चूहे जैसी नुकीली नाक, बैंगनी रंग और बहुत से बैंगनों को अगर आपस में मेंढक के आकार में जोड़ दिया जाए, उस तरह का बुलबुले-सा फूला हुआ आकार – ऐसा एक अलबेला जीव भारत के सह्याद्रि के जंगलों में पाया जाता है. इन्हें नाम दिया गया है पर्पल फ्रॉग या भारतीय बैंगनी मेंढक और यह दुनिया के कुछ सबसे अदभुत माने जाने वाले जीवों में से एक है.

भारतीय बैंगनी मेंढक (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) एक दुर्लभ प्रजाति है, जो अपना अधिकांश जीवन ज़मीन के नीचे बिताते हैं. केवल बरसात के मौसम में यह पृथ्वी के तल से बाहर निकलकर ऊपर ज़मीन पर आते है. इसमें भी मादाएं साल में केवल एक दिन के लिए, और वह भी सिर्फ़ कुछ घंटों के लिए, सतह पर आती हैं, ताकि वे मिलन कर सकें और अपने अंडे दे सकें.

दक्षिणी सह्याद्रि में मानसून की पहली बारिश के तुरंत बाद नर मेंढक भूमिगत रहते हुए ही आवाजें निकालना शुरू कर देते हैं, जैसे पहली बारिश उनके लिए कोई अलार्म घड़ी हो. फिर धीरे-धीरे कुछ नर सतह पर दिखाई देने लगते हैं, मादा के इंतज़ार में. यह इंतज़ार इस बात का भी रहता है कि मौसमी नदियों और धाराओं में अपेक्षाकृत पानी भर जाए.

प्रजनन के स्थान तक की यह यात्रा इन मेंढकों के लिए खतरों से घिरी और फ़िल्मी क्लाइमेक्स से कम नहीं होती. रास्ते में उल्लुओं और चेकर्ड कीलबैक सांपों जैसे शिकारी उन्हें खाने के लिए तैयार बैठे रहते हैं, लेकिन उनके लिए सबसे बड़ा खतरा सड़कें हैं, जो उनके आवासों को विभाजित करती हैं. कई स्थानों पर ये सड़कें इन मेंढकों के लिए मौत का जाल बन जाती हैं. इसके अलावा, अन्य दबाव जैसे बांध, अनियंत्रित पर्यटन, कचरा आदि तो हैं ही.

हालांकि वैज्ञानिको ने इस प्रजाति की खोज 2003 में की थी, सह्याद्रि के जंगलों में रहने वाली इडुकी इन्हें कई पीढ़ियों से जानते और समझते हैं. माना जाता है कि इन जीवों का प्राचीन वंश लगभग 12 करोड़ वर्षों से स्वतंत्र रूप से विकसित हो रहा है, और इन्होंने नए महाद्वीपों के निर्माण, महान डायनासोर के विनाश, हिमयुग और मनुष्यों के प्रमुख प्रजाति बनने जैसी घटनाओं को जीवित रहते हुए देखा है. वैज्ञानिकों के लिए यह गोंडवानालैंड नामक महाद्वीप के अस्तित्व का एक महत्वपूर्ण जैविक प्रमाण हैं.

मौसम के पैटर्न में हल्का-सा बदलाव आने पर सबसे पहले प्रभावित होने वाले जीवों के समूहों में उभयचर (एम्फिबियन्स) शामिल हैं, विशेष रूप से विशेष प्रजातियां जैसे बैंगनी मेंढक, जो अपने अस्तित्व के लिए भारी रूप से मॉनसून पर निर्भर होते हैं. आज बैंगनी मेंढक के केवल 135 ही ज्ञात जीवित सदस्य हैं, जिनमें से केवल 3 मादाएं हैं. बदलते मौसम के तेवर कहीं इन बरसात-प्रेमी जीवों के सदियों से विकसित प्रजनन रणनीतियों को डुबोकर तो नहीं ले जाएंगे?

अतुला गुप्ता विज्ञान और पर्यावरण लेखिका हैं, जो विलुप्तप्राय प्रजातियों और जैव विविधता संरक्षण पर काम करती हैं.

Original Publication: NDTV Hindi

Date: 24 September, 2024

Link: बैंगनी मेंढक

यह लेख मूल रूप से 30 मार्च 2024 को एनडीटीवी हिंदी में प्रकाशित हुआ था। आप इसे यहां पढ़ सकते हैं।
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मार्च-अप्रैल के महीनों में, जब फागुन के फूल बहार में हों, गोंड जनजाति की महिलाएं अक्सर एक पेड़ के नीचे हजारों की संख्या में बिखरे पड़े मनमोहक फूलों को बीनती हुई मिलेंगी. यह पेड़ इनके लिए रोजगार का साधन भी है, आराधना योग्य भगवान भी और सांस्कृतिक धरोहर भी है, जो पीढ़ी दर पीढ़ी इनके जीवन को सजाती और संवारती चली आ रही है. यह विशेष वृक्ष है महुआ, जिसे गोंड आदिवासी “Elixir of Life” या जीवनदायिनी मानते हैं.

गोंड आदिवासी मुख्य रूप से मध्य प्रदेश, छत्तीसगढ़, महाराष्ट्र, आंध्र प्रदेश, तेलंगाना, ओडिशा और बिहार में रहते हैं. ये भारत के सबसे पुराने भूखंड “गोंडवाना” के मूल निवासी हैं. इस धरा के पेड़, पौधे, जीव-जंतुओं के बारे में जितना इन्हें व्यावहारिक ज्ञान है, उतना शायद ही किताबों में किसी ने लिखा या पढ़ा हो.

गोंड शब्द का अर्थ ही है ‘हरा पहाड़’. ये अपने घरों को पेड़-पौधे, फूल-पत्तियों और जानवरों की आकृतियों से सजाते हैं. इनकी बिंदुओं और रेखाओं वाली चित्रकला अब दुनिया भर में प्रसिद्ध है. वैसे तो इनमें शेर, हिरण, तोते.. सभी चित्रित किए जाते हैं पर जिस चीज को ये सबसे ज्यादा दिखाते हैं, वह है महुआ का पेड़, मानो इसी के इर्दगिर्द सारी दुनिया बसी हो. देखा जाए तो यह इस समुदाय के लिए शाश्वत सत्य भी है.

