawad for lion shikar. … what I complain of is that lions are tempted to stray outside by tying up buffaloes just over my borders … This is nothing more or less than poaching from which I think I have a right to be protected by [the Imperial] government. If I were to take the law into my own hands, the result would be a constant series of border affrays which would endanger the peace of this part of Kathiawad,” he wrote.
“It is an unquestionable fact that the house of the lion is the Gir forest and equally unquestioned that the forest is my ancestral property. The preservation of the forest which covers about 500 sq. miles [1295 km 2 ] of my territory is supposed to be of value to the province as a whole, not only as a constant source of grass and fire wood, but also because of its effect on rainfall. But what has undoubtedly weighed with the Nawabs of Junagadh in the past and carries weight also with me is that the forest is the last sanctuary of Indian lions.”
Besides taking ownership of the lions, he also threatened to break the peace with neighbouring states and even threatened to destroy the forests if his demands of protecting the lions outside the jurisdiction of Junagadh were not met.
Unfortunately, the colonial government didn’t give in to his demands, and rival princely states continued to shoot lions outside the jurisdiction of Junagadh. However, his efforts didn’t stop. He went onto conduct the very first lion census in 1936, which presented a total figure of 287.
It’s a battle Mahabat Khanji fought till 1947, even though between 1920 and 1943, 89 lions were killed, as per records with the Junagadh State. When India declared Independence on August 15, he made the blunder of acceding to Pakistan on the advice of his diwan Shah Nawaz Bhutto (former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s grandfather).
Nawab Mahabat Khanji III (Image courtesy Royal Ark)
After losing control of his administration thanks to this decision, he had to leave for Karachi on 24 October, and eventually the erstwhile princely state acceded to India.
Following his departure, however, there was little administrative protection for the lions from hunters and within a span of five years from 1963 to 1968, the population of lions fell from 285 to about 177.
Understanding the need to prevent its extinction, the Indian Forest Department in September 1965 started a conservation programme for the Asiatic Lions and the forest area was designated as the Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary. From 177 in 1968, the number of Asiatic lions has jumped to 674 as of 2020. While forest officers and guards at Gir are tirelessly protecting the Asiatic lions, it was an idea that first saw the light of day under the Nawabs of Junagadh, who felt the need to protect instead of hunting them.
Reportedly, when Mahbatkhanji left for the airport to fly into Karachi, there were tears in his eyes. He looked upon the Girnar mountain, he said, ‘Who will protect my lions now?’ It took a while, but local villagers living in the vicinity of the National Park, forest officers and rangers in India have now taken these conservation efforts to another level.
Feature Image caption/source: Mohammad Rasul Khanji, Nawab of Junagadh (1892-1911), and Bahaduddinbhai Hasainbhai, Wazier, Junagadh, who was also state wazier under previous ruler/Wikimedia Commons/British Library
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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The auspicious occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi is a good reminder of the cultural significance of elephants in the lives of many Indians. This also makes it an excellent reason why we must remind ourselves of the need to conserve them.
Although elephants are accorded a high status in the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), as Schedule-I species, according to multiple news reports there were only around 27,000 wild elephants remaining in 2017, as opposed to a million a decade prior. This is a figure that should worry not just lovers of wildlife, but also millions of citizens who worship the elephant.
To inspire you and give you some ideas about how you can help, here are five instances of people going out of their way to show elephants the kind of love, respect, care and reverence they deserve.
Dr Kushal Konwar Sarma, Elephant Doctor
For over three decades, Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma hasn’t taken a day off from his veterinary duties, and treated 700 elephants and bulls every year. It is the memory of losing Lakshmi, the elderly elephant Sarma fell in love with as a child in his ancestral village of Barama village of Assam’s Kamrup district, that inspired him to become a vet.
“From tranquilising and capturing 139 rogue jumbos to rescuing and treating hundreds of captive and injured elephants over the years, Dr Sarma has contributed to the conservation of the Asian Elephants in India. Notably, he holds a world record for this feat,” reports The Better India. To prevent human-elephant conflict, he persuades people to adopt bio-fencing rather than setting up protection traps.
