In 1970, an album titled ‘Songs of the Humpback Whale’ was released
with 35 minutes of sound recordings of these whales. The album was
nothing like anything people had heard before and it went on to sell 30
million copies worldwide. The operasque sounds created by the whales,
dolphins and most other cetaceans continue to fascinate scientists even
today with many recordings revealing the extreme frequencies these
sounds can be emitted in. Scientists have also found through several
studies that the sounds are not just for social interactions in the
underwater world. They are also fundamental cues for feeding,
navigation, and communication in the ocean.

What happens then if a mother whale is trying to teach the baby whale to
swim across a difficult waterway and suddenly the baby cannot hear the
mother’s cues because there are multiple other sounds coming its way?
What if the other distractions are so loud and unfamiliar that the baby
whale actually gets alarmed on hearing them and gets lost? Increased
noise from shipping traffic, motorized fishing vessels, underwater oil and
gas exploration, offshore construction and other human activities are
creating exactly this kind of ruckus for the whales and other marine
species that can leave them confused and disoriented. And because the
physics of sound travel underwater is so different from the way it travels
in air, there are multiple levels at which such noise pollution can interact
and affect the lives of all marine animals.

Francis Juanes, an ecologist at the University of Victoria in Canada and
Arlos Duarte, a marine ecologist at the Red Sea Research Center in Saudi
Arabia recently analysed decades of data sets and studies of the effects of
noise pollution on marine creatures. They found that human-made
sounds are impacting all marine dwellers in a negative way – so much so
that some fish larvae are unable to find their habitats or homes.
Prof. Duarte says that while the importance of sounds has been studied
in detail in humpback whales, who are able to communicate through
thousands of miles using complicated songs, there is also evidence that
miniscule fish larvae ‘hear’ the call of their habitat and follow it to find home when they are drifting on the waves. Unfortunately, he says, that
call is no longer being heard.

“Imagine having to raise your kids in a place that’s noisy all the time. It’s
no wonder many marine animals are showing elevated and detectable
levels of stress due to noise,” said Joe Roman, a University of Vermont
marine ecologist.

The scientists found that fish and some invertebrates avoid certain areas
of the Red Sea where the frequency of ships travelling is high. They also
noted that the overall number of marine animals has declined by about
half since the 1970s. “In some parts of the ocean, there were fewer
animals singing and calling than in the past – those voices are gone,”
said Duarte.

The Sound Impact

There are several reasons why sound tends to become a greater stress for
aquatic animals than those living on land. Sound travels almost five
times faster through sea water than through air, and low frequencies can
travel hundreds of kilometres with little loss in energy. In addition to
this, the hearing range of marine mammals is far greater than their
vocalisation range as they rely on sound cues much more than visual
cues to avoid predators too. Also, because the whales and dolphins utilise
a wide band of acoustic frequencies – from low-frequency sounds down
to ~15 Hz used by Blue Whales to 120–150 kHz used by several species of
porpoises – the broad range can easily intersect with almost all sounds
introduced by humans in water. All this gives rise to conditions that can
be quite complex to maneuver for all kinds of animals be it tiny shrimps
or massive whales.

According to a 2018 study by Maritime Research Centre (MRC), Pune
ship movement in the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean led
to decibel (dB) levels increase in the seas from a maximum of 185-190dB
to 210dB over seven decades. In this period, the minimum noise levels
along major shipping routes too, had gone up to 110dB from 90-95dB.
The sources of these sounds included > 200dB: Sound from ships for
communication purposes or to detect any danger, 200-250dB: Seismic surveys airguns used to illuminate the sea bottom to understand the nature and detect presence of oil activity, and 100-150dB: Sounds of various machines that aid movement of large ships and vessels. The researcher warned that such sounds could not only lead to discomfort but also internal injuries, bleeding, haemorrhages, or even death among the marine animals.

A 2019 study noted another harsh effect of human sounds. Increased
ship traffic across the Ganga is stressing the river’s iconic dolphins –
India’s national aquatic animals – and changing the way they
communicate. For a mammal that’s almost blind, and relies heavily on
echolocation to communicate, feed and breed, this kind of stress can
easily spell the difference between life and death.

Turning the Volume Down

An interesting observation Juanes and Duarte additionally made during
their study, was the effect of the global lockdown on the reduced human-
made sound levels and thereby the activity of marine creatures. They
found that when 60% of people were under lockdown in 2020, there was
20% reduction in the human noises created underwater. Almost
immediately, large marine mammals were seen around coastlines and
areas of the seas where they had not been observed for decades. The
scientists say this showed how easy it is to set the volume right for
marine animals to live alongside all the development noises humans are
creating.

The scientists strongly feel that when it comes to the various
environmental challenges like climate change and plastic pollution that
are also impacting ocean health, noise pollution is often given less
attention whereas tackling this marine “anthrophony” was the “low-
hanging fruit” of ocean health.

“If we look at climate change and plastic
pollution, it’s a long and painful path to recovery,” Prof Duarte said. “But
the moment we turn the volume down, the response of marine life is
instantaneous and amazing.”

While the whales are fish cannot have a mute button or ear plug to
muffle the alien human noises, the responsibility to lower the marine
‘loudspeakers’ for our marine neighbours lies with us and is not difficult
to execute.

Atula Gupta

Original publication: Deccan Herald

Published on: 10 March, 2021

Link: Underwater Under Seige

Featured image courtesy Pixabay , Image 1, Image 2

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

…..