जन्म से लेकर मृत्यु तक गोंड जनजाति के लोग महुआ के पेड़ का उपयोग करते हैं. उनके हर त्योहार, हर पूजा, हर विशेष दिन में इसका एक महत्वपूर्ण स्थान है. बच्चे के जन्म के समय उसे महुआ का तेल लगाया जाता है, शादी के समय वर-वधु महुआ के तने को पकड़कर उसके चारों ओर रस्म निभाते हैं और मेहमानों का आदर-सत्कार भी महुआ से बनी शराब से किया जाता है. पेट की बीमारियों से लेकर हल्का बुखार होने पर भी महुआ इनके लिए हर रोग का इलाज है. इस वृक्ष को कभी भी काटा नहीं जाता बल्कि गोंड आदिवासी इसे धन-संपत्ति के समान अपनी आगे आने वाली पीढ़ियों के लिए छोड़ कर जाते हैं.

एक समय था जब भारत में महुआ का पेड़ काफी आम था, खासकर उत्तर और मध्य भारत में. यह इतना प्राचीन पेड़ है कि इसका वर्णन वेदों में किया गया है. चरक संहिता में भी इसके औषधीय गुणों का उल्लेख है. कालिदास ने तो यह भी लिखा है कि मां पार्वती महुआ के बने फूलों का हार पहनती हैं.

महुआ के फूलों की अनूठी बात यह है कि ये रात में खिलते हैं और सुबह तक मुरझा जाते हैं. पेड़ के नीचे बिखरे पड़े फूलों की महक दूर तक जाती है जिससे चमगादड़, जंगली कबूतर, स्लोथ भालू आदि जैसे पशु-पक्षी इनकी ओर खिंचे चले आते हैं. गोंड आदिवासी इन फूलों को इकट्ठा करके उन्हें सुखाते हैं और दुनिया की एकमात्र फूलों से बनने वाली शराब बनाते हैं.

अगर आप गोंड चित्रकला को ध्यान से देखें तो आप पाएंगे कि उसमें कभी हिरण के सींग पेड़ की शाखाओं का आकार ले लेते हैं तो कभी पक्षियों के पंख महुआ की पत्तियां बन जाते हैं. अपनी हर रचना में गोंड यह सरलता से समझाते हैं कि पेड़ों से ही जीव, पेड़ों से ही जीवन है.

मूल लेख प्रकाशति मीडिया: NDTV Hindi
लिंक: महुआ की छाया में पलती गोंड चित्रकला
दिनांक: 30 मार्च 2024
आभार: Nature Conservation Foundation

Featured image courtesy Jean-Pierre Dalbéra cc/Flickr, Ramesh Lalwani cc/Flickr, wikimedia commons

This article was originally published in The Revelator on 24 October, 2018. You can read the original article here.

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When most people think of lions, they probably think of Africa. But another, lesser-known subspecies of lion actually lives in India, where they represent a major conservation victory — for now, at least.

Asiatic lions are a distant cousin of the much bigger African lions that diverged from the African continent over 100,000 years ago. They once roamed throughout the Middle East, including Mesopotamia, Syria, Iran, Palestine, Arabia and Balochistan, along with much of Northern India to the Bay of Bengal. Sadly hunting caused the lion’s numbers and territory to shrink, until they were only found on the Indian subcontinent. After that, trigger-happy British colonialists and Indian maharajahs shot practically all of India’s lions except for a handful in the Gir deciduous forests in Junagarh, a district in Gujarat in western India.

By the beginning of 20th century only an estimated 20 Asiatic lions remained in the wild. Their fate would have been sealed forever if not for the timely act of the nawab of Junagarh who offered immediate sanctuary — from a king to the king of the jungle — and the lions finally found a safe haven. The nawab was succeeded by his son, an even bigger animal lover, who in 1922 totally banned hunting of lions in Gir and declared the region as a protected area.

Over the next 100 years, as colonial rule gave way to an independent democratic country, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries started sprouting across India especially to save the national animal — the tiger. Gir became a government-protected reserve and, as the last bastion of Asiatic lions, has continued to play a vital role in the conservation of the species.

New Troubles

The last census of the cats’ population in 2015 showed 356 Asiatic lions living in the Gir National park and another 167 in the unprotected forest and revenue areas of Gujarat state.

The lions owe their survival and recovery to the assiduous efforts of India’s Forest Department, the state and central governments, and the local communities who have revered the lions as the true king of their last abode. It came as no surprise when, in 2015, the Asiatic lions became the first big carnivores to be downgraded from “critically endangered” to “endangered” on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. They’re a rare conservation victory any nation would be proud of.

But is it all good news for Asiatic lions? Perhaps it seems that way when you look at their rising numbers, but it appears less so when you look at the bigger picture of a shrinking habitat. With more than 500 lions in the 8,494-square-mile park (22,000 sq. km), many experts feel there’s just not enough room for their population to continue to grow. Meanwhile, keeping them all in one place also leaves the lions vulnerable to the ravages of a future natural or man-made disaster like fire or floods, which could spell doom for the whole species.

In fact one of those disasters may have now arrived, as at least 23 Asiatic lions have died in the past few months. About half of the deaths have been linked to an outbreak of canine distemper virus, an infectious disease that has also threatened other wild cat populations. In response, the Gujarat State Forest and Animal Husbandry departments have started a program to vaccinate local cattle and dogs, from which the disease probably spread to lions, but it’s as-yet unknown how many lions remain at risk.

The People Problem

Meanwhile, there’s another threat: With millions of tourists flocking to see the animals each year, the villagers living on the fringes of the forest have found a new way to earn quick bucks by showing off “their state’s pride” to passing tourists.

In May this year seven people were arrested in Gujarat for planning an illegal lion show, where a somewhat tamed lioness was lured out of the forest with live chicken bait. The viral video — and many other such episodes of locals abusing wild lions through staged hunts and wild chases that surfaced one after the other — burst the bubble for the custodians of the forest, who had until then believed they were doing everything right to protect the lions.

