The Navaratri fortnight

Cloudy skies

dragonflies.

Sweaty, hot,

mosquitoes swat.

Lightning, thunder

leaves asunder

Cooling rains

dragonflies again!

Window sill

bulbuls trill.

Sunny day

trevally prey.

Heat abated

pitta spotted.

Swallows tease

southerly breeze.

Brilliant moon

Dusk so soon.

Ecosystems of Madras in need of some TLC

The last week has seen two articles in the Chennai Times of India on the neglect and abuse of our city's natural spaces.

Simpson estate and the Manali lake

and

The Nanmangalam Reserve Forest

A tiger spotted at Bharatpur

Bharatpur is home to the Keoladeo bird sanctuary. The article below was sent to the MNS e-group, and I was immediately transported back in time to the winter adventures of the Mad Madrasis, our 53 hour train ride to get to Bharatpur, and our daily cycling (mis)adventures at the park.

And now a tiger, identified as T7 has been spotted on camera (but not in person), devouring a boar, and suspected at having killed a nilgai as well. He seems to be a maverick tiger, sort of lone ranger, outlaw type, having made his way from Ranthambhore.

The Hindu article.

The male tiger that intruded into the Keoladeo National Park bird sanctuary near Bharatpur in Rajasthan this past Sunday is seemingly enjoying his stay and is in no hurry to leave. The animal, now confirmed as T-7 of Ranthambhore National Park, which announced his arrival in Keoladeo with the killing of a blue bull, has over the past two days hunted a wild boar and a calf of feral cattle and fed on the former ignoring the calf. Though the bird sanctuary staff has been keeping a vigil, the tiger has not made an appearance before the humans so far.

“The tiger continues to be in Keoladar area of the sanctuary where the grass is standing tall. No one could spot it so far despite a strict vigil. However, we have now with us a set of 25 photographs of the animal eating the wild boar, taken with the help of a trap camera,” informed Anoop K.R., Field Director of the National Park, speaking from Bharatpur on Friday.

“The tiger seemingly consumed the wild boar fully though some of the photographs show a hyena in the background,” he said.

The tiger was on the run for the past fortnight after attacking and injuring over half a dozen persons at Mathura in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh. Curiously this is the same tiger, estimated to be around four years old, which had badly mauled a range officer in a village on the periphery of Ranthambhore National Park a month back. Even prior to this, T-7 has been shuttling between Ranthambhore Park and the neighbouring sanctuary of Kailadevi before choosing the long haul to the Rajasthan-UP border. Experts are of the view that going by its past behaviour the animal is not to remain in the 29 sq km area of the sanctuary for long.

“I have watched this tiger closely. He is not to stop here for long,” said Dharmendra Khandal, Director of Tiger Watch at Ranthambhore. Dr. Khandal, who confirmed the animal in the picture as T-7, said the authorities should devise a plan for shifting it to any tiger sanctuary, preferably not Sariska. He was dismissive of taking it back to Ranthambhore or Kailadevi as the former was already “saturated for tigers” and the latter did not have an adequate prey base.

“We can exchange it for a tigress from Madhya Pradesh. The animal can be shifted to Kuno, Panna or Kanha. This could be a gene pool exchange which will benefit the tigers from both the States,” he argued.

There have been reports in local newspapers about the Rajasthan forest authorities planning to shift T-7 to Sariska to join the already existing five tigers, relocated from Ranthambhore. “There are already two male tigers in Sariska now and another male is not of any additional relevance,” he pointed out.

There is reason for the authorities at Van Bhavan, the Forest Department headquarters here, and at Keoladeo National Park to worry as T-7 is a tiger with a past. The young cat has attacked a good number of people and has seemingly lost its fear of human beings. Keoladeo is a bird sanctuary where the visitors normally move either on foot or on bicycles and cycle rickshaws. “T-7 is no more afraid of the presence of humans. That is not going to help much as it has a history of attacking humans,” Dr. Khandal observed.

Its travelled a fair distance!


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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.

Saving animals from humans!!