Bio-fencing means growing fruit-bearing trees, which ensure that the jumbo is well-fed and wouldn’t need to rampage the property, and thorny varieties, which keep them at bay. Despite coming face to face with death multiple times, he continues to work with elephants from close quarters.
Dr Sarma with an old friend.
Wildlife SOS and Raju
Raju, a gentle pachyderm who hit 50 in 2014, suffered abuse all his life. Captured as a baby, he was a captive elephant who had lived under 27 different owners. He had never seen life without chains around his legs. He was used as a prop to beg for alms from passers-by in many small towns in Uttar Pradesh.
His owners could not afford the cost of feeding him, and hence he was forced to eat paper and plastic. That’s when a 10-man team of vets and wildlife experts, alongside 20 forest department officials, rescued Raju from his owners.
When the spiked shackles were cut from his legs, the relief brought tears to his eyes. His rescuers have tried to ensure that he never sheds a tear again. Raju’s former owners launched a legal battle to reclaim their ownership, but the court sided with the rescuers, i.e. Wildlife SOS, and granted custody to the latter. Raju is one of 18 elephants who live in the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre in Mathura.
You can also read about the first water clinic for elephants they started here.
Raju (Before and After)
Anand Kumar, Saving Elephants With Mobile Phones
A wildlife conservationist, Ananda Kumarcame up with an innovative solution to resolve man-elephant conflict in the Valparai plateau of Tamil Nadu – using a simple mobile phone.
The key to this effort was tracking the elephant and letting people know of its presence to avoid any conflict. With assistance from locals and the state government, he implemented a solution where the location of the elephant was shown on TV as a ticker crawl, which helped people to be aware of the elephant presence and plan their outdoor activities in a more informed way.
But what about the people already out in the field? Kumar started a mobile SMS service where the users are notified via text messages about the elephant presence in a particular area. The messages are sent in both English and Tamil.
“And for those who did not even have a mobile phone or were out of the network area, we installed lights. These lights blink whenever there is an elephant in a 2-km radius,” says Kumar. Before the implementation of this service, Valparai plateau in Tamil Nadu recorded an average three deaths annually due to elephant-human encounters. After this programme, the average number of deaths has gone down to just one per annum.
Parbati Barua, the Lady Mahout
Meet Parbati Barua, an Assamese mahout (trainer) who tames rogue elephants, uses ash instead of toothpaste and sleeps inside a tent on a simple mattress without a pillow alongside her tools.
At age 14, she caught her first wild adult tusker in the Kachugaon forests in Kokrajhar district. Since then, she has lived and worked amidst her beloved elephants.
Catching a wild elephant is a high risk profession. They are captured by throwing a lasso around their heads. Training them is a very slow process. It takes about six months of gentle coaxing to win them over, notes Women Feature Service.
“Parbati’s three pachyderm daughters are Lakshmimala, Aloka, and Kanchanmala. The trio and a team of coworkers lead an unusual and adventurous life. Different states like Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam request her help in tackling rogue tuskers or tend to those who are injured/ailing. She is consulted on elephant management policies, in controlling capturing wild herds, driving out wild herds from urban areas, and training mahouts,” reports Women Feature Service.
Tenzing’s two farms in Bodoland territorial area of Kachibari village in the Udalguri district of Assam are certified as the world’s first elephant-friendly farms.
In the buffer zone, which is the area at the end of his farm from where the jungle begins at the Bhutan border, Tenzing does not cut down the trees or start a fire.
Instead he has planted bamboo trees on which the wild elephants feed. He has also not put any barriers in and around his plantation, so that the wild animals from the jungle can freely move in his farm. At times, you can see at least 70-80 wild elephants in his farm. Hornbills, wild pigs, deer, peacocks and a variety of birds are also a common sight there.