The Gujarat state government immediately took stern steps. New rules include a ban on taking videos of the wild lions, which will now amount to hunting. Any individuals shooting a lion with a camera could get seven years of imprisonment and will be booked under section 9 of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972.

Other initiatives suggested are radio collaring each of the wild cats to track them constantly and the enrollment of local guardians into a troop called SinhMitras (Friends of the Lion) who, accompanied by dogs, would roam the forests to keep a watch not on the lions but the tourists and ensure no one uses any illegal means to get a glimpse of the lions. The state is also intent on adding two additional safari parks and turning them into protected areas to reduce the tourism pressure on the current safaris.

The Missing Step

However, a step the Gujarat government is reluctant to take is to give away its pride — or at least to share the responsibility of conservation by extending the lion’s territory to a neighboring state and thereby improving the lions’ chances of survival in the face of unexpected disasters like the current disease outbreak.

Five years ago the Supreme Court of India, the nation’s highest judicial body, issued an order to move some lions from Gir national park to Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, but to this date no lion has been moved.

Gujarat claims that the translocation will happen only after 33 studies have been conducted in Madhya Pradesh under the IUCN guidelines. The Madhya Pradesh government, on the other hand, says it is ready for the lions, having expanded the size of the Kuno protected area from 133 square miles (344 square km) to 270 square miles (700 sq. km). They have also spent Rs. 90 crore (U.S. $13 million) for relocation of 24 villages in the core area, development of prey base and other infrastructure needs. Ravi Chellam, a member of an expert committee formed by the Environment Ministry, believes it is the complete unwillingness of the governments — both central and the states — to deal with the complexity and the urgency of the problem that is delaying the shift of the lions.

What is worrying is Gujarat’s unflinching belief that it is the only state in India capable of protecting the cats; this could turn catastrophic. A recent study showed that of the 184 deaths recorded of lions in 2016 and 2017, 32 were due to unnatural causes like falling into open wells, being hit by trains or vehicles, electrocution and poisoning. The presence of six highways, a railway line and about 18,000 open wells only increase the danger of continued accidents. “At the moment, all our eggs are in one basket and that is a huge risk,” warned Chellam.

Even the recent canine distemper outbreak has not swayed the government’s position. This month Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani emphatically stated that the lions were “completely safe in the forest” and “will not be relocated.”

The lions of Gujarat are admittedly doing relatively well overall despite the current threats, but Asiatic lions are still endangered and need a contingency plan that ensures they can roar beyond the boundaries of their lone territory. While at one time the resolute action of a nawab saved the lions by closing the boundaries of the state, what would do greater good today is to open dialogues, share expertise, encourage development of more secure habitats through translocations and give the kings of the jungle a chance to spread their kingdoms.

Atula Gupta

Original Publication: The Revelator

Published on: 24 October, 2018

Link: The Last Lions of India

Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Multiple states in India are taking to an SMS-based early warning system that informs people in an area about the movement of elephants.

In 2010, the elephant was declared as the national heritage animal of India, a title befitting an animal that has been a part of this country’s religious, cultural and social legacy since Harappa. However, these millennia-old ties have weakened with time as the human population has boomed and the contest for natural resources has intensified. In elephant-range states like Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Karnataka, the human-elephant relationship is dominated by discord and conflict today.

In this context, neither people nor the elephants can be said to be trespassing, at least not at first glance. As M. Ananda Kumar, a wildlife scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation, says, the problem is not the animal but the situation. It is to tackle this tricky situation and prevent it from escalating that Kumar and his team devised an early warning system a few years ago that’s since been adapted by West Bengal and Kerala, among others.

Texting out of trouble

For the people of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, living with elephants doesn’t come easy. The three districts constitute a traditional paddy cultivation belt that lies adjacent to the dense forests of the states of Jharkhand and Odisha. A few decades ago, the same region was covered with thick sal forests and was home to numerous elephant herds, both of which were put paid to by urbanisation. But in the 1980s, elephant herds from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in Jharkhand started visiting south Bengal again. They initially numbered between 20 and 50 but the numbers have only been increasing since.

In his study on human-elephant conflicts in south Bengal in 2009-2012, Subhamay Chanda, a forest officer in the Sunderbans, observed how two features of the landscape encouraged the jumbo migration: change in cultivation patterns from mostly rain fed to year-round irrigation agriculture and, second, an afforestation drive carried out by the forest department and local communities in a joint forest management (JFM) programme. This drive converted degraded lands into forested areas. The elephants thus had adequate cover to hide in and adequate food from the lush fields around them.

Today, there are an estimated 140-150 elephants in south Bengal, including the migratory elephants from Dalma, the resident elephant population and a third group of elephants that migrated from Odisha through the Mayurjharna elephant reserve. But regardless of the group, human-elephant encounters have caused widespread damage to lives (both human and animal) and livelihoods. Moreover, victimised villagers have turned their ire on the forest staff for their inability to tame the wild elephants.

In Bankura alone, according to reports, the forest department has assessed 1,598 hectares of crop damage and 1,677 houses destroyed by elephants in 2015. In Midnapore in the same year, 500 hectares of cropland was damaged. The total compensation paid to villagers was Rs 1.21 crore. As for loss of lives: 108 people died in the state in 2015 alone (of which 71 were in south Bengal) while 14 elephants were (deliberately) electrocuted. In 2016, 29 people were killed in Bankura. Five have already died in 2017.

In all, despite West Bengal harbouring only 2% of the country’s wild-elephant population, the state has over 20% of the total human deaths.

Multiple mitigation tactics have been tried and have failed to deliver: trenches, bursting crackers, installing electric fences, etc. Even using a specifically trained village task force to chase herds away didn’t work. Under extreme circumstances, ‘rogue elephants’ have also been hunted and killed.

So in an effort to break from grisly tradition as well as pursue a more peaceful, technologically assisted solution, the West Bengal government has decided to do things differently from this year.