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

Flamingoes have been known to fly into high-tension wires strung over saline wetlands, where the birds like to feed, but efforts to take the wires down have seldom succeeded.

Brijesh Shah of Bhavnagar Animal Helpline has had a habit of visiting the salt pans of Kumbharvada, a known feeding site for flamingoes, on the city’s outskirts once a day. But over the last two months, Shah has had to visit them out of concern. He scouts the shallow waters, observing the flock, and hopes that he does not come upon a charred or decapitated bird around the 8-to-10-km-long stretch with high-tension wires overhead.

The first incident they’ve been involved with was on 10 December 2016, when 20 of the pink birds were reported to have died after flying into the wires. On February 11 and then again over the next two days,  more than two score birds had been electrocutes. The favoured feeding site had quickly devolved into a mass graveyard.

“There is a wetland created out of unused salt pans and areas inundated with wastewater from Kumbharvada city,” Shah tells The Wire. “[Some] 1,500-2,000 flamingoes are seen here all year round as they come to feed in the shallow waters. But the high-voltage wire is right above that small valley. It is a 66-KV Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Limited powered line. As soon as the birds fly above the shallow lake after their meal, they collide with the wire just 50 metres away.” They’re killed instantly – either by electrocution or the force of impact.

Shah and his colleague Shashikant, a veterinary doctor who answers the animal helpline,  recall how, after the moment of collision, the birds turn black or just swell up and burst like balloons.

“The bird is huge – over five feet and has long legs, wings and neck,” they say. “It doesn’t get hurt when it touches one wire. It is only when its wing touches two wires at once that it gets an electric shock.”

The Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Limited (GETCO), however, denies that the birds in the last four incidents were electrocuted. They claim that the transmission line in question hasn’t been switched on in the last half year.

When it was in use, according to GETCO, it was being used by Nirma, a company manufacturing household chemicals, at a facility nearby. The company is now said to be taking power from the Ahmedabad Highway Systems.

Shrenik Shah, a local environmental activist, isn’t convinced: “Even if there is no power supply, collision with the wires is almost always fatal for the birds. Their wings get cut or their necks are broken or, even worse, the body is cut in two pieces due to the severity of the collision. We were unable to rescue even a single one out of the fifty that died this year.”

According to him, the power line has been there in the Kumbharvada area for the last decade or so. The flamingoes have been using it as a feeding habitat for much longer, leaving only for a few months before the monsoons to breed, returning again in June-July with many of their young ones. Shrenik says that a flamingo is killed every year. “Because of the industrial development in the area, the population of the birds might have reduced, lowering the [number of] bird hits. The incidents are not regularly reported, but the wires still hang there as a constant threat.”

The flamingo state

In June 2011, hundreds of flamingoes were killed by the same high-tension wires in Bhavnagar – but GETCO remained stubborn, denying all allegations. It said that the birds could have been killed by something else. But after conservationists protested, the municipal corporation and GETCO asked Bhavnagar’s mayor to drain out the habitat and give the flamingoes no reason to visit the city at all. Thankfully, the forest department and environmentalists intervened, highlighting the importance of the wetland and the many years it had taken to establish a safe habitat. The habitat was spared.

Gujarat is a flamingo hub in the country. Two species of flamingos are found here: the greater flamingo and the near-threatened lesser flamingo. Both species are residents of the state.

Virag Vyas, who studied the lesser flamingo for his PhD – with special reference to ecology, threats and conservation management, says that the portion of the Gulf of Khambhat near Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar districts, the coastal areas of Bhavnagar and Jamnagar and Kutch are major congregation sites for the birds during their non-breeding season. In fact, ‘Flamingo City’ in Kutch has been promoted as a tourist destination for being the only breeding site for flamingoes in Asia, being home to over 1.5 lakh birds throughout the year.

While the greater flamingoes do migrate over long distances, the lesser flamingoes are non-migratory nomadic species with flocks constantly moving between different feeding sites. Standing on their stick-like long legs in shallow mudflats, these birds stir up the bottom with their feet and duck their beaks down to catch their meal: shrimps, crustacea and algae.

The carotenoid pigments in this food gives the flamingoes their distinctive pink colour. And the specialised habitat that provides this food is not available in many places in the world. These environments also tend to be naturally saline – and have been exploited by humans to produce salt over many centuries.

So, even if the Kumbharvada wetland complex is small, it is still uniquely important for the flamingoes. It is a habitat they cannot afford to lose to rapid industrialisation, highway projects and the life-threatening high wires – a fact that bears repeating in the face of the number of times flamingoes have been threatened by human activities, and the number of times nothing changed.

In 2010, the world’s attention was drawn by Gujarat’s Khadir region when no fewer than 400 flamingoes were charred to death after hitting the wires. About 400,000 flamingoes had migrated to Khadir that year.

In 2011, Anika Tere, a zoologist at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, and B.M. Parasharya, an ornithologist at Anand Agricultural University, had published a study that stated: “A passing vehicle or even a flipping fish can create a flutter in the flamingo colonies, leading to the birds flying into the cables. Overhead wires are not visible to them and they do not have enough time to manoeuvre to avoid collision.” The duo mapped seven sites in Kutch, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar where high-tension cables ran close to flamingo sites.

Under the media’s gaze, the forest department scurried to  install radium tags on the wires in Khadir. These acted as reflectors and warned the birds stay away. Then again, it was over three years and repeated follow-ups by environmentalists before the wires were taken underground.