“The certified elephant-friendly tea is sourced from plantations that meet high standards for protection of elephant habitats and water resources, reducing human-elephant conflict, reducing barriers to elephant movement between habitat areas, elimination of electrocution risks from fencing and power lines, elimination of drainage ditch hazards and elimination of risk of poisoning of elephants,” notes an expert speaking to The Telegraph.
Every year would have a bloody beginning at a small village, Lalgarh, situated in the interiors of Jhargram district, West Bengal.
As a small boy, Bapi Mahata recalls how elders of his village, along with several others from neighbouring areas, would gather to make a journey into the dense jungles, only to return brandishing blood-speared arrows, axes, swords and knives, along with a load of freshly-slaughtered animal carcasses – their prized kill.
An annual affair, this was a part of their celebrations; a grand feast of wild animals, some of which continue to be endangered.
“The hunting season mostly coincides with a full moon and is more a part of the celebration. Thousands of wild animals, many of which are already dwindling in numbers, would be mercilessly slaughtered for fun, as part of the feast. Growing up, it always disgusted me, especially to see the indiscriminate killing of protected wildlife in the name of ritualistic hunting,” says Bapi, who is one of the few alternate voices in the village fighting for the past three years to put an end to this.
In 2017, his growing urge to stop ritualistic hunting and poaching pushed him to join a wildlife protection NGO, Human & Environment Alliance League (HEAL), as an active volunteer. He is one of the 60 volunteers at HEAL who have been tirelessly trying to track down hunters and stop this practice across the forests of West Bengal.
With their aid, HEAL has been able to rescue over 250 animals, about 160 birds and made at least 15 arrests in the past few years.
Talking about the scale of impact achieved by HEAL in the past three years since its inception in 2017, one of its founding members, Meghna Banerjee says, “In this line of work, there is a lot of resistance, myths and a sense of secrecy guarding the act of hunting. We have had to penetrate all of that to be able to not only ensure the implementation of wildlife protection laws but also change the perception of people on a grassroots level.”
One of the major challenges has been the lack of awareness about this practice and the myths surrounding the laws that protect wildlife.
“While many would know about the hunting and poaching of megafauna for illegal wildlife trade, in various parts of the country, especially in states like Rajasthan or even the North-East, not many are aware of the situation in the interior parts of Bengal. The nature of hunting here is different from poaching for livelihood or illegal trade. It is associated with and ingrained in the culture; it is part of their rituals, which makes it more difficult to stop,” she says.
Tracking Ritualistic or Recreational Hunting
Although officially started in 2017, HEAL members, along with their volunteers, began to investigate and document ritualistic killings for the hunting festival since 2016.
According to their findings, most hunts start around January or February and last till June. Around this time, large groups of hunters from various parts of the state including many from ST communities, travel long distances often by train, to reach the hunting destinations. A report by Conservation India states that the hunting festival attracts more than 50,000 people every year, and that the hunters on each occasion may range between 1000 to 15,000 at a time.
“Scores of people assemble at the hunting locations, sometimes along with their dogs, and then participate in the slaughter of thousands of birds, reptiles, mammals etc, all of which are supposedly protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. From fishing cats, jackals, Bengal monitor lizards, jungle cats, porcupines, hyenas, Bengal foxes, wild boars, pangolins, civets to birds such as owls, barbets, jacanas, coucals and many more are killed during this time. In 2018, even a tiger was killed in Jhargram’s Lalgarh. While for some it is a part of the ritual, many recreational hunters join in for fun and make it more of a competition of killing as many as possible. Considering the large number of people participating in this, we can only imagine the scale of the massacre,” Meghna explains.
She points out that it was the shocking number of hunters that spurred HEAL into action, pushing them to seek assistance from law enforcement bodies. Over the years, their efforts of tracking down hunters, intercepting such assemblies, and rescuing wildlife have been possible with the association of the Forest Department and the Railway authorities, especially in parts of East Medinipur and Howrah, in South Bengal.
Misconceptions and Myths about Hunting Rights
Meghna adds that before the embargo on ritualistic hunting by the Calcutta High Court, most hunters would carry out their acts without any fear of the law.