One such solution uses SMSes. In Bankura, a person can now learn of the movement and sightings of elephants by giving a missed call to a designated number (+919015181881). In West Midnapore district, bulk SMS alerts are being sent to administrative and panchayat officials and to members of the forest protection committee (FPC), who relay the information to locals and travellers. The idea is to help people avoid accidental encounters with herds.

This isn’t the first time this system has been tried. In Valparai, Tamil Nadu, the system – developed by Kumar and his colleague Ganesh Raghunathan in 2002 – has almost completely eliminated accidental encounters.

In the Valparai data as well as through surveys, the duo found that elephants preferred to stay within forested areas during the day and stray out only after dusk. They would cut through routes cleared for the people to access their plantations because these routes would also have fragmented the forests. And it was here that surprise encounters would occur.

“During the course of the study it became more and more evident that the local residents had a perception of exaggerated numbers of elephants using the plantation landscape,” Raghunathan told The Wire. “As there was no prior information on the location of elephants, any sighting of an elephant caused surprise and fear in people.”

He and Kumar realised that informing people of the presence of elephants could help them avoid these areas. Subsequently, estate workers, plantation managers, the media and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department met and began to plan an early warning system. The first iteration was a word-of-mouth system where those tracking elephants would pass on info to local TV channels, which would display it as a ticker. A second iteration switched to mobile networks, with the SMS used to relay updates.

Community participation

Raghunathan said, “The SMS system created a ‘my message’ attitude among the people and a dedicated helpline was set up so people could reach out for help or communicate sightings of elephants. This brought people closer than before to jointly work towards sharing information on elephants and inculcate certain changes to their lifestyle to avoid negative interactions with elephants.”

Mobile-operated ‘red alert’ indicators were also set up at vantage locations to guide those without phones, such as schoolchildren, and they have been fully operational since 2013. In early 2016, a collaboration with the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation brought these announcements into public transport buses as well.

The SMS service, which began in July 2011, now reaches 4,800 families in Valparai everyday. Between 1994 to 2002, about three people were being killed in elephant encounters every year; since 2011, this number has dropped to one per year, with no incidents of injuries or fatalities reported in 2016.

Ultimately, despite plantations fragmenting their habitats, elephants now have their much-needed connections to forests as well.

Can the same success be replicated in West Bengal? Raghunathan feels confrontational situations can be avoided through an early warning system such as an SMS, but that every place also needs its location-specific measures.

“Some systems such as SMS/voice call alert systems will work in most places. The most important thing to do along with these early warning systems is to engage and regularly interact with local people and respond quickly to situations where help is required,” Raghunathan said. “Within a distance of 50 to 100 km, we see a lot of differences in landscape, vegetation and people. So it is very important to use location specific measures rather than blindly replicating methods that have worked in other states or countries.”

So, the West Bengal government is not relying on SMSes alone. As another unique countermeasure, the forest department has been tasked with constructing toilets in the region so that villagers don’t have to defecate in the open and accidentally bump into an elephant. The compensation given to villagers has been hiked from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh. Special vehicles equipped with gadgets to warn, intervene or provide prompt help ahead of an impending encounter have also been deployed. Only time will tell if these measures are effective.

The early warning system is also being used in Kerala this year, since the severe drought has brought animals closer to human settlements. In Wayanad district in north Kerala, a 72% rainfall deficit rainfall over the last two monsoons has forced elephants, bisons, deer and boars to regular enter villages. The banks of the Kabani, once home to around 800 elephants, now hosts fewer than 120 because the river is drying up. As a result, some elephants have even been seen to travel 7-8 km inside human areas.

In response, the system is being used around the Wayanad Wildlife sanctuary as a pilot project by the forest department. A 24-hour SMS alert centre also has been set up by Nature Conservation Foundation at the rapid response team’s office at Sulthan Bathery. Apart from texts, the team is communicating through LED boards installed in the villages of Aranappara, Bavaly, Valluvadi and Thottamoola. Similar measures are also set to be introduced in the Mannarkkad, Silent Valley and Nilambur (south) forest divisions.

Original Publication: The Wire

Date: 27 April, 2017

Link: Giving elephants the space they need, one sms at a time

Image by István Mihály from Pixabay

Intelligence is not an attribute bestowed on the humans alone. Animals too have a mind of their own and use it to find food and protect themselves, writes Atula Gupta

‘Kaalia’ the crow might have outsmarted the crafty crocodile, ‘Doob-doob’ innumerable times in the comic world, but in the real world, it seems like the crocodile might easily outwit the bird. Scientists have discovered that reptiles like the Indian Magar Crocodile and the American Alligator use tools, specifically sticks to lure birds into their trap.

What this latest discovery affirms is the fact that intelligent use of tools is not restricted to humans or primates alone but it is a characteristic of all the brainy species regardless of their shape and form.

Tool use in the animal world has always garnered interest of scientists and laymen. Some look at it as an additional proof of the falsity of the claim that humans are the most intelligent living forms in the world, while others marvel at how little we still know of our planet and the species that live with us.

From chimps to dolphins, elephants to kea birds, octopuses to rodents, today there is no dearth of examples of land, water or air animals that use tools dexterously to ease their work at hand and more commonly, to obtain food.

Bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, carry marine sponges in their beaks to stir ocean-bottom sand and uncover prey, spending more time hunting with tools than any animal besides humans. Chimps are able to chisel spears to hunt other primates for meat.

Crows are extraordinarily adept at crafting twigs, leaves and sometimes their own feathers into tools. Anecdotes suggest elephants, the most intelligent animals in the world, can intentionally drop logs or rocks on electric fences to short them out and plug up water holes with balls of chewed bark to keep other animals from drinking them.
Octopuses can use coconut shells as armour and carry heaps of these shells upon their head for later use.

But what is the purpose of a stick balanced on a crocodile’s snout? It is this puzzle that researchers solved and were surprised to find that it was a lure of a reptile that cannot fly, to catch a prey that could.

Bird bait

Magar crocodiles (Crocodylus palustris) in India and American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) in the USA have often  been observed to have sticks or twigs on top of their snouts.