In their study, Tere and Parasharya had briefly discussed the the Kumbharvada threat as well. “The collision of flamingoes with electric lines was noticed repeatedly at Nirma salt pans and Kumbharvada sewage pond in Bhavnagar district,” the paper read. “The collisions at these sites are so frequent that the local fishermen have learnt to scan areas with overhead wires and collect the birds for consumption.” This warning was ignored – with the effect that flamingoes continue to be killed to this day.

A persisting threat

Devesh Gadhvi, a deputy director at the Kutch Ecological Research Centre and a noted conservationist, says, “Since 2011, the mortality [among flamingoes] has been observed in Bhavnagar due to collision with the power lines. It is more of the collision than the electrocution. Dogs also play a role in such incidents: They chase the birds to kill them and, in haste, the birds fly haphazardly and collide with the power line.”

According to Gadhvi, the high-tension wires had been installed without conducting an environmental impact assessment (EIA). “Power lines should not be installed in any areas having frequent bird movements. A proper EIA study prior to the installation can solve this issue.”

As it happens, the Central Electricity Authority has issued multiple guidelines to all states asking for appropriate measures to save wild animals from electrocution. They include putting spikes on the lines to ward off animals, taking cables underground where possible, inspecting transmission lines twice a year and investigating every electricity fault. Even the UN Environment Programme had released guidelines in November 2011.

After the four incidents in Kumbharvada, the team from the Bhavnagar Animal Helpline installed a camera for a few days in the area. They wanted to prove – once and for all – to the media, the forest department and the government that the wires were killing the birds, contrary to what GETCO believed. Whether it was irony or sheer luck, no flamingo collided with the wires in this period. No new deaths have been reported since February either.

Brijesh Shah says, “It is thanks to the security guards of the on-site Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, who patrol the experimental salt farms. They call us so we can reach the site to see if any flamingoes can be saved.” Otherwise, the high-tension wires continue to hang over the feeding birds like a noose.

Says Gadhvi, “Looking at the human population and its demand for electricity and other basic requirements, some development is unavoidable and needs to be done. But it should be done after consulting subject experts, and all the suggested mitigation  measures should be implemented to reduce the ecological disturbance as much as possible.”

Even if Khadir set a positive example in 2014 after taking over 9 km of cables underground, there continues to be a gap between what has been put down on paper and what is executed. One can only hope that it won’t take another flamingo massacre to jolt lawmakers out of their reverie.

Original Publication: The Wire

Date: 28 March, 2017

Link: How Much Longer Before India’s Flamingo Hub Will Cease to be a Flamingo Graveyard?

Image by Jürgen Bierlein from Pixabay

The deaths of tigers and other wildlife have brought to the forefront a situation where the ‘management’ of one animal leads to the accidental deaths of another.

A hundred and twenty-one snares were dismantled in a single day by the Karnataka forest department in a massive combing operation around the Nagarhole National Park boundary on January 31. Where once there were only four or five snares, now the forests are brimming with these quick fix killing contraptions – or so it seems. This rise in snares was noticed after the Karnataka government’s order last year that legally allowed culling of wild boars that were entering farms and damaging crops. The order, initially restricted to Ramnagara district, is now statewide.

Opinions differ on whether it was the order that was misinterpreted by the locals to increase the use of snares under the guise of legally protecting their farms from wild boars – or that the noticeable deaths of apex predators like the tiger brought back the focus on these silent killers that were omnipresent but overlooked by the guardians of the forest overtime.

Using snares to catch any wild animal always was and is still illegal in Karnataka. The latest order allows shooting after seeking permission but not snaring. Unfortunately, it is also a practice that is as much a part of traditional wisdom to protect one’s crops as any other method like fencing. Snares have been put around farms, coffee estates and wildlife corridors for defending produce or for other ulterior motives for ages.

G. Veeresh, who has been actively collecting evidence of snares and snare-related wildlife deaths in the Chikmagalur forest range, says, “The order is giving them free will to hunt and though it is illegal to put snares, they are doing it in the name of protecting farms from wild boars.”

The wildlife activist adds, “Farmers and organised hunters will put snares because it’s easy and a silent killer. Those who have weapons will go on hunt but snares are easy. Villagers know that this is illegal but they are still doing it for the meat and skin. Even local tribes are involved in snaring. They use Bajaj scooter cables that are flexible and easily trap the animals. They keep a daily watch of which animal has been snared.”

It is not only wild boars that are caught this way. There are deer, blackbucks, hares, muntjacs and the occasional tiger.

Joseph Hoover, wildlife expert and former member of the state wildlife board, elaborates, “When a wild boar enters any farm or estate, especially in areas like Kodagu, Chikmagalur, it is a common thing to put snares to stop them. Even for deer. But it is not that they want to protect their farm. Basically they want the meat. Nagarhole, Bhadra, Dandeli, Anshi dandeli (Kali), BRT tiger reserve everywhere we have snares.”

It seems the use of snares that began as a sly measure by locals to defend land and capture a boar or two for the meat, has now blown out of proportion owing to the order that treats the boar as “vermin”– or animals that create nuisance. But wild boars are not the only animals under threat. Protected animals such as the tigers, leopards and bears too are becoming the victims of the callousness.