Many even assumed that a certain exemption would apply to indigenous tribes hunting these wild animals. “There are a lot of misconceptions and myths around the law, both among the people as well as some authorities that bolster their resolve to continue this practice without any fear. But under the Wildlife Protection Act, no such exemption is provided even for forest dwellers, who traditionally were dependent on hunting for their livelihood. Hunting of wildlife animals is illegal under WPA 1972 making it a cognizable and non-bailable offence, punishable with imprisonment, which may extend up to seven years, and/or a fine, which may extend up to Rs. 25,000. Through HEAL we are trying to clarify this and implement strict on-ground measures that deter hunting,” adds Meghna, who is also a lawyer.
Even under the Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA) traditional hunting of wild animals is stated as illegal. As per this law, the rights of forest dwellers excludes hunting or trapping and extracting a part of the body of any species of a wild animal.
Legal course to Combat Hunting Practices
While these laws have been in place for several years, the weak on-ground implementation was one of the reasons for the unabashed hunting practices.
Hence in 2018, HEAL decided to intervene judicially, by filing a public interest litigation (PIL) before the Calcutta High Court to put an end to the mass hunting in East Medinipur and Howrah districts of West Bengal, especially during the Faloharini Kali Pujo hunt fest. This hunt fest would take place every year between May and June and would continue for approximately a week, creating an irreversible impact on the local wildlife. Over 5,000 animals would die annually just in this one festival.
Owing to HEAL’s incessant efforts, the Calcutta High Court, eventually, on May 10, 2018, passed an interim order that directed the West Bengal Forest Department to control hunting during Faloharini. From the district magistrate, superintendents of police to railway authorities in East Medinipur and Howrah districts, all were directed to work in tandem with the Forest Department to stop and prevent the hunt. This interim order finally was confirmed on April 18, 2019.
The judicial step then translated into grassroots-level implementation with increased patrolling in affected regions, that deterred people from carrying weapons or poached animals. Various awareness initiatives such as anti-hunting audio messages in railway stations, posters, police deployment to dissuade hunters and making common hunting spots inaccessible to them, slowly began to create an impact.
Alongside the authorities, HEAL’s 80-member team and volunteer group, Zero Hunting Alliance, continued to monitor the movement of hunting groups and informed any anomaly whatsoever to the local authorities. They even conducted various awareness campaigns across villages, schools and colleges.
“It is the youth that can help us in bringing about the change, so raising awareness in schools and colleges is an integral part of this multifaceted approach for preventing hunting practices. In order to build and strengthen trust with the communities, we have also been conducting medical camps and various other welfare initiatives,” says Meghna, while adding that owing to these efforts in East Medinipur and Howrah, they recorded a reduction in hunting practices by 95 percent in 2019.
A Long Road to Destination
While the impact in the southern part of Bengal has been exemplary, the other hunting festivals across the state continue to be a challenge. In a move to curb the practice of ritualistic hunting in districts of West Medinipur, Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura and Murshidabad, HEAL filed another PIL before the Calcutta High Court. The court order dated April 18, 2019, directed the Chief Wildlife Warden of the Forest Department to take all necessary measures to stop all hunting practices. In the last one year, efforts of awareness among local communities and monitoring of hunting spots have vigilantly been carried out by HEAL members along with the district officials.
“We haven’t been entirely successful to put an end to ritualistic hunting in these regions yet, but the COVID-19 lockdown surprisingly has played an important part in deterring this practice due to restrictions on transport, making the hunts smaller and more sporadic,” she adds. The focus she says is to inspire youth to not hunt but protect their backyard wildlife.
In addition to sensitization, awareness, training and monitoring programs, HEAL is also conducting a series of detailed hunting surveys across Jhargram, Bankura and West Medinipur in association with the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). This survey is being done to create a detailed hunting calendar and map that could prove to be extremely helpful in nabbing the poachers and hunters across the region.
“Ours is a multi-pronged approach; this calendar will not only facilitate accurate monitoring of communities and hunting spots but also help us understand how to and where to better implement our awareness and sensitization programs. Communities, especially their youth, need to realize that their fit of fun comes at such a huge prize. They need to understand the large scale environmental impact of their actions, especially on the future generations,” she concludes.