The scientists found that rather than being an accidental occurrence, this was a deliberate ploy of the crocs. They put sticks on their snouts and remained submerged in water near egret and heron colonies. When the nest building birds, spotted the sticks and approached them unaware of the dangers lurking under water, the crocodile found the chance to grab its prey.

What the researchers also observed was that the crocodiles’ behaviour was not random but coincided with the nesting and breeding season of the egrets and herons usually in the month of March and April.

It was also observed in animals that lived near rookeries.
Therefore, the reptiles displayed intelligence in specifically choosing an object that could help them achieve a goal and that too at a precise time when they knew their prey would need the sticks for creating nests.

The researchers add that the behaviour becomes all the more interesting because floating sticks are extremely rare in the pools, especially at the time of year concerned. This is because the local trees – baldcypresses and water tupelos – don’t shed twigs, and also because the nesting birds rapidly remove floating sticks for nest-building. Thus, what the crocs are displaying is a purposeful act, where they are deliberately looking for the sticks, and using them to target preys.

This kind of behaviour displayed by the reptiles is called as baiting behaviour and has also been observed in Green herons (Butorides virescens) and other species of birds and animals. The herons use feathers, twigs and even berries and bits of bread to attract fish.

The study authors are sure that because the baiting behaviour has been observed in two crocodiles species separated by continents, it can be presumed that the behaviour is probably widespread and common among the animals.

Measuring intelligence

Animal intelligence is often underrated by us, firmly adhering to the theories of evolution that regard humans as a complex living form, with a more developed brain and thus more intelligence. However, there are many scientists that are questioning this viewpoint.

According to Maciej Henneberg, a professor of anthropological and comparative anatomy, humans have misunderstood animal intelligence.”Animals offer different kinds of intelligences which have been under-rated due to humans’ fixation on language and technology. These include social and kinaesthetic intelligence.

Some mammals, like gibbons, can produce a large number of varied sounds – over 20 different sounds with clearly different meanings that allow these arboreal primates to communicate across tropical forest canopy. The fact that they do not build houses is irrelevant to the gibbons,” Henneberg added.

Even in crocodiles, apart from the recent revelation of use of tools, the sly use of neighbours to protect the young has been often observed. Nile crocodile mothers have been known to protect their eggs from numerous thieves, such as the giant Nile monitor, by enlisting the aid of nesting curlews known as thick-knees – that share the same marshy habitat.

Perfectly camouflaged nesting curlews intimidate marauding Nile monitors in turn enjoy the crocodiles’ protection from hippopotamus and other visitors.

If intelligence is not about technological wizardry but the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, the crocodile, the octopus or the human are all definitely in the same league.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 24 February, 2014

Link: Smart Beings

Image by Dave Boardman from Pixabay

As cities expand and humans encroach upon animal habitats, the creatures have no other option but to adapt to the changing environment in order to survive. We may be fuelling the evolution of bigger brains in city-dwelling animals, writes Atula Gupta.

Away from the open pastures, green valleys and forested pathways, a village simpleton new to the city soon realises the first bitter lesson of survival. Become a little selfish, a little sly if you want to live and earn your daily bread. But does the same lesson apply for animals too? Interestingly, scientists from University of Minnesota have found it does.

Animals living in the city, from pigeons to crows and from badgers to jackals, are adapting to these changes and the ones that are successfully surviving in the concrete jungle are brainier than their naïve rural counterparts.

Researchers believe humans are creating all these totally new environments compared to what the animals have seen in evolutionary history. These urban jungles filled with highways, vehicles, soot, dust and a multitude of concrete buildings are not variations of an old habitat but a new habitat, where Darwin’s lesson of survival of the fittest still holds true.

Therefore, besides crows that have highly adapted to living in different habitats and have for long made cities their home, there are also racoons, rats, jackals, sparrows, hornbills and even leopards that have slowly begun to realise that the old world has changed forever and it is the new age concrete jungle where they need to learn to live if they want a future for their species.

In the study conducted, researchers compared the brain size of museum specimens gathered across the 20th Century in Minnesota, USA, with that of rural mammals and found a jump in brain size of the city dwellers. This was observed in shrews, voles, bats, squirrels, mice and gophers. They believe it is because of the cognitive demands of adjusting to changing food sources, threats and landscapes. Therefore, just like humans who live in cities rather than in rural areas tend to be more street-smart, city dwelling animals too become cleverer than their rural counterparts.

Although brain size does not relate to the intelligence of a human or any animal, the pattern of increase in brain size in all the mammals observed by the team, does show there is some relation to their living in an urban environment and thus needing more grey matter to survive.

But is becoming smarter the only adaptation that animals have to make in cities? No, find many previous researches. When Catarina Miranda of Germany’s Max Planck Institute compared rural and urban blackbirds, she found avoiding danger a useful trait for some animals living in urban environments. Urban birds, she observed, never approach new objects or enter new environments easily. She explains that in cities, birds know there are many dangers like a vehicle running over them, a kid jumping at them and catching them, therefore they learn to avoid these dangers by becoming less curious of new settings.

Jason Munshi-South, an evolutionary biologist at the City University of New York studied city salamanders with those living in the wild and found that, “[They] tend to be languid.”
“If you try to pick them up, they don’t try to escape as vigorously as they do outside the city. I wonder if there’s been natural selection for that,” said Munshi-South.

Therefore, city species are smarter, but are more careful too and less aggressive than their wild cousins. Observe a monkey used to living in a human settlement and one in a forest. You will easily find how the city macaque is attuned to all the chaos surrounding him, while its wild cousin will grit its teeth in anger or shy away if you try to approach it. Muted stress response is a sensible-seeming adaptation. A rat that gets anxious every time a subway train rolls past won’t be very successful.

The question arises though whether these changes occurring in city animals are a permanent biological modification passed from one generation to the next or an adaptation to circumstances that can be forgotten once they are back in the wilderness.

Experts believe that while some adaptations are passed on from one generation to another, others can be modified. Biologist Atwell found that urban birds sing at a higher frequency than rural birds. But when he raised a few of the chicks in a quieter place without the loud noise of a city life, their singing frequency dropped too. What is interesting is that even if these are just adaptations, sometimes what one individual learns, is quickly copied by others of its clan. Urban squirrels, for example, seem to have adjusted to vocalisation-drowning ambient noise by making tail-waving a routine part of communications. Perhaps this was instinctive in a few animals, then picked up by others. So, there is also a culture evolution observed in city-bred animals besides changes at the individual level.