Accidental deaths

The tiger, leopard and sloth bear are all listed in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the highest level of protection given to wild animals in the country. This prohibits their killing and deems it as a punishable offence. The wild boar is listed in Schedule III of the Wildlife Act, which still makes it illegal to hunt though the punishment is less severe. However, under special circumstances if an animal is found to threaten human life or damage property, as in this case, the government might declare it as vermin for a specific period and thus allow its hunting. The order is a first for Karnataka but in 2015, under severe criticism from conservationists, the centre approved culling of nilgai and wild boar in Bihar and rhesus monkey in Himachal Pradesh by declaring them vermin in similar fashion.

Since the implementation of the order, Karnataka has officially lost two tigers, three leopards and two sloth bears among its big mammals because of the snares. This includes a one and a half year old tiger cub that injured its forelimbs after being caught in a snare in Ponnampet forest of Kodagu district on January 18th. Another tigress was found dead at Srimangala near Ponnampet when she too found herself accidentally stepping into the snares left to catch wild boar.

Two leopards were snared and found dead last year in the same location in and around Thangebailu, says Veeresh. The snares were in a banana cultivator’s farm in a land adjacent to the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary and a known wildlife corridor. He adds that as recently as on 8th February, a sambhar deer and a barking deer were killed in the Chikmagalur range after they got caught in the snares put up by farmers to catch wild boars.

Order to kill

The revised order specifies that the person who has a wild boar raiding problem in his farm has to take prior permission. There is no provision of using snares. The boar must be shot by a person who has obtained a license from the forest department to kill the animal. He cannot kill a mother boar or her babies, and the injured boar or its carcass must be handed over to the forest department for post-mortem analysis and cannot be consumed for its meat. According to a state forest official, till date no such permissions have been taken.

Hoover says, “They are not supposed to put a snare at all for protection of land. If they shoot a wild boar, the forest officer should be told within 24 hours, the carcass has to be burnt or buried. It’s funny, because we don’t even have enough forest officers to protect the forest, how will he go and check each wild boar killing? So now everyone is trigger happy.” He also fears that the farmers or coffee plantation owners could easily take advantage of the situation, shoot a wild boar somewhere else and claim that it was raiding their crops. The government treating the boar as vermin only makes it easier.

There is another outlook though with regard to the tiger deaths. Ullas Karanth, conservationist and director of the Wildlife Conservation Society admits that the order does not seem to have a scientific basis because of the lack of survey before or after its implementation. But he firmly believes that the passing of this order and the snare deaths are unconnected issues.

“The Karnataka order permits shooting, not snaring, and immediate subsequent reporting and also destruction of the carcass. When wild meat is on illegal sale at high prices (Rs 200-300 per kg), as evidenced in the recent Chikmagalur urban poachers case, it is questionable who will follow this order, or whether it has any impact at all,” says Karanth. “We need good independent scientific surveys to assess the situation before this order was issued and after it was issued.”

He reasons increase in number of tigers death itself in Karnataka is because of the increasing population of the animal and its limited habitats.

The state with the most big cats

Karnataka has been a conservation success story with respect to tigers. An estimated 406 tigers live in the state with 221 recorded in Nagarhole and the adjoining Bandipur forests. Tiger density here is higher than anywhere else. However, the upswing in the population also comes with the higher mortality risks. With the big cat population reaching its saturation point in core areas, the spill over to the buffer zone is obvious.

“Tigers, leopards and other animals dying in snares is nothing new – with increased number of tigers and leopards, such ‘by-catch’ of these species has also increased,” says Karanth. He insists that the foresters can and should search and remove snared inside and on the boundaries of the forests. “The good ones have been doing this for decades,” he says. “Nowadays, it is often done as a media show once in a while, with some NGOs too trying to get publicity out of it.”

After the tiger deaths, the forest department began a massive snare combing operation around the border areas of Nagarhole. Combing forests to look for looped wires that could blend in with the hundreds of wines and shrubs is like finding needle in a haystack quite literally. For the 121 snares dismantled in a single day, the department had to deploy 300 of its staff members, split into five-member teams moving around 17 km of the forest boundary from Anechowkur to Nanchi Gate.

More than 400 snares were removed during the week-long operation– a staggering number of hidden death threats for any wild animal. Whether the combing operation itself was a media stunt, an action to prevent backlash or a genuine attempt to protect the wildlife is debatable, but it is that the problem is far from resolved. Snares are still being set up, and the government order has only led locals to believe that they can kill a boar or a tiger without serious consequences.  

Forests at risk

Hoover points to the other equally risky factors that come into play this time of the year– water crisis and wildfires. 80% of water holes in Bandipur have already dried up and the water shortage makes animals like deer come out of the protected zones and approach human habitations to quench their thirst. Where herbivores tread, the carnivores will follow and this increases the risk of being caught in snares.

The other problem is the dried forest cover which becomes more vulnerable to forest fires, as witnessed in the recent wildfire in Bandipur that led to the loss of a forest officer’s life. The department that is already 30 % understaffed has to deploy foresters and guards to prevent these man-made or natural fires. “When the crisis is so big, we are losing our people to go and work on the periphery of the forest to remove snares,” Hoover says.

Karanth feels it is impossible for the forest department to go into each private land and remove snares. This initiative must come from the land owners. He advises that regular patrolling and snare removals can be done by forest staff inside all reserved forests/protected areas. Publicity campaigns targeting landowners to control snaring can be launched. NGOs can go and remove snares on private lands, with permission of owners. Veeresh who has seen how farmers keep bringing back the snares even after they are removed feels, punishing them is the best solution. If the forest department punishes the landowners rather than only removing the snares, it sets an example and can make them more responsible.  