Growing up in Chilling, a small village approximately 60 km from Leh, 42-year-old Khenrab Phuntsog would regularly spot snow leopards at a distance while taking out the household goats and sheep for grazing up on mountain pastures nearby. With Chilling situated inside the famous Hemis National Park, it wasn’t hard to spot snow leopards if one climbed up to the higher ground.
However, it was during preparations for his grandmother’s cremation, when he was aged 12, that he actually came within 100 metres of a snow leopard. It was a sight he would never forget.
“I had gone with two local painters for the finishing touches on the structure where my grandmother was to be cremated. While they were at work, one of the painters pointed towards the opposite mountain slope at the snow leopard quietly waiting just above a herd of blue sheep. Initially, the rest of us didn’t see it. But when it took a couple of long leaps down, we saw it. It had caught one of the sheep and went for the kill,” recalled Khenrab in a conversation with The Better India.
It was that magnificent sighting that inspired Khenrab to first volunteer with the Wildlife Protection Department, and eventually, join it as a wildlife guard at the age of 22 in the year 2000. Since then, he has rescued 47 snow leopards.
Wildlife guard Khenrab Phuntsog behind a snow leopard.
Tracking Snow Leopards
As per the last scientific survey conducted through camera traps in 2012, the number of snow leopards in the 3,350 sq km-large Hemis National Park stood at 11, compared to 7 in 2006. However, for those surveys, camera traps were only installed across 300 sq km.
“We are now in the process of completing another census for snow leopards using extensive camera trapping methods in different parts of Ladakh, including in Changthang, Hemis National Park, Kargil and Nubra Valley. In Hemis National Park, we have about 60 snow leopards today. For this census camera traps were installed in half the total area unlike in 2006 and 2012. If you take all of Ladakh, however, my guess is that the figure would be above 250. This census is being carried out under the guidance of the Wildlife Institute of India. The results of this census may come by the end of this year or early next year,” he said.
Wildlife guards like Khenrab identify areas like ridgelines, broken cliffs, deep valleys and hanging rocks where snow leopards usually traverse, to install camera traps. Rolling and flat land isn’t really conducive terrain for the snow leopard, although for this census camera traps have been installed in not so conducive terrain as well, to ensure that none are missed.
Hemis National Park
Knowing where to install camera traps is a result of Khenrab’s 20 years of experience in tracking the elusive snow leopard. As a tracker, the first things he looks out for are indirect signs like pugmarks, scrapes, faeces, scent-sprays, claw-rakes and the remains from kills.
“The best times to spot them are early morning and late evening. When looking for scrapes or faeces, you can find them in the bottom of the valley or along the ridgeline. They make a pile of sand with their hind legs sitting on the ground and then urinate atop it. This is how they mark territory. They also rub their necks or cheeks on hanging rocks, leaving behind fur. One doesn’t look for high hanging rocks but suitably sized ones, where they can stand up and rub their necks. Here they also urinate and spray a pungent liquid from scent glands located under the base of the tail. Each one has its own unique scent,” says Khenrab.
In February-March, which is the mating season for the snow leopards, these hanging rocks are used frequently to scan and smell for potential mates. If these signs don’t work, they start calling each other on top of these ridgelines since this is the quickest way to communicate. Once you know where to look, the likelihood of spotting a snow leopard directly through your binoculars increases.
(Image courtesy Khenrab Phuntsog)
Rescuing Snow Leopards
During the late 1970s and 80s, some snow leopards were killed by the local populace in retaliation for their attacks on livestock. These predators would enter various corral pens in villages and kill livestock, a major source of income for many families. When snow leopards get sick, old or can’t hunt in the wild, they target livestock in corral pens
These kills have significantly reduced since then because of awareness raised by the Wildlife Protection Department and other government agencies about the legal penalties involved for killing snow leopards, including jail time. Today, whenever a snow leopard enters a human habitation, the people immediately call the rescue team of the Wildlife Protection Department. After it’s in the safe hands of the rescue team, a vet assesses its medical condition. Once the snow leopard is deemed medically fit, it is let back into the wild.