There are many questions that in turn surface from these studies. Does the change in character or brain functioning of an animal eventually give rise to a different subspecies that is more adept to city living? Can the Asian macaques that now live so well amongst us in cities survive now if they are given the freedom to live in a wild environment again? And the big question – is this evolution beneficial or harmful for the species and the natural life in general?

Evolution is a change over time and the answer to all these questions lies in the future when multiple generations have been observed and seen to survive the man-made changes brought into this world. While conservationists might disagree and  even repent the forced modifications in an animal’s natural lifestyle, if the adaptations are necessary for the sheer existence of these species, it might as well be a good change that is happening.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 23 September, 2013

Link: Urban adpatation

The government’s move to demarcate eco-sensitive zones around protected reserves is a timely move. But, wildlife corridors too need equal attention. Every animal, from a hare to an elephant, and a snow leopard to a butterfly, needs the forest in its entirety and cannot survive in fractured fragments. Development has to be woven around wildlife, observes Atula Gupta

In 2011, a young wild tiger was captured from the Shikaripur area of Karnataka. Officers thought it might have strayed out of the Bhadra tiger reserve and released it back into the forests. But later, camera trapping results revealed that the tiger had actually come from far south, the Bandipur tiger reserve. In 15 months or even a lesser period, this big cat had essentially travelled a distance of more than 280 km.

While this is one of the longest ever movements recorded of wild tigers, the insightful finding stresses that conservation of protected reserves is just not enough. Protecting wildlife corridors is equally mandatory.

As rapid economic expansion continues to shape the Asian landscape on which many species depend, time is running out for conservationists aiming to save wildlife such as tigers and leopards. Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute have used genetic analysis to find that the natural forest corridors in India are essential to ensuring a future for these species.

According to two studies recently published in two papers, these corridors are nothing less than the blood vessels of the natural world, successfully connecting populations of tigers and leopards to ensure genetic diversity and gene flow.

“This research provides crucial information about the need to maintain these vital veins to support tiger and leopard populations,” said Sandeep Sharma, lead author. “These habitats and corridors in India are threatened by infrastructural developments and need to be conserved if we want to save these species for future generations.”

Pathway to diversity

Mega species like tigers and leopards can never have a healthy existence if they are cooped up inside a forest. The isolation can lead to inbreeding and a genetic bottleneck that affects the long-term viability of the population. Thankfully, researchers found that tiger and leopard populations in four reserves in central India: Satpura, Melghat, Pench and Kanha had genetic diversity, showing that they were passing from one protected reserve to the other and breeding in a wide range.

However, what was also noted is that the proliferation of roads, rail lines, mining, urbanisation and other forms of development through the corridors was jeopardising the ability of these species to move. Several coal mines have been proposed in the forest corridor between the Satpura and Pench tiger reserves, as has the widening of a national highway (NH-7) and a broad-gauge railway line that cut across the corridor between the Kanha and Pench tiger reserves.

“By looking at two species, we were really able to illustrate the functionality of these corridors,” said Trishna Dutta, lead author of the Diversity and Distributions paper. “Conserving a whole landscape, rather than piecemeal protected areas, would ensure a better chance for the long-term persistence of these and other species.”

The situation is not very different in other parts of the country. In the Western Ghats, reserved forests are packed together with plantations such as coffee that have shade, cover and some food availability and act as corridors for wildlife movement. But other than these, there are also the eternal demands for wider roads, railway lines, power projects and mines. When the landscapes get packed with concrete jungles, the larger vertebrates will have no path to traverse.

Corridor protection

For wandering wildlife, the movement is never from point A to point B, more so in the case of leopards, which are more agile than tigers and naturally more adventurous. A leopard fitted with a radio collar in 2009 in Maharashtra stunned its observers when, in 78 days, it covered the terrains of the Sahyadri range and reached Borivilli National Park in Mumbai from Maleshej Ghat 120 km away.

Ironically, it had been earlier rescued by the Forest Department when it came looking for prey such as dogs or pigs in a small village near the forests and had fallen into a well — another glimpse of increasing human invasion.

The four to five per cent of land in India that is termed ‘protected’ for wildlife might seem sufficient but this area is not exactly a caged dwelling where all the wildlife can be contained. The government’s declaration of strictly demarcating the eco-sensitive zones around these protected reserves is a timely move; however the corridors too need equal attention.

And it is not just for the sake of tigers and leopards. Every animal from a hare to an elephant, a snow leopard to a butterfly, needs the forest in its entirety and cannot survive in fractured fragments. Development is imperative, but it has to be woven around the biology of wildlife.

In Assam, the endangered Golden langurs were frequently being mauled over by passing vehicles because their vital corridors were wiped out by a highway near the Chakrasila wildlife sanctuary. Knowing that the langurs are essentially arboreal and not very agile on the ground, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) made a ropeway bridge for the monkeys.

The monkeys, hesitant at first, now frequent the bridge safely away from human traffic. Though all solutions may not be as simple in a nation of billion plus humans, it would still be vital to consider clearing the roadblock for wildlife diversity.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 11 February, 2013

Link: Healing touch for fractured habitats

 Centuries-old trees provide nesting and shelter for up to  30 per cent of all birds and animals in some ecosystems. They store huge amounts of carbon, recycle soil nutrients, create rich patches for other life to thrive, and influence the flow of water within landscapes. In India, the banyan and the peepul are still plentiful, but the axe of development has fallen on numerous other trees, all in the name of urbanisation, writes Atula Gupta.

The value of a tree is seldom undermined. It is that life giver that unwittingly continues to serve all other life forms. And when a tree is more than a 100 years old, it is not just a part of the natural cycle, but a testimony to the changing times.

Sadly, it is these iconic oldest and largest living forms of the world that are under severe threat, according to a new study. Scientists claim that most world trees between 100 and 300 years old are dying. The reasons for their deaths include forest fires, logging and cutting because of urban development.

