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The Wounded Otter

The Wounded Otter | Books | The Guardian

A wounded otter

on a bare rock 

a bolt in her side, 

stroking her whiskers 

stroking her webbed feet. 

Her ancestors 

told her once 

that there was a river, 

a crystal river, 

a waterless bed. 

They also said 

there were trout there 

fat as tree-trunks 

and kingfishers 

bright as blue spears - 

men there without cinders 

in their boots, 

men without dogs 

on leashes. 

She did not notice 

the world die 

nor the sun expire. 

She was already 

swimming at ease 

in the magic crystal river.

Pangolin again

India’s endangered species nobody wants to save, or talk about | more lifestyle | Hindustan Times

If you saw the pangolin, you’d probably find it quite adorable. It’s a shy, stooped creature that ambles close to the ground, looking furtively at the world through beady eyes. 

When threatened, this prehistoric mammal curls up into a ball, presenting a hide covered in overlapping scales so tough, they can withstand a tiger attack — or blows from an axe. These scales are also the reason the pangolin is on the endangered list. For one thing, they make it easy to capture, and impossible to kill. So about 3,500 pangolins are boiled alive in India every year (and about 10,000 worldwide, according to 2014 data from the UK-based NGO Environmental Investigation Agency).

Thus separated from the skin, the scales fetch up to Rs 15,000 per kg on the black market, to eventually be used as a ‘tonic’ in traditional Chinese medicine.

All this has made the pangolin the most-poached mammal in India — and the world. And yet there is little data on its decline; only vague estimates of how few are left; just the fact that the young are being poached so extensively to hint at how few adults probably remain.

Chances are, you’ve never even seen a picture of one.

It is, essentially, an orphan in the wild. Poached, seriously endangered and still largely ignored.

And in that sense, if in no other, the pangolin isn’t alone. Its predicament is shared by the slender loris and the red line torpedo barb, which are trapped and sold by the thousands as exotic pets. By the dugong or sea cow, which is hunted for its flesh, and the forest owlet, hunted for its supposedly magical properties. The sea cucumber, similarly, has been wiped out in many parts of the western coast, hunted as a delicacy and an ingredient in traditional Chinese and South-East Asian medicine. And the sea horse faces the same fate on the eastern coast, traded in the thousands as aquarium pets or dried curios, or ‘cures’ for asthma or sexual dysfunction.

At a time when the impact of human activity is contributing to, if not causing, climate change, species around the world are in peril, some still more than others. But within the world of endangered animals, discrimination persists.

Worldwide, the species that pull on heartstrings and purse-strings tend to either be large, powerful animals at the top of a food chain (like the tiger and whale) or charismatic creatures (like the elephant or koala bear).

The hundreds of other critically endangered species are left to make do with the scraps of attention, awareness and budgetary allotment left. Some, like the pangolin, amble into the news when their numbers drop very far or very fast, or both. Others, like the red line torpedo barb, which makes up 60% of India’s decorative fish exports, may make it to the news only when they have disappeared altogether.

Sarus cranes - those beautiful birds

The headline is misleading.  More detailed enumeration has thrown up more cranes.  There are concerns in Gujarat for the birds.



Sarus crane population largely stable in India (Wildlife Feature) | Business Standard News

The population of the Sarus crane, the tallest flying bird in the world, is surprisingly stable in India and showing increases in some areas, says a researcher.

Haryana's three districts show there are at least 250 birds, while Uttar Pradesh is home to the country's largest count of 13,000 birds -- much higher than was known before, said K.S. Gopi Sundar, research associate (India) of the US-based International Crane Foundation.

Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal require scientific intervention as almost nothing is known of the Sarus crane there.

"The new population figures of the Sarus crane are partly due to new surveys in previously unexplored areas," Sundar told IANS in an email interview.

Wildlife experts attribute the dip in numbers in some areas to the increased use of pesticides, changing cropping patterns and degradation of wetlands and marshy areas.

Sundar said the Sarus crane is threatened in Gujarat owing to rapid conversion of wetlands and marshy areas to industries and cities.

The tallest of all the 15 species of cranes in the world, the Sarus is distinguished by its contrasting red head and attains a height of up to six feet, with a wingspan of eight feet.

The biologist said little is known from Haryana about the Sarus.

But seasonal surveys, he said, in collaboration with the Nature Conservation Foundation and the International Crane Foundation in Haryana's three districts -- Rohtak, Jhajjar and Palwal -- show that there are at least 250 birds.

Such a high number was not known before, but that was primarily due to a lack of systematic and repeated surveys, he said.

Sundar, the director of new programme SarusScape of the International Crane Foundation, said the increases of the Sarus are partly due to improved survey efforts.

This species, which the Red Data Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature - a compendium of species facing extinction - has put it in the "vulnerable" category, has the vast majority of populations in agricultural fields.

Some semi-arid and arid areas like Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan are seeing wetting of the landscape due to governmental activities to favour wet crops such as rice.

According to Sundar, in some of these areas, the new irrigation structures, combined with the growing amount of rice grown, seem to be conducive for the Sarus' growth in numbers.

But the increase of aquaculture can also be detrimental to the Sarus -- as is already apparent in Haryana.

On initiatives to conserve its natural habitat, he said the Sarus requires a combination of medium-sized and large-sized wetlands along with small wetlands to survive.

The breeding pairs are territorial and use the small wetlands to nest.

The larger wetlands on the landscape are crucial to safeguard the non-breeding population which can comprise up to 50 percent of the population, Sundar said.

The International Crane Foundation is currently working in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat, besides in lowlands of neighbouring Nepal and several countries in Southeast Asia.

There is a brighter side too for its conservation.

Since the Sarus lives for long -- perhaps even more than 60 years -- its conservation work necessarily is long-term, said the biologist.

In the first International Sarus and Wetland Conference in Lucknow during February 2-4, there was healthy debate by researchers and conservationists about the methods to be used by conservation organisations and governments.

Kandarp Kathju, who has been monitoring the Sarus in Gujarat since 1998, said degradation of small wetlands and marshes -- apart from encroachments, drainage and civil works -- has shrunk and fragmented the natural nesting habitat of this species.

It was noted at the conference that easy methods such as payments to farmers would be highly destructive to long-standing favourable attitudes.

Instead, it was suggested that providing the farmers with a sense of pride would ensure that the current situation - which is very successful in conserving the Sarus - could be retained and encouraged.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

It's World Pangolin Day

I have not seen a pangolin in the wild. And today I realised why - we seem to have decimated them - as with so many other species.  Why oh Why?

My parents could have done with a pangolin in their midst - they recently discovered that the wooden particle board behind their electrical switchboard  had served as termite food!

Now, if there had been a pangolin around, it would have put out its looong tongue and slurped those termites away

There are eight types of pangolins - 

• Thick-tailed Pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) This is the one we have in India
• Phillipine Pangolin (Manis culionensis) 
• Sunda Pangolin (Manis javanica) 
• Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) 
• Three-Cusped Pangolin, also called as African White-Bellied Pangolin and Tree Pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) 
• Giant Ground Pangolin (Smutsia gigantean) 
• Cape Pangolin, also called as Temminck's Pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) 
• Long-Tailed Pangolin, also called as Black-Bellied Pangolin (Uromanis tetradactyla)

Source:  http://pangolins.org

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the population of pangolins is at a threatening low.