Snow Leopard eating its prey. (Image courtesy Khenrab Phuntsog)
“From 2000 onwards, the introduction of ecotourism, particularly in villages in the vicinity of areas like the Hemis National Park, played a big part in furthering the change in mindset against killing these predators. When tourists began visiting villages like Chilling to spot snow leopards and live in local homestays, the villagers began to earn enough to offset any livestock loss to the predator. Along with my colleagues Smanla Tsering and Tsering Tashi, I was involved in training local eco-guides, who ensured tourists kept the premises clean, facilitated their interaction with homestay owners, and knew where to take them to spot these creatures,” says Khenrab.
But the process of rescuing snow leopards is a hard job with lots of risks.
“When I began my work rescuing these predators in 1995, we had no equipment. We would merely carry empty gunny sacks, ropes and sticks for these rescue missions in different villages where snow leopards were stuck inside corral pens. It was extremely risky work. One of my senior colleagues nearly had his entire hand bitten off during one such rescue,” says Tsering Tashi, a range officer posted in Changthang.
(Image courtesy Khenrab Phuntsog)
During his two-decade tenure as a wildlife guard, Khenrab has been involved in rescuing 47 snow leopards. And in the early days, these rescues were conducted without tranquilisers.
“My first rescue mission with Khenrab was in Ney village sometime in the early 2000s. The snow leopard was caught inside a corral pen with multiple rooms, while villagers outside were standing around terrified. We noticed that the snow leopard was sitting near one of the windows. I explained to Khenrab that we must first close the window from outside. Once we closed the window, we drove the snow leopard into the last room of the corral pen. There was just one door. We had carried a blanket with us inside the corral pen, while an elaborate net trap set up at the door. Two others were standing guard outside,” recalls Tashi.
As they entered the room with a blanket, Tashi warned Khenrab not to run away if the snow leopard jumped on them because the animal was also scared for its life.
“So, when we closed in on the snow leopard, it jumped towards us. We wrapped the snow leopard in our blanket first before driving it inside our net. Post-2000s, however, we started getting some equipment like camouflage nets, blowpipes and tranquillizer guns. Most of my rescues were without tranquillizers since possible overdoses can harm them,” explains Tashi.
After rescuing the snow leopard, they are released back into the wild. Both Khenrab and Smanla Tsering were awarded the Royal Bank of Scotland’s “Save the Species Award” for their work on snow leopard conservation in 2017.
“With modern techniques, it’s critical to understand how much of a drug needs to be used in a dart before tranquillizing the snow leopard. You have to assess the size of the animal before loading the darts with drugs. Also, you still have to be careful because it’s an aggressive animal. It’s very important not to get too close and also to prevent sudden movements and carefully calculate how to trap it. If you rush the process, the animal gets very aggressive,” says Khenrab.
Tashi goes on to add, “Khenrab has a genuine love for snow leopards. Even if called upon for a rescue past midnight, he never shies away from taking up the assignment.”
Threats Remain
Every year, about 21 to 45 snow leopards are killed in India for poaching or as retaliation for livestock loss, according to a 2016 report by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network.
“In Ladakh, the biggest threat to their survival is habitat destruction due to rising urbanisation and development activities that are happening around villages and in areas where their prey feast. When massive areas are cordoned off for developmental activities, losing all the alpine plants and other scarce vegetation is detrimental to herbivorous animals like blue sheep, goats, marmots, etc. These, in turn, are food for snow leopards. Another threat is a scarcity of water as a result of fast-shrinking glaciers, thanks to climate change,” says Khenrab.
Despite these threats and 20 years on the job, his passion for snow leopards hasn’t waned. “My objective is to create a safe habitat for them. There is no one to represent the snow leopards. I like to believe I represent them. They are critical for the maintenance of the ecological balance. We must do everything to protect them,” he concludes.
