Paved with gold

Does that chameleon feel like a king?
Do its eyes behold the beauty?

The Flameback at our window

I miss the barbets outside my window
coppersmithing all day on the Millingtonia.

The Millingtonia came crashing down one windy monsoon day,
and the Badam has flourished instead, in the sun.

A woodpecker has been calling these last few days
and today we saw it, knocking wood.

Surprise, pleasure and delight.
A beautiful start to the day.

Offroading and wildlife enthusiasm that I am not enthusiastic about

I have a problem these days with SUV and bike ads on TV.  (Ask my husband, he is tired of this peeve of mine.)  They show these wonder vehicles "making their own paths", "going where no one else dares", etc etc.



Stay on the road folks, your enthusiasm is not good for the wildlife - there's a lot of it underfoot, never mind the big game you are chasing.



The ugly side of wildlife photography



“The craze for wildlife photography has increased, but unfortunately, there is no understanding of ecology or animal behaviour amongst most photographers. We have attempted to create an awareness that the quest for the perfect shot may be detrimental for the species and how repeated off-roading on a wild landscape harms the ecosystem,” says Sreenivasan.

Rhino poaching at Orang

Pictures Don't Lie... And Rhinos Do Die

Sanctuary Cover Story April 2012:

Sushil Kumar Daila, Divisional Forest Officer, Mangaldai Wildlife Division, recounts a recent rhino poaching incident in Assam’s Orang National Park and highlights some positive developments that will help secure the park.

In my time as a Divisional Forest Officer, I have unfortunately seen four rhino poaching cases. But nothing pained me nearly as much as the death of an adult male rhino that was shot by poachers at dusk on January 23, 2010 in the Jhaoni Island of the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park. As soon as the staff heard two gunshots, we set out to nab the poachers. We tried long and hard, but they escaped. We noticed, however, a horrifyingly thick blood trail in several places on the three square kilometre island. Eventually, we were able to locate the rhino. Alive. But with its horn chopped off. The animal was in acute pain and was walking in tight circles, in utter distress. We watched helplessly, in total anguish. Grown men – we were all in tears as we watched the magnificent animal writhing in pain. We called for the best vets in Assam, but the rhino died, after struggling for life for two full days. The entire staff of Orang witnessed first-hand just how ruthless the poaching gangs are. The rhino would have collapsed from the shock of the bullet, but even as it breathed they had brutally gouged out its horn. When on the same island two months later another rhino poaching attempt was made, one of the poachers was shot dead by our staff. Since then no incident has taken place. There has been a lull for 26 months now, but we harbour no illusions. The poachers are there and waiting for us to drop our guard.

A female rhino was shot dead by poachers in the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park at 1:45 a.m. on January 9, 2011 near the Kachariveti camp. The poachers decamped with the rhino horn the same night. Their modus operandi took us by surprise. Normally they would enter when the moon was full; this time they chose a moonless night. Moreover, they brought the rhino down with a single bullet.

The next day, as we sat discussing the issue, all of us depressed, a thought occurred to me: “What if one or more of the poachers had been photographed in one of the 30 or so camera traps we had installed for our tiger estimation work?” Immediately, the Range Officer, Salim Ahmed, our staff and I began to inspect camera after camera. To our great surprise and delight, we discovered that on the night of January 4-5, 2011, one of the cameras actually had caught three poachers carrying two .303 rifles. Instantly we compared the faces with those of known suspects. But none of our staff members could identify the men.

Speculating that they might be from nearby villages, we organised a house-to-house night raid in two neighbouring villages of Kachariveti tup no.1 and no. 2. We had a large contingent of forest staff with us, including women foresters/forest guards and even some army personnel. The search operation began at 10 p.m. and ended at six a.m. the next day. Leaving nothing to chance, we scoured every single house. Our feet were numb with the cold as we had walked barefoot in swampy areas and across the Panchnoi river to reach some of the scattered dwellings. But we found no poachers.

Got them!

