I have forgotten the darkness of the night

Monday evening, and I was out for my evening walk by the beach. My iPod to lighten the drudge that the evening constitutional has become, the zippy music puts a zing in my step that is otherwise laboured and bored as I sweat myself through another exercise routine!

Dont get me wrong, I do love the shore and the magical colours of the evening sky and the water, but without the music (or good company), I would rather just sit by the shore and take it all in!

This Monday evening however, as the sun set, darkness also descended. It dawned on me that the power had gone, streetlights were off, and the matchbox flats all around were dark. The odd apartment with an inverter or a genset looked like an incongruous, out-of-season Deepavali display.

I want to record the strange feeling that overcame me, as I stumbled along the dark path, unsure of my footing.

One, I felt foolish and inadequate as the street dogs and stray cats darted around confidently while I kind of walked blind.

Two, it seemed that the roar of the water was much more (I had turned off my iPod) than normal as a hush descended, no motors, TVs, fan whirrs I guess, and more laughter and chatter floated in the air.

Three, it brought back memories almost fifteen years ago of a night in the Himalayas when we trekked through the Great Himalayan National Park and darkness descended and we were nowhere near our destination. That pitch black, I next experienced at Mamandur on a night walk again. Its a weird feeling, like walking around blindfolded, and for a city dweller like me, I realise how I have lost touch with all my other senses, in order to navigate.

Four, my mind rambled (it does that all the time) to how night lighting has changed the way we live, changed the planet, and how every other species has had to adapt to this human intervention. We love lights, it makes us happy and cheerful, the more neon signs there are, we feel we have progressed and we are prosperous.

Will we willingly reduce our night lights, for the sake of all those other creatures, lights in advertising hoardings, buildings and public places? Maybe we need a green tax on unnecessary night lighting...or am I being a killjoy?

Nizhal's tree walk at Sembium Gardens

(Due apologies to a kids nursery rhyme)

Bus driver bus driver, can we have a ride?
OK, OK step up inside.
Round the bend, up the street, madly we go
Screeching and horning
Hold on tight!

Conductor sir, may we alight
We seem to have reached and we are alright!
Into an auto, squeezed up tight
We reach Sembium gardens, much to our delight!

Shoba is there, as usual giggling
And Arun is there to take us treewalking.

Buttress roots
New palm shoots
Subabuls are plenty
Rain tree flowers so dainty.

But where are those birds that I came to see?
Have they all gone off to have their morning tea?
Mosquitoes attack bare legs with glee
Sending my son on a hopping spree.

Coffee and biscuits, a welcome break
The caffeine ensuring we were all awake
To see Saraca indica
Which is the real ashoka
And not Polyalthia longifolia,
Our common false ashoka!

At last I see herons in the pond!
And is that a coot and moorhen beyond?
Parakeets in the raintree screeched
A flameback in the cordia, knocked

And to go home we turned around
Oops, the same mad bus driver we found!
Round the bend, up the street, madly we went
Screeching and horning
Held on tight!

The rains, trees and insects

Seen at GNP -

Pranav of MNS helped me id this!

Hi Ambika,
This is a short horned grasshopper (Acrididae) in the subfamily Oxyinae- most probably Oxya hyla hyla. I don't think there is a common name beyond "Short horned grasshopper"(which refers to thousands and thousands of other species), so these two will just have to be satisfied with the binomial name mentioned above.
Yes, they are a mating pair- the males are always smaller than the females. There is another subspecies- O. hyla intricata , which looks similar, with a deep brown shade above, instead of green. The two subspecies have been noticed mating with each other, but these two specimens seem to have stuck to their own kind... grasshoppers are strict vegetarians. In fact, they are despised for this very fact- the grasshopper in your photo is an infamous pest of rice...
Pranav

Wildlife Week Celebrations Chennai

Sign up for the quiz, and come for the storytelling...promises to be fun.

Click on the picture for the enlarged poster

Elephant - God or victim?

We celebrated Gowri and Ganesha hubba/pooja this morning, and as I listened to the mantras, my mind wandered (Sorry, but it did!), to elephants, wild ones, those magnificent large creatures with gentle eyes that for some reason always look so sad. Odd, isn't it, we have deified both motherhood and the elephant, and both are exploited and mistreated in Indian society?

While we talk a lot about the vanishing tiger, as a country we have failed the much loved elephant haven't we? These large creatures need space and food, and as we pressure them into a corner, there is an inevitable man-animal conflict. Nowadays, a fortnight doesn't go by without a report of either an elephant killed, or a man killed/injured by an elephant.