Damage control

The problem of wild pigs raiding fields is not exclusive to India. In Europe, Africa and the US there have been dedicated efforts to stop the damage using various methods however general consensus is that hunting or snaring is not a solution.

Wild boars have a thick skull and hide which makes them a difficult target for hunting. They are also very quick learners and may change their routes if they sense a trap has been laid for them. Another argument is snaring might not be effective enough to take down the numbers that are actually needed to control the population. Farmers in the US, after two decades of legalised hunting have surprisingly also come to realise that the measure is counter-intuitive. Hunting, it is believed, becomes an incentive for the boars to reproduce more and grow in numbers.

On the other hand, there are some traditional, innovative and much safer methods already employed in India that use the animal’s basic behaviours and traits to keep it from doing damage to crops. One such practice involves the use of human hair. In a 2015 study it was found that spreading human hair (collected from barber shops) around crops controlled the damage up to 40-50% in farms as the pigs did not like the minute hairs sticking to their nostrils. Spraying fields with a domestic pig’s dung solvent also proved to ward off wild pigs, as it led them to think they were entering marked territory. Burning dried dung cake, erecting colourful saree boundaries, planting thorny bushes are other proven traditional methods for warding off these persistent crop raiders without spilling blood.

The deaths of tigers and other wildlife have brought to the forefront what experts always feared – a situation where management of one animal leads to the accidental deaths of another. The chosen method of selective slaughter is also questionable, when there is no scientific evidence to back the decision. The culling order has only given way to a self created chaos that could have been averted with a little planning and judicious approach.

Original Publication: The Wire

Date: 23 February, 2017

Link: When Snares Set for Wild Board Spell Trouble for Karnataka’s Tigers

When this flood blocks the road, I am worried more by my soil getting washed, than by getting late, to reach my destination,” wrote Nepalese poet Suman Pokhrel. For India, no words could be truer for the year 2015. If something has blocked the road of India’s savvy future in the last year, it has been the constant news of flood in some or other part of the country. From the flash floods of Gujarat to the annual flooding of the North East to the recent disasters in Tamil Nadu, rising waters have set the alarm bells ringing all through the year, breaking the pace of growth the nation has so enthusiastically embraced.

In retrospect, it is hard to see these calamities as individual occurrences or even natural. The extreme weather events such as the one in Chennai, Manipur, Assam or Gir National Park earlier this year are sprouting from a single event of atmosphere heating which is man-made and expanding into a bigger catastrophe each day. In 2012, it was Haiti and the Philippines that were affected, and a super-cyclone hit the Philippines again in 2013. This year, it is India’s turn.

State of the wild cats

In the July flash floods of Gujarat, 10 Asiatic lions lost their lives apart from a number of other wild animals of the Gir forests. Although the Supreme Court of India had earlier allowed the relocation of few of the Asiatic lions from Gir to another protected area in Madhya Pradesh, the plans are yet to be materialised. Till then, Gir remains the last bastion of the Asiatic lions — all of them living in one habitat, all equally vulnerable to any calamity that may arise in future.

While the lions of India have been restricted to the forests of Gujarat, it was another smart cat that surprised researchers with the ease with which it has made urban India its home. An international study of radio-collared leopards in India found that the animals were not strays that had wandered out of the forest, but residents of cities, just like a cat or a dog staying in a locality. Given their extremely flexible nature, leopards have now found it a survival necessity to shift from forests to urban places, as green covers see depletion. And they also know how to remain hidden in the human jungle, avoiding contact and the conflict that may arise due to chance encounters.

For India’s national animal, the year 2015 brought reassurance that the conservation efforts are being put in the right direction. According to the latest census, India now has 2,226 tigers in the wild, showing a sharp 30 per cent increase in population from the last census done in 2010. Despite the day-to-day challenges of habitat loss, human-animal conflict and poaching, the tiger seems to be slowly, but steadily regaining its lost status as the king of the Indian jungles. What is still sad though is the rampant killings of animals including the tiger.

Till the mid of November this year, 22 tigers were documented to have been killed by poachers. As many as 216 leopards, 40 tigers, 43 rhinos, 100 elephants and innumerable birds and reptiles have lost their lives to the poacher’s gun in the last 18 months.

Ironically, the promise of recruiting a rhino protection force in Assam that was made in January this year, still remains in papers. Another Indian star caught in the wildlife trade is the beautiful and rare star tortoise. In a study published in the journal Nature Conservation, researchers warned of a large-scale network, fuelled by growing international demand for exotic pets, which is causing extreme suffering to the animals and threatening the survival of the species. In one site alone, at least 55,000 tortoises were poached from the wild in one year.

On the positive side, India is one of the few megadiverse nations in the world, where species discoveries are still a constant delight. Adding to the growing list of species found in the rich North East, Western Ghats and the Himalayan region were a number of creatures like a newly discovered wasp, frogs, butterflies and fish. The Botanical Survey of India (BSI) and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) released a list of 349 new species of flora and fauna in the past one year on the World Environment Day. This includes 173 species and genera of plants and 176 species of animals.