We then decided to announce a cash award of Rs. 25,000/- for information on the men and printed good quality, large-sized ‘WANTED’ posters in Assamese, with the pictures of the poachers carrying two .303 rifles. We put the posters up all over Darrang and Sonitpur districts. The plan worked. Within 24 hours, the intelligence information began to pour in. But the culprits had also been forewarned in the process and when we got to their homes, predictably, they had vanished. We did, however, manage to unearth one poacher’s cell phone number from titbits of paper inside his house. We also began to put word out that the Government was going to issue shoot-on-sight orders against them if they did not surrender. That was enough for them. On February 4, 2011, they entered the Dhekiajuli police station and surrendered. They were arrested by us then and there and we seized the two rifles, which perfectly matched the weapons in the camera trap photos. The next day they were jailed and a charge-sheet meticulously filed, for once with clinching evidence. We appointed a private lawyer as well as a public prosecutor and worked very closely with them to ensure we had a water-tight case. We were determined to have these poachers who had killed a rhino on our watch convicted.

Piecing together the whole episode, I discovered that on January 4, at 2.30 p.m., just five days before the poachers had done their dark deed, I had personally walked that area with my staff on patrol. For all we know they were around, watching us and waiting until they thought it was safe to take out the rhino. They had clearly seen the flash, but could not locate the camera as it had been secured up on a tree. They then re-entered the area four days later from another point and escaped being photographed.

Orang must live

Over the last two and half years (September 2009 – February 2012), there has been a major overhaul of Orang’s protection force and protocols. Seven new anti-poaching camps, five RCC watch towers, two floating camps, patrolling roads, bridges and culverts have been added to the protection infrastructure. And vast improvements in the living conditions of our field staff have been undertaken. We have also been provided with three new vehicles, two speed boats, wireless equipment, IT gadgets and a host of other equipment, apart from our arsenal of arms and ammunition. Arms training and firing practice have also been given to the entire staff in collaboration with the Assam State Police.

That is not all. We have diligently settled all ex-gratia cases of cattle killing by tigers outside the national park, even those pending since 2002! And today compensation is paid on the spot, within 24 hours of any cattle kill. Additionally, we have organised awareness campaigns and formed joint vigilance teams with villagers in the most susceptible areas. A two-tier regular supervision-cum-inspection protocol of every protection camp has been instituted. Patrolling is intensively monitored and recorded on a daily basis at the Camp, Range and Division level. Strict and prompt action is taken against erring staff and we are fine-tuning our administrative set up for time-bound disposal of requests for leave, GPF advance, increments or any other problem raised by our field staff. Most importantly, senior officers accompany forest guards on foot patrols and many joint patrols have been initiated with army and police personnel.

These efforts have borne fruit. Two well-orchestrated encroachment attempts by over 2,000 suspected Bangladeshi intruders in 2010 were stymied. A total of 67 hutments built on two separate days were demolished the very day they were erected. An additional area of 47 ha. was added to the Orang National Park by the Assam government to prevent possible encroachment after the incident, so that the river itself became a natural barrier. To date a total of 60 poachers have been arrested and prosecuted. As many as eight have been shot dead in encounters with our staff upon whom unprovoked firing took place. Seven rifles, a pistol and a large cache of ammunition were seized. We also had to deal with six distinct incidents of rhinos straying into villages. Happily, we were able to herd all the rhinos safely back to the park, at times after painstaking efforts for three to four days. To our utter relief, not a single case of tiger poisoning has taken place since December 25, 2010. Not a single rhino has been poached since January 9, 2011.

All this is good news for us, but we know we cannot lose focus for even a second. Orang’s rhinos and tigers depend on us and we will be there for them.

Sanctuary Asia, Vol XXXII No. 2, April 2012

I now tweet

Years of birding have taken their toll it seems.

I now tweet - follow me if you so please @madrasflowergrl.

A stone curlew (1996)

Courtesy Madras Musings - 1st March 1996

Get trash off our menu

Green Humour: Get trash off our menu

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.