Man vs elephant - the conflict of civilization, indicates that deaths of both humans and elephants are on the rise in India. When I read some of the reports, one almost gets the sense that the elephants are angry and raging.

I would be an enraged elephant too, if I found I had nowhere to go, take my babies, no safe points to cross from one forest to another, wouldn't I?

And then Ravi Chellam writes in his article Beyond the Herd, that there are 3,500 elephants in captivity. And I see those temple elephants in shackles and everytime I do, I make a silent apology to it, wishing I could free it.......

Finally an Elephant Task Force has been set up by the Ministry of Evironment and Forests.

Beyond the herd
RAVICHELLAM Posted online: Mon Sep 06 2010, 03:34 hrs

One of the innovative recommendations of the recently submitted report of the Elephant Task Force (ETF), backed by the environment ministry, is to declare it India’s national heritage animal. The elephant is possibly the most appropriate species to be awarded this recognition. Elephants have a wide distribution across the country, living in diverse habitats ranging from the tall grasslands of the alluvial flood plains of the terai to montane grasslands, evergreen forests, and moist and dry deciduous forests of the Western Ghats. They are also a much-loved species, with very strong cultural and religious links with vast sections of our population. The elephant is one of the most recognised symbols of India, and unique in being among the few widely domesticated wild large mammals. They play very important roles in religious and cultural ceremonies across India. Three thousand and five hundred elephants are estimated to be in captivity in India, largely in temples and under private ownership.
India is home to more than 60 per cent of the remaining wild elephants in Asia, with an estimated population of around 26,000. So, as a country we have a crucial role to play for their long-term survival in the wild. While these numbers may seem high and indicate that the elephants are well conserved and secure, the field reality is actually very different.

Elephant habitats have been undergoing rapid change in the last couple of decades in India due to conversion to agriculture, development of infrastructure and other development projects including tourism resorts. Much of this change has had negative impacts on elephant populations due to fragmentation and degradation of their habitats. In many instances, elephant habitats have been totally brought under human use, resulting in the complete loss of the habitat. Poaching of elephants for their tusks has also been a problem in certain parts of India. In Asian elephants, only the males possess tusks and so poaching tends to be focused on males with disastrous consequences for the sex-ratio of the remaining elephant populations. Human-elephant conflicts (HEC) are widespread and according to the ETF, about one million hectares of crop lands are damaged by elephants annually. Every year in India, about 400 people are killed by elephants and in retaliation about 100 elephants are killed. This indicates how widespread and serious this conflict is in India today. The task force has recommended multiple approaches, some of which are very innovative and practical, in order to mitigate and manage this problem. The focus is on preventing human actions which will create fresh conflicts and to prevent and minimise existing levels of conflict. This includes integrated land use planning in and around elephant habitats, enhanced guarding of crops, higher levels of local community participation in these efforts and more efficient and just payment of compensation.

Another major and avoidable cause of elephant mortality is death on railway tracks due to collision with trains and electrocution from low-hanging high-tension wire. These problems have also been recognised in the ETF. It has identified 10 elephant landscapes where conservation would be prioritised. These landscapes include all 32 of the existing and proposed elephant reserves. Elephants are extremely mobile and social mega-herbivores and so they can only be conserved at the landscape level. These elephant landscapes contain several types of lands including protected areas, reserved forests and revenue land. Many of the protected areas are connected by vital corridors, which enable elephants to move from one part of their home range to the other and also ensure the genetic connectivity and integrity of the populations, which is vital for their long-term survival. The task force places emphasis on securing the corridors and elephant habitats beyond the protected areas for their long-term conservation.

The report supports a strong role for science in assessing and monitoring elephant populations and also in undertaking ecological and veterinary studies which will help us understand elephant populations and their behaviour in a better and more holistic manner. A clear role for civil society organisations and public participation in the conservation and management of elephants has also been outlined, with Rs 600 crore recommended as the financial outlay to implement the recommendations during the Twelfth Plan period.

Wildlife conservation in India is beginning to take a broader approach, after many decades of tightly focusing on tigers alone. Last year, the river dolphin was declared the national aquatic animal, Project Snow Leopard has been functional, there is a move to bring back the cheetah, and the latest heartening development is the spotlight on elephants. This indicates an increasingly mature approach to wildlife conservation, one which values nature in its myriad forms.

The writer is country director, Wildlife Conservation Society-India Programme

He is also an MNS member.