Good news also came in the form of another survey result that showed that the country’s forest cover has grown 3,775 sq km since 2013, taking the total to 7,01,673 sq km — 21.34 per cent of the country’s geographical area. Experts do worry though that the increase of cover isn’t the indicator of the protection or growth in numbers of local plant species that are more vital to the sustenance of the local habitats than afforestation alone.

Growing numbers

A survey of the Ganges river dolphins  revealed 1,263 dolphins in Uttar Pradesh against 671 in the 2012 census. The survey also counted 116 dolphins in a 215-km stretch of the river from Lakshagrah in Allahabad to Kaithi in Varanasi, a confluence of Ganga and Gomti. If these numbers are to be believed, the national aquatic animal is faring well despite the high level pollution of River Ganga.

Local community power proved its mettle once again in 2015 where aware citizens chose to conserve, protect and nurture, while they led a sustainable life and prospered too. The Nyishi tribe of Nagaland, once hunters of the famed great hornbill of the state have now become protectors of the bird and its future generations, by guarding their nests. It’s a prime example of how given the correct knowledge, locals can be the greatest asset in fighting the conservation battle.

John Muir once said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” Let us hope in 2016, the opportunities to help the crippled planet back on its foot are much more than the deliberate attempts to hurt it further. Development without ecological stability can only make calamities such as the floods, a routine than a rarity.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 28 December, 2015

Link: Environmental Round Up

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

The Asiatic Lion has doubled its territory in Gujarat with one-third of Saurashtra under its reign. While the news is promising for the future of lions, it highlights the concern that they roam outside the protected area, leading to human-animal conflict. Atula Gupta writes…

When the Asiatic Lion truly lived the life of royalty, its territory ranged from Asia minor and Arabia through Persia to India. However, before the close of the last century, the lion had become extinct from all these regions except Gir, where thanks to the efforts of a Nawab, its faltering future was stabilised and the Indian lion had a single yet safe haven to call home. 

Today, the population of India’s lions is stable, if not completely out of danger, because of consistent conservation efforts and a recent census points that the lion king is on the lookout for newer regions to conquer. With almost double the territory recorded of the wild cat within a span of four years, the species is set for a fierce expansion plan. But, while the news is promising for the future of lions, does it also bring forth a number of other concerns, especially a rise in human-animal conflict? That is the big question. 

The pride of Gujarat has doubled its territory in the span of four years from 10,500 sq km in 2010 to 20,000 sq km recorded recently. The state forest department conducted a study based on the frequent kills and compensation given to farmers and found that the presence of the predator was noted in almost one-third of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Of the 1,500 villages that notified the lion’s presence, most were in the Junagadh, Amreli and few in Bhavnagar district. 

The last few

When Sasan Gir forests of Gujarat became the last bastion of the Asiatic lions, the species literally had nowhere else to go. Once a symbol of regal valour and ferocity, the lion symbol had adorned the palaces of many Indian kingdoms, sultanates and empires for ages. In fact, the earliest record of lions in India, it seems, are found on the famous steatite seals of the Indus Valley Civilisation. 

But hunting during the British reign turned many living beasts to trophy heads adorning colonial walls, and by the end of the 19th century, India shockingly had merely 20-odd lions. The probable years of its extermination region-wise were Bihar – 1840, Delhi – 1834, Bhavalpur – 1842, Eastern Vindhyas and Bundelkhand – 1865, Central India & Rajasthan – 1870 and Western Aravallis – 1880. The last animal surviving in the wild outside Saurashtra was reported in 1884. Statistics

It was thus a pivotal moment when the then Nawab of Junagadh provided adequate protection to the animals and population of lion increased between the years 1904 to 1911. Lions were still being hunted though until shooting was rigidly controlled by the British Administration in 1913. Finally, in 1936, the first organised census showed there were 287 Asiatic lions left in the wild. Declaration of the Sasan Gir Sanctuary only ensured that these numbers continued to increase.

The present day status of the lions is not as turbulent. In the last decade, through active public support, conservation programmes and constant vigilance, the lions of Gir have fared well. Last census showed their population to be above 400 with a healthy number of adults as well as juveniles. 

Interestingly, even in 2010, the Asiatic lion was expanding its territory, living further away from the restricted 1,412 sq km of the defined Sasan Gir National Park boundaries. The stable population even prompted the International Union for conservation of Nature (IUCN) to de-list the threatened status of Asiatic lions from Critically Endangered to Endangered. However, bigger family means the need for a bigger home and that is what may trigger an array of other concerns.

Officials believe there are 114 lions at present, out of the 411 counted in 2010, that live outside the known lion territories. It is only the upcoming 2015 lion population census though that would ascertain the exact number and expanded habitat of the mega predator. Meanwhile, in a country of 1.2 billion humans, where is the room to grow? Rise in conflict

In mid-January this year, a goods train mowed down two lionesses 30 km from the Gir forest. Last year, a male lion cub was killed on the same route. With more than 100,000 people sharing the same resources and land with the Asiatic Lion, conflicts between the local villagers and the animal is inevitable. Although, public support has been one of the biggest advantages for the successful protection of the wild predator in the state. But, will it continue if territorial conflicts become much more frequent and livestock loss a daily routine? 

Also, unlike the Gir sanctuary, forest officers do not patrol the area outside the protected boundaries, and the present census points that it is exactly these regions where the lion is heading to, and is also the most vulnerable. “There are heavy vehicles, including loaders, moving in the area. I have personally seen lions close to such areas,” said Mangabhai Thapa — a resident of the village who was among the first to reach the lions that were killed by the goods train. 