(Edited by Nishi Malhotra)
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“O rhino,” pointed out my guide from the front of our jeep. All of us turned to look at the magnificent creature on our left happily munching away on grass, stopping only to drive away oxpeckers from its back.
I was deep within Manas National Park in north western Assam in January 2020. In front of me was a vast expanse of wooded hills, fertile grasslands, and tropical forests punctuated by periodic sighting of animals. Located on the foothills of Eastern Himalayas, Manas is home to many rare species of flora and fauna including the pygmy hog, Indian elephant, and greater one-horned rhinoceros.
We had finally spotted a rhino after five hours of driving around. The famous Indian one-horned rhino made an appearance from behind a thicket of tall yellow grasses. With a sea of blue mountains and wild green bushes behind it, the creature looked perfectly at home, safe and unperturbed.
However, things were not always so calm and peaceful in Manas.
Less than 20 years ago, Manas National Park was a virtual death trap for thousands of unsuspecting animals including the vulnerable Indian rhino.
Rhino sighted at Manas National Park
Poaching was rife and killing of animals was rampant. And that was because Manas was located right at the heart of Bodoland, a culturally-diverse and politically-volatile autonomous region in India.
Bodoland had always been wrung by ethnic tensions. When the Bodoland Nationalist Movement started in 1986, the whole of north western Assam was plunged into a state of lawlessness.
Forests were left open and unguarded. Rhinos were poached and sold across the border in Bhutan. Elephants and tigers were ruthlessly slaughtered. Smaller animals were killed for meat. Trees were felled and timber was siphoned off. Manas was badly caught in the quagmire.
Rampart poaching and deforestation eventually led to a serious shift in the ecosystem balance within and outside the national park. After a while, there were no animals left to kill nor did any underground water remain. Springs dried up, trees disappeared, and Manas was left barren.
There had been as many as 100 rhinos in Manas at the beginning of 1980s. During the insurgency that lasted between 1986 and 2003, all of them were wiped out.
These years also saw the killing of six forest staff and several domesticated elephants and the reckless destruction of camps and range offices.
The wildlife sanctuary, which had been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, stood at the brink of imminent disaster.
That is when the formation of Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in 2003 came as a godsend.
Ethnic tensions eased as Bodo autonomy was recognized in 2003. BTC members started taking an active role in conservation. They educated poachers on how poaching was affecting their own ecosystem. Most importantly, they encouraged locals to participate in the process and instilled in them a sense of pride and belonging for their motherland.
Budheswar Bodo, an ex-poacher from the 1980s who lost an arm in a nasty wildlife encounter, recounts, “BTC members made me realise that the protection of my motherland rested on my shoulders. For the first time in many years, I felt that Manas truly belonged to me and my fellowmen. It was my forest and it was my responsibility to nurture and care for it.”
A prolonged discussion with Budheswar and two other ex-poachers made it evident that these people had given up poaching not necessarily for an assured income or a respectable lifestyle (though they were important factors) but for their own sense of belongingness. Recognition of Bodoland had finally made the poachers feel at home.
Over the second half of 2003, a 3-tier structure was put in place to restore Manas to its former glory. It included members of the BTC, ex-poachers, and local youth organizations that played a vital connect between the government and the erstwhile rustlers.
Kalen Basumatary, head of Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society (MMES) – one such grassroot organization, fondly reminisces of the time when they would go out with a mission every day to reform former poachers. Kalen and his friends were instrumental in shifting public opinion from poaching to protecting. They ran anti-poaching and anti-logging campaigns.
Kalen Basumatary, head of Manas Maozigendri Ecotourism Society (MMES) played a crucial role in changing the mindsets of poachers to become protectors
“It wasn’t an easy task”, Kalen notes. “But it was definitely a fulfilling one. Every time I brought a poacher back into the fold, it felt deeply gratifying.”
He proudly points out that none of their employees have gone back to poaching in the last decade even though it has seemed lucrative at times.
With the launch of Indian Rhino Vision 2020 in 2005, rhinos began to be reintroduced into Manas.