PUDUCHERRY, September 9, 2010

The heavy odds of animal rescuers

Sruthisagar Yamunan

They are yet to be made permanent staff

AT WORK: A personnel of the Forest Department rescuing a cobra in Puducherry on Wednesday. — Photo: T. Singaravelou

For C. Vajemouny, an animal rescuer at the Forest Department here, work has no set timings. Whenever he gets a call from residents, complaining about their unwanted guests (read animals), he rushes to the spot to do the double rescue: saving the animals from humans and vice-versa.

For people like him, the satisfaction of rescuing the animal is their biggest incentive. He says that despite working for 14 years, he is yet to be made a permanent staffer of the Forest Department and continues to work as a daily wage labourer.

On an average day, such rescuers receive four to five calls informing them about different animals that lose their way out of the adjoining forest areas and find shelter in houses. Time is precious to these people as even a bit of delay can result in loss of lives, especially if the animal is a snake.

For a long time, these men have worked even without basic protective gears and have exposed themselves to the risks of poisoning by these animals. But they do believe that catching a snake with the equipment is a difficult task and that "charming the snake with their bare hands" is much easier than with the gloves as they are used to such techniques. Apart from calls they receive from residents, they also develop sources in different parts of the town to get information about poaching and illegal sales of endangered animals. Karthickeyan, another rescuer at the department, says that this task becomes hectic during the migration season when a variety of birds visit the lakes in Puducherry. He says that rescuing such birds poses the risk of encounter with criminal elements that go to any extent to sell these birds in a thriving illegal market.

Their demands are a few in number, but the most important is that of being made permanent employees of the department which would provide them with a higher income.

An ode to Cubbon Park, Bangalore

My good friend Shoba finally writes something that I agree with! It deserves a cross post here. Anyways, dear Shoba, I am glad you met Karthikeyan - may his tribe grow - and I love the bit about nature surrounding us, like "God is Everywhere"!!

Cubbon Park was one of those parts often visited in my childhood, and her descriptions of the activities there were spot on.

At Cubbon Park, under the greenwood trees - Columnist - livemint.com

For a park that’s in the centre of the city, Bangalore’s Cubbon Park is remarkably deserted during the day. The Page 3 people who populate nearby UB City are absent here. Instead, the park is left to pedestrians, plebeians and proletariat, which is exactly as it should be. Unlike Central Park, Hyde Park, Lodhi Gardens or Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Cubbon Park hasn’t been overly gentrified: overtaken by stroller-moms in True Religion jeans, joggers in neon tights, or bare-chested drummers who jam all evening. Instead, Cubbon Park remains sedate, even somnolent, offering refuge for tired Bangaloreans who want to decompress in anonymity.

I visit Cubbon Park three times a week to walk my dog off-leash while my daughter plays tennis. Often, I see the same people. Law clerks from the nearby Attara Kacheri walk across, discussing cases and files. Weary men who look like Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman sit in grey pants and beige shirts under the broad canopy of a fading rain tree, making peace with their thoughts. Furtive lovers lurk in the shadows. Boys speaking Bhojpuri climb trees and chase each other. Burqa-clad women clutch toddlers in shimmering frocks. Two dreadlocked men play frisbee. A British man walks two sleek Weimaraners off-leash. Men urinate under the bamboo bushes. Retirees walk by in eye-popping attire: monkey cap, bright red tilak or namam, white banian, khakhi shorts, mismatched purple socks and chalk-whitened Bata shoes. A drunk auto driver gives a loud but perfect rendition of Mere naina, sawan bhadon.

Humans are a minority in Cubbon Park though. It really belongs to the trees, and boy, are they characters. There is this grandmotherly fig tree with stomach-folds that seems to have compressed itself to spread its canopy to the maximum extent. People sit on benches under it. Geckos breed in its fold. Fur-balled squirrels run spirals before jumping off its trunk. Eagles rest on top.

An upstart silk cotton tree arches sideways and upwards like a ballet dancer, surrounded by matronly peepal, gulmohar and banyan trees, all shivering and hovering. You can almost see this young tree navigating and negotiating with these matrons to get its place in the sun.

After walking amidst these trees for three months, I did something I have never done. I hugged a Laburnum. This Cassia fistula is a common sight in Bangalore. One evening, I wrapped my arms around this Cassia for 6 seconds—that’s how long it takes for the beneficial oxytocin hormone to release itself and make you feel good, so if you are hugging your spouse, lover, friend, child, or pet, make sure you hug for 6 seconds at least. So I hugged this tree in Cubbon Park. That was the turning point. Like a drug addict, I wanted more.

Also Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns

I googled “Trees of Cubbon Park”, and came across just one worthwhile site that documented the trees, done by S. Karthikeyan, the chief naturalist of JLR, or Jungle Lodges. Called Wildwanderer.com, this site, or “Karthik’s Journal”, documents the flowering trees of Bangalore. I cold-emailed him and asked if I could walk with him the next time he was in Cubbon Park, which was how I found myself with the Wild Wanderer.

“Trees as a group can do amazing things,” says Karthikeyan. “We don’t notice because they operate in a different timeline than we humans do.” When I ask for an example, he asks, “Have you ever seen a fig flower?” I say “No.” “Then how do we get the seed?” He talks about inflorescence and the fig wasp, a co-evolutional relationship for the last 80 million years.

Karthikeyan points to an Albizia lebbeck or woman’s tongue tree, so called because the rattling of its pods sounds like women chattering. A proud peepal arches to the sky like a dad giving a lecture to a drooping millingtonia just across. Pink bauhinias are blooming and the sausage tree is shedding thick flowers. A Desi Badam or Terminalia catappa stands, slim and strong, like a teenage girl, preening before guests.

Karthikeyan spent 45 minutes identifying trees in Cubbon Park, but the high point was when I asked about a native “Pongam” tree. He held its discoloured leaf and said softly, “Lovely”. Turns out that there were two jumping spiders in the leaves and off he went into an explanation about their mating.

The true gift of spending time with a naturalist is not the species that he identifies, although that is a highlight. The true gift is how naturalists quietly transmit their enthusiasm for nature. Karthikeyan has the kind limpid eyes of a musician who operates in a different dimension. He notices different things than perhaps you and I. He thinks, for instance, that “arachnids are quite amazing”. When I asked him to repeat the sentence in plain English, he said, “You know, most of us take a vacation to experience nature—we go on wildlife safaris and such. Nothing wrong with that. But nature surrounds us every day. Every urban Indian is exposed to bees, bugs and spiders. Why not observe and enjoy them? Why give up those pleasures?”

Here is the takeaway: Next time you or your kids see a spider, ladybug, or even a cockroach, try not to squeal. Instead, become still and observe. Oh, and consider hugging a tree. Like a pet who will listen to you sob your broken heart out, without any seeming reaction, these trees will make you feel better. I know this because I was a sceptic converted into a regular tree-hugger. Just like Prem Koshy (of Koshy’s in Bangalore) and others like him.

Bangalore, by the way, is full of tree-huggers. It is one of the best things about this city.

PS: Shoba, Bangalore full of tree huggers?? Really? This I have to see.

Residents take a walk around Pallikaranai Marshland

The Hindu:Residents take a walk around Pallikaranai Marshland


As part of the Madras Day Celebrations, the 33-year-old nature conservation body Madras Naturalists Society organised a ‘Nature Walk' at Pallikaranai Marshland on August 14. People in the age group of seven to 70 took part in the walk which was led by the Society's founder member K.V. Sudhakar.

The walk highlighted the importance of conserving wetlands which is not only a water aquifer helping to recharge groundwater levels, but also serves as an ideal feeding and resting ground for migratory birds.

The Society has recorded sighting of 134 species of birds in the Marsh. Chennai was fortunate to have right in its bustling midst a place such as the Pallikaranai Marshland and it was vital to preserve this precious natural resource. Senior members of the Society Rama Rajaram and A. Rajaram assisted participants to spot and identify the birds in the Marsh with the help of a powerful Spotting Scope. Birds sighted that morning include the Spot-billed Pelican, Pheasant-talied Jacana, Spot-billed Duck, Glossy Ibis, Purple Heron, Caspian Tern, Black-winged Stilt, Purple Moorhen, Indian Moorhen, Coot and Dabchick.

With persistent efforts from environmentalists, the Wetland was declared as a Reserve Forest area some years ago. A huge portion has been irreversibly damaged due to the dumping of garbage. What remains of the Marshland now is a fraction of its original expanse of several thousand acres.