The areas where lions are frequently seen in Saurashtra are the same where future urban development plans include more mining belts, ports, highways and industries. The need of the hour, undoubtedly, is habitat diversification and second or third population sites for the lions. The Nawab of Junagadh did give the dying lions a second chance at life, but to truly give the animal its lost regal stature, it is necessary now to allow it to peacefully expand its kingdom.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 3 February, 2014

Link: A lion’s share

Going by the size of Sunderban tigers, it was believed that they were a different subspecies, but it has now been established that they share their lineage with Central Indian tigers, writes Atula Gupta.

When mud and water is the land you tread on and the forest is nothing but a floating mass, even a mega predator like the tiger has to adapt, shrink in size and mould its behaviour, according to the habitat’s demand, in order to survive. It is for this reason that the Royal Bengal Tigers living in the Sunderban mangrove forests have become smaller in size, morphologically different from their counterparts living in mainlands.

It is also partly this that led many scientists to contemplate if Sunderban tigers were in fact a different subspecies and not just an isolated population of tigers of India. While few studies prove this theory to be wrong, a new study shows a remarkable new line of thought.

Scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) have found that despite the outer differences, at the genetic level, tigers prowling in reserves like Bandhavgarh of Madhya Pradesh and the Sunderban mangroves are exactly the same. It is like the real life version of the brothers shown on celluloid who separate at birth and adapt to their circumstances to survive.

The national animal of India might be facing dire conditions thanks to greedy human demands, urban development and habitat destruction, but it is still the regal creature that roams many varied habitats of the country. From the cool forests of Corbett in the foothills of the Himalayas to the rich and dense forests of the Western Ghats, the tiger’s home today is small fragmented pockets that each has distinct characters and climatic conditions.

The big debate

But nowhere is life more challenging than the biggest mangrove forests in the world — the Sunderbans, where land and water constantly change the dynamics of the environment. Yet, the apex predator survives. The leaner frame and lesser body mass of the Sunderban tigers makes them much more adept at moving around in the muddy terrain. It also makes them survive on lesser food, given the added difficulty to catch prey and the reduced size of the prey itself. In 2009, when US scientist Adam Barlow made a comprehensive study of the skull and body size of Sunderban tigers and compared it with other mainland tigers, he found the size difference interesting and presumed the tiger could be from a different line altogether, changing the known evolution history of tigers.

What triggered the curiosity of naturalists further was when in 2010, a Sunderban tiger that had accidently roamed out of the mangroves was captured and weighed, before being released back into the jungles. This male weighed a mere 98 kg — more than half of the average weight of 221 kg recorded of other adult tigers.

But one study by eminent scientists John Seidensticker, Sandeep Sharma and Hemendra Panwar negated this theory. It said while tigers populated Central India about 10,000 years ago, their population subdivision began only about 1,000 years ago and accelerated only 200 years ago owing to habitat fragmentation.

Sunderban tigers could not be a subspecies because for any animal population to be called a subspecies, it has to be genetically isolated from the rest of the population for at least 20,000-50,000 years, for example, the Sumatran and the Siberian tiger — two distinct subspecies of the tiger. Also, for an animal population to be declared a separate species, it has to remain isolated for a period of one million years or more.

But if the separation did take place, where did the common ancestors live? Now, through DNA analysis, scientist S P Goyal and researchers Sujeet Kumar Singh and Sudhanshu Mishra from WII have given the answer — Sunderban tigers share common ancestors with Central Indian tigers. The separation occurred between 300 and 1,000 years ago due to historical events, human pressure and land-use patterns.

“Our study has found that the gene pattern of the Sunderban tigers is identical to the big cat population of the Central India landscape, including states like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and parts of Andhra Pradesh,” said Goyal.

For the WII report titled ‘Tigers of Sunderbans Tiger Reserve: Is This Population a Separate Evolutionary Significant Unit’, the scientists used a method called DNA haplotyping and fragment analysis to study the genetic pattern of the tigers. Haplotypes are a set of closely linked genetic markers present on one chromosome which tend to be inherited together.

When the DNA Haplotypes of the Sunderban tigers were compared with that of tigers of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, the pattern was found to be identical. This included tigers of MP parks, including Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Pench, and reserves like Tadoba and Nagzira in Maharashtra. Interestingly, they also found no genetic similarities between Sunderban tigers and tigers of Northern India like those roaming in Corbett reserve.

Human interference

The scientific findings open new avenues of research for biologists to further investigate the evolution and population separation of tigers. But what it also portrays is how human influence has drastically changed the habitat, homes and lives of even ferocious creatures like the tigers.

In historian Rajat Roy’s words, in 1756, when Siraj-Ud-Daulah recaptured the city of Kolkata from the British, today’s Salt Lake area used to be the main city and the Lower South Circular Road that’s now known as Chowringhee used to be the city’s southern border. “Beyond that were the forests of Sunderbans and there are beliefs that tigers were often sighted in those forests which now house busy localities like Tollygunge and Behala,” said Roy.

In the 2 million years that tigers have existed in this world, 300 to 1,000 years is a miniscule time frame. But in this short span, from a vast single homeland panning present day Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal, the tiger is now left with pockets of land in different states. And it is all man’s doing. Even as it is established that Eastern and Central Indian tigers have the same lineage, it is further proof of the way human hands have divided wildlife families and homes for their own selfish needs.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 9 December, 2013

Link: Disconnected Ties

The rising water levels in the mangroves of Sunderbans has created an imbalance in the area which is otherwise blessed with a unique species diversity. The reason for this is unplanned aquaculture which needs to be immediately checked, writes Atula Gupta.

The impermeable floating jungles on the seashores of India and Bangladesh, Sunderbans, are both a blessing and a challenge for life to exist in the region. With an intricate network of interconnecting waterways criss-crossing the area, land has been moulded into patches of innumerable big and small islands. 

But it is also the richness of the soil and the sustainability of the ecosystem that has blessed the area with species diversity second to no other mangrove habitat in the world. The eternal battle of the sea and rivers, however, that plays out in this mangrove forest shaping its character, is lately tilting in the sea’s favour. So much is the imbalance that scientists fear the rising sea level could soon gobble up the entire eastern end of the Sunderbans.

Sunderbans, the world’s largest estuarine forest and delta covered by mangrove forests and vast saline mudflats, is situated on the lower end of Gangetic West Bengal. A land of 54 tiny islands, Sunderbans is bound on the west by river Muriganga and on the east by rivers Haribhanga and Raimangal. Other major rivers flowing through this ecosystem are Saptamukhi, Thakurain Matla and Gosaba.

A recent study by the World Bank and the Institute of Environmental Studies and Wetland Management (IESWM) has revealed that sea level rise in these areas is 3 mm annually and the sedimentation is not keeping pace with this rise.

It may look like a small number but if the deposition of sediments does not happen at the same pace as the rising sea level, the sea water may soon spread to parts of former land.

The upper Bidya and Raimangal regions in the Sunderbans are important tiger habitat, home to local villagers as well as popular tourist destinations. The upper Bidya region is hardly a 15-minute cruise from Godkhali and known for the fishing communities of Gosaba village. 

The Raimangal region — a seven-hour boat ride from Sonakhali — is one of the favourite tourist haunts for spotting a tiger. Therefore, it is easy to infer the mammoth loss of life and local economy the catastrophic sea-level rise can bring. As a precaution, scientists have suggested de-populating parts of some islands along the fringe areas. 

This will allow the existing embankments to be moved back and allow a wider tidal channel to develop. When this happens, gradually, the deposit of sediments will increase and the land rise will be at the same pace as the sea-level rise.

Threat from the sea

The physiography of the Sunderbans is distinctive and ever-changing because of the land and water interaction. Rivers here tend to be long and straight, a consequence of the strong tidal forces, and the clay and silt deposits which resist erosion. Easily eroded sand collects at the river mouths, and form banks and chars. Finer silts are washed out into the Bay of Bengal, but, where they are protected from wave action, mudflats form in the lee of the dunes.

These become overlain with sand from the dunes, and develop into grassy midden. This process of island building continues for as long as the area on the windward side is exposed to wave action.

But it is not just the water-land interaction, but the types of water that is a major influence in defining the shape and life forms of Sunderbans. The most biologically-rich areas are in the east where, because of the numerous rivers, freshwater influences are greater.

The confluence of saline and freshwater is a harbinger of life, breeding point of many marine species including fishes, and the rare Olive Ridley turtles.

However, the bad news is, with the sea level rising and the river banks not wide enough to accommodate the rising water, the land that is moulded wave after wave will soon be underwater completely.

The rivers on upper Bidya and Raimangal — Pathankhali and Jhila — need to be at least 340 and 420 metres wider respectively to withstand the impact of sea level rise, warn researchers. 

As that is not the case presently, life and homes of the villagers and the 57 Royal Bengal tigers living in the forested areas of eastern Sunderbans, namely the jungles of Jhila, Arbesi and Khatuajhuri, are both endangered.

Unplanned development

According to IESWM scientist Somenath Bhattacharya, who conducted the research between 2009 and 2012 with geologist Kakoli Sen Sharma and World Bank consultant John Pethick, the reason for this growing threat from the sea is unplanned aquaculture.

He says aquaculture has gobbled up more than 550 sq km area on the Sunderbans in the last 30 years. Also, because these involve low-intensity management techniques, more sea water has entered the creeks than was required, causing them to erode much faster.

 “We need to widen these rivers by at least 300 metres on both sides to accommodate this huge flow of sea water. And for this, there will be loss of both agricultural land and settlements,” warned Bhattacharya. Conversely, the western end of the Sunderbans portray a different picture. The western parts comprise forests of Chulkathi and Dhulibhashani, according to Sharma, and rivers like Banstala and Ghughudanga on the Saptamukhi estuarine system here are not only developing extensive mangroves, but are also capable of accommodating a future sea-level rise of over one metre without any impact on the embankment integrity.

She adds that like the popular dyke model of the Netherlands, here too, dykes or flap sluices have been made by the inhabitants to regulate the water levels. Also, the populated areas of Patharpratima and Bakkhali are almost free of aquaculture, giving them much more chances of surviving well even if the sea levels rise.

At present, 3.5 million people live within 20 km of the mangroves’ northern and eastern boundaries. This includes farmers, fishermen, and wood and honey collectors whose daily sustenance is entirely dependent on the forest. If they do want to stop their precious little land from being snatched away by the sea gods, re-embankments, dyke building, planned aquaculture and recalibrating nature’s balance in these parts are the only solutions.

Original Publication: Deccan Herald

Date: 25 November, 2013

Link: Drowning forest