Professor David Lindenmayer of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and Australian National University says scientists first noticed the disappearance of large, old trees while examining Swedish forestry records going back to the 1860s.

Then a 30-year study of Mountain Ash (eucalyptus regnans) forest in Australia confirmed not only that big old trees were dying en masse in forest fires, but also perishing at ten times the normal rate in non-fire years—apparently due to drought, high temperatures, logging and other causes. The scientists then began looking around the world for similar cases.

They found that trees were being cut or just perishing in prominent places like California’s Yosemite National Park, African savannahs, in the rainforests of Brazil, the temperate forests of Europe and the boreal forests of the far north.

The researchers equate the death of gigantic ancient trees to other mega fauna like the tiger, lion, rhino, dolphin and whales. The reason for the disappearance of old trees being land clearing, agricultural practices, man-made changes in fire regimes, logging and timber gathering, insect attack and rapid climatic changes.

What these experts fear is that till now, no research has actually spanned the length of a century or more that can provide essential knowhow about trees and their life history. Also unlike animals, these giant floral varieties are not yet being preserved at the same scale. “Just as large-bodied animals such as elephants, tigers and cetaceans have declined drastically in many parts of the world, a growing body of evidence suggests that large old trees could be equally imperilled,” they warn.

Life support systems

Centuries-old trees are the biggest life forms on earth. They provide nesting or sheltering cavities for up to 30 per cent of all birds and animals in some ecosystems.

They store huge amounts of carbon. They recycle soil nutrients, create rich patches for other life to thrive in, and influence the flow of water within landscapes and the local climate. Big trees supply abundant food for numerous animals in the form of fruits, flowers, foliage and nectar.

Their hollows offer nests and shelter for birds and animals including critically endangered species like the blue tarantula of the Western Ghats. Thus, their loss could mean extinction for such creatures.

From the agro-economical point of view too, old trees have a critical role to play. “In agricultural landscapes, large old trees can be focal points for vegetation restoration; they help connect the landscape by acting as stepping stones for many animals that disperse seeds and pollen,” says Prof Lindenmayer.

In India, age-old trees like the banyan and the peepul are still plentiful because of the religious sentiments attached to them. Owing to our ancient ayurvedic ties, many medicinally beneficial trees are also safeguarded with zest. But the axe of development has fallen on numerous other ancient trees, sometimes in the name of road widening, sometimes in the name of urbanisation.

As population challenges are met every day, magnificent old trees in many cities have been chopped and replaced by manicured lawns and groomed gardens. Private owned spaces have buildings mushrooming all over and symbolic miniature green covers without the expansive foliage or the elaborate root system.

Experts say this trend is a malpractice as trees like mango, banyan, Ashoka and deodars help in ground water retention and stabilising warm climates. The cemented foundation of skyscrapers is worsening the soil condition of all cities, and without trees with extensive root systems, it will continue to deteriorate.

According to India State of Forest Report-2011, the forest cover in the country has decreased by 367 sq km with the green area decreasing in 14 states. It is therefore not even the forests where old trees are assuredly safe.

Be it India’s living legend, the 450-year-old banyan tree in Adyar, Chennai or the bodhi tree of Lord Buddha, be it the kalpavriksha under which Adi Shankaracharya sat and meditated about ways to unite India, or simply the primeval tree in every village juncture under whose shade and company the elderly mitigate differences, old trees have welcomed each one with open arms ready to be a friend, compatriot and a scholar as the need may be.

Hence, the death of a single old tree, rightly in its golden year, is like erasing history, geography, ecology, and social significance all at once. Can India and the world afford such irreparable damages?

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 7 January, 2013

Link: Living Legends

The year 2012 was a mixed bag in terms of conservation. While the official toll of tiger deaths has risen to 83, the IUCN has taken out Asiatic lions from the critically endangered category because of their stable population in the jungles of Sasan Gir, writes Atula Gupta.

Henry Thoreau, a 19th-century writer had once remarked, “What is the use of a house if you do not have a tolerable planet to put it on?” The year that’s about to end brought with itself many instances where man tested the tolerance of the earth repeatedly. But what also became a general understanding is the centuries-old wisdom that shrinking natural capital is never the sign of a country’s growth.

The year, therefore, was a year of amends. Better use of technology for conservation, courts and regulators stepping in to protect national symbols like tiger,  tightening of leash on the mining mafia and  commoners rising above the daily grind to shoulder the ecological responsibility, the positives were plenty and visible. Sadly, like a persistent scar, the year also marked the rise of wildlife crime. It is today the third largest criminal industry in the world and can no more be sidelined as a mere environmental issue.   
 
Nation’s pride

The biggest victory for India’s environmentalists in 2012 was the declaration of the Western Ghats as a World Heritage Site. The 1,600-km stretch is even older than the Himalayan ranges and a biodiversity hotspot. 30 per cent of plants found in the Western Ghats, along with 35 percent bird species, 20 per cent mammals, 60 percent reptile species and 70 per cent of amphibians are endemic to the area.

Although tea-coffee plantations, hydel projects, mining, and clever human encroachments have already gnawed into the Ghats, the global recognition hopefully will prevent permanent man-made damage.

Even as the Western Ghats got elevated to a must-visit destination in the tourist itinerary, India’s oldest eco-tourism ambassador namely the tiger was suddenly out of the travel circuit.

The Supreme Court banned tourism in the core areas of tiger reserves in July this year on a public interest petition that pleaded that critical tiger habitats should be kept inviolate of all types of human disturbances, including tourism.
Amidst much debate and after rushed eco-tourism guidelines presented by the centre, the ban was lifted in October. Thanks to the revamped guidelines, the tigers now have slightly more control on their marked territories though they still roam unshielded from poachers’ bullets.

Even before the year’s end, the official toll of tiger deaths has risen to 83 including 54 because of poaching and retaliatory killings. Comparatively, in 2011 total tiger deaths were 61. To protect the 300 odd tigers roaming in their states, Karnataka and its neighbour Tamil Nadu ,formed the Tiger Protection Force, a group of armed commandos especially trained to protect the mega predator. The National Tiger Conservation Authority has also earmarked 500 million rupees to form similar squads in 13 other tiger reserves of the country.