Ex-poachers were made an integral part of the entire effort. They knew the forests of Manas like the back of their hands. They knew all about animal habitats, feeding times, cries, and calls. They could track and bring back animals if they went astray. Needless to say, they made the best protectors.
Slowly but surely, the rhino number at Manas increased. It is now back at 40.
Tigers and Asian elephants can be seen again. Even migratory birds who had sensed danger earlier have started flocking back to the sanctuary. Tourism is much better now giving locals the hope of an eco-friendly and sustainable future.
Manas National Park now thrives with grassland and peace maintained between humans and wildlife
Manas is now home to countless birds and animals as well as hundreds of poachers who, for a while, had forgotten the touch of their motherland.
As I wrapped my head around this human face of wildlife conservation, I stumbled upon a water hole that was bubbling with the clean underground water. Birds swooshed by over my head and a peacock called from a distance. I could almost hear elephants trumpeting back home while a baby rhino played in the mud. Manas was fecund and green again with life and hope.
(Written by Soumya Gayatri. Edited by Vinayak Hegde)
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many public spaces have been closed, including zoos. While some zoos reported that the animals were happy without the constant movement of humans and clicking of cameras, others like the Nandankanan zoo in Bhubaneshwar reported that it was hard for them to take care of the animals and make ends meet without the main source of income – entry tickets.
Nandankanan zoo, reportedly, generates around Rs 15 crore revenue a year to meet its expenses but failed to collect a single penny owing to the lockdown restrictions, until it reopened on October 4.
Therefore, to collect the funds necessary for animal care, Nandankanan zoo and some other zoos across the country have introduced online animal adoption. People can virtually ‘adopt’ any animal of their choice for a specified period, and the money they pay will go towards the food, grooming, and medical expenses of that animal.
Although this is not entirely a new thing – adoptions were encouraged earlier as well to create a sense of involvement and bonding between visitors and zoo animals — now it has become a necessity for many zoos.
Here are some zoos offering online methods of adoption –
1.Nandankanan zoo, Bhubaneshwar
Several animals, ranging from lions and tigers to various species of birds and snakes, are up for adoption.
Choose the time period you wish to pay for (ranges from 1 month to 1 year).
Enter your details, upload a picture of yourself and your aadhar number for identity verification.
Finally, you can pay through an online mode.
Once you have made the payment, the zoo will send a confirmation through email and update their ‘List of adopted animals’ page with your name and contribution. Following this, they will also update the same on their social media handles such as Twitter and Facebook.
2. Indira Gandhi Zoo, Visakhapatnam
Located in the Kambalakonda Reserve Forest in Visakhapatnam, this zoo needs people to adopt animals so it can continue to provide good food and facilities for its residents.
Select the period you wish to provide for. It ranges from one day to one year.
Pay via online mode.
You will get confirmation through a message or email. According to the official website, donors who give an amount ranging from Rs.10k to 30k will have their name etched onto the enclosure for the animal and receive free entry into the zoo for five persons once a year. They will also receive an adoption certificate and get regular updates about how the animal is doing.
Those paying an amount above Rs.30k will receive the above-mentioned benefits along with a t-shirt, cap, and free entry to participate in events held at the zoo.
3. Mysore Zoo, Karnataka
To be part of Mysore zoo’s wildlife conservation programme, you can adopt your favourite animal for one year or a shorter period.
The brochure contains details about the animals you can adopt and the price depending on the number of months you will adopt the animal for.
Make an NEFT payment to the bank according to details given in the brochure, and take a screenshot of the confirmation you receive once the payment is made.
Send an email to zoomysore@gmail.com with attachments of the filled application form along with the screenshot of payment.
Once the zoo has received this, they will send you a confirmation via email.
Mysore zoo also provides a zoo membership for one year to those who pay more than Rs. 5000 to adopt an animal.
To know more about animal adoption, visit the official website.
The above three are not the only zoos in India that allow animal adoption; most of them do provide the facility and have introduced an online way of doing so owing to the pandemic.