Critical concern

The news of another jungle royalty this year was assuring. The IUCN this year removed the Asiatic Lions from critically endangered list owing to its stable population in the jungles of Sasan Gir.

At the same time 132 other Indian plants and animals were declared critically endangered. Fortunately, thanks to ban on killer drugs, the three vulture species of India, also on the verge of extinction, showed signs of recovery.

Ironically, in spite of its god-gifted armour, one animal that withstood the maximum pain in 2012 was the Indian rhinoceros. As incessant rains converted the lush green valleys of Assam into watery graveyard the rhino trying to flee from the floods, became an easy target of poachers.

Some were brutally shot, some left to die with their horns removed. As per WWF, wildlife trade is today worth $ 19 billion. It is an organised crime with least bit of risk and maximum profit. The organisation found that rhino horns were sold at 30,000 USD per pound in the illegal markets. The lax implementation of wildlife laws in India only encouraged insurrectionists, separatists and extremists to access vast fortunes from unprotected forests.

In the global environment scenario, India pushed Russia into fourth place and is now the world’s third biggest emitter of CO2, after China and the US. But while economists still fail to measure the value of our natural assets and their role in securing the future of a country, individuals and communities chose to preserve these real treasures.

Social responsibility

Villagers in Karnataka recently came to the rescue of a tigresss caught in a barbed wire fence. Temples of Orissa decided to breed rare turtles in their ponds, just to give them a lease of life. An illiterate from Assam single-handedly converted a dry land to a verdant forest.

Researchers in Western Ghats set out to learn how frogs could aid them in understanding climate change. Camera traps, GPS systems, conservation drones made it possible to remotely access the well being of wildlife.

The year 2012 is different in the way people perceived the role of nature and environment in their lives. Some acts were driven by greed, others by need and still others with the sole intention of returning to the state of harmonious existence. At the end of one solar calendar and the beginning of another, let us hope the eco-consciousness quotient continues to rise.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 25 December, 2012

Link: Some Scar and a lot of balm

Featured Image by Peter H from Pixabay

Atula Gupta finds out that the number of vultures which had drastically fallen around 2006, owing to the use of the drug, Diclofenac, has stabilised in the recent past. A recent study shows that for all three critically endangered species of vultures in India and Nepal, populations have remained stable in the last few years, thanks to a ban on the killer drug.

Back in the Eighties, vultures were not an unfamiliar sight in India. These scavengers could be seen in hundreds, huddled around a carcass devouring the meal nature provided for them to feed on. But times changed and vulture numbers began to fall at an alarming pace.
The culprit was a pain-killer called Diclofenac, used to treat cattle. The drug was turning meals to poison for the birds when they ate the adulterated carcass.In 2006, the use of Diclofenac was banned and it is after six years that conservationists have encouraging news to share with the world. 
he vultures are still a vulnerable lot, but at least the last few have been spared.Of the several species of vultures found in the world, India is home to three species namely the white-rumped vulture, long-billed vulture and slender-billed vulture. Shockingly, since the ‘90s, the population of all these three species began to show a downward trend with almost 99 per cent of the birds perishing in the entire subcontinent. It was the steepest decline in population any bird species in India and the world has seen.

Killer drug

Despite the halt in use of the drug in 2006, trends showed a fall in vulture numbers. Until recently, questions loomed if the drug was seriously jeopardising vultures’ lives or whether the sudden drop in species numbers was due to something else. There was no way to tell if the ban was really effective.

Finally, in a new study in the science journal, PLoS ONE, researchers reported recently the results of long-term monitoring of vulture numbers from surveys across India and Nepal.  It shows that for both nations and for all three critically endangered species, populations have remained stable in the last few years. Prior to the ban of the killer drug, vulture population was dropping at a rate of up to 40 per cent a year and thus, the ban did prove to be a boon for the areal scavengers.|

In 2007, the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) which was also part of the present survey, estimated that there were only about 11,000 white-backed, 1,000 slender-billed and 44,000 long-billed vultures left in India. Their previous population was thought to number in tens of millions.

The study’s lead author, Vibhu Prakash from BNHS commented, “The slowing of the decline in vulture numbers across India for all three critically endangered species is the first sign that the government’s ban on veterinary Diclofenac is having its desired impact. Continued efforts are still required to protect the remaining small populations including halting the illegal use of human forms of the drug in the veterinary sector.”

While it is not easy to buy Diclofenac as a veterinary drug, it is child’s play to get the same from a neighbourhood chemist selling the human form of the drug. Many farmers looking for a quick solution to their animal’s pain do just that. Also, Diclofenac is not the only villain in the vulture world. 

A new veterinary drug, Aceclofenac, is equally dangerous as it gets mobilised into Diclofenac, said a paper published in July this year. It only points to the need for a comprehensive environment evaluation of veterinary drugs before granting licence.

Road ahead

Vultures have never been a favourite species for man, but contrary to popular sentiments, these natural scavengers do make the world a better place to live in by cleansing the environment of decaying animal matter. 

A planet without them would mean no easy escape from rotten smells and epidemic spreading germs thriving in the dead animal carcass.In a previous study conducted by Pune-based NGO Ela Foundation and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), it was also revealed that the drug is just one problem. As per the government’s directions under the Gram Swacchata Abhiyan, livestock carcasses have to be buried and not left outside in villages. This has led to food shortage for the birds. 

Though vulture centres set up by state governments in different regions of India have ensured that the birds get their daily meal, the initiative needs to gather momentum. Electrocution is a concern as well as dearth of tall nesting trees that the birds prefer. Many farmers spray cattle carcasses with pesticide such as organo-chlorine and organo-phosphorous to prevent them from spreading foul odour. This pesticide-infested carcass may be eaten by vultures leading to their death.

The catastrophic decline of vulture numbers may have ceased, but it is a small victory.For this to become the greatest conservation story of all time, the road ahead involves not just careful planning to remove all known poisons, but restoration of the safe havens for them to survive and breed.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 26 November, 2012

Link: