Archive for the 'Wildlife' Category

Sunderbans will drown in 60 years

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on February 23, 2010
in Bangladesh, Climate change, India, Wildlife and environment
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From The Times of India:

The World Wildlife Fund has warned that days are numbered for much of the sensitive Sunderbans eco-system and in 60 years vast tracts of the rare mangrove forests, home to the Bengal tiger, will be inundated by the rising sea.

The study, focussed on Sunderbans in Bangladesh, says the sea was rising more swiftly than anticipated by

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 and would rise 11.2 inches (above 2000 levels) by 2070. This would result in shrinkage of the Bangladesh Sunderbans by 96% within half a century, reducing the tiger population there to less than 20, said the study.

Unlike previous efforts, WWF’s deputy director of conservation science Colby Loucks and his colleagues used a high-resolution digital elevation model with eight estimates of sea level rise to predict the impact on tiger habitat and population size. The team was able to come up with the most accurate predictions till date by importing over 80,000 Global Positioning System (GPS) elevation points. More:

Click here to read the report: Sea Level Rise and Tigers: Predicted Impacts to Bangladesh’s Sunderbans Mangroves

Image of Sunderbans mangrove forest from Kolkatabirds

Birding in Nagaland

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on February 18, 2010
in India, Travel and Wildlife
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View of the Barail Range, southern Nāgāland

Bikram Grewal at kolkatabirds.com; images: Ramki Sreenivasan, Sumit Sen and Bano Haralu:

Brown-capped Laughingthrush

We settled on walking further along the road where the sun had broken through, and soon I had the first of my several lifers – the Grey Sibia. We spread along the route but soon the sight of Shashank doing a sort of Michael Jackson break-dance had us soon scampering to his side. The object of his elation soon revealed itself to be an Orange-bellied Flowerpecker, an unrecorded bird for this location but none-the-less a lifer for all of us. The walk produced Chestnut-bellied Rock Thrush, Maroon Oriole, several Orange-flanked Bush Robins (sometimes called Himalayan Red-flanked Bush Robin or Red-flanked Bluetail), Ashy Drongos, Blue-fronted Redstarts, Grey Bushchats and Grey-hooded Warblers. All along the Great Barbet kept up its raucous song and the both the Hill and the Rufous-throated Partridges were heard intermittently. A pair of Mountain Hawk Eagles patrolled the skies.

Hunger struck and we decided to return to the cars for an eagerly awaited breakfast. A pair of Assam Laughingthrushes soon exposed themselves. We were pleased to see these recently split species and now understood the reason for their divorce from the Red-headed (or Chestnut-headed). Our excitement soon turned to exultation as we neared the cars, for a bunch of the very local Striped Laughingthrushes gave us exemplary views. To cap it all Sumit sighted a Crested Finchbill perched precariously atop a tall conifer. Had I known then that it would be the first of several hundred we would see, I might have been a little less ecstatic. A flock of Black-throated (Red-headed) Tits suddenly appeared to vanish soon after, as did a large flock of Grey-sided Laughingthrushes. Red-faced Liocichla were seen frequently and warblers were represented by the Ashy-throated. Little Buntings were exceedingly regular and incidentally were the only member of the ilk that we saw on the entire trip. More:

More about Nagaland here at kolkatabirds.com

Nepal’s rhinos and tigers and bears

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on January 13, 2010
in India, Nepal, Travel and Wildlife
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From the Wall Street Journal:

Nepal is known for its Himalayan mountain trekking and India for its historic sites and teeming cities. But both countries offer inexpensive safaris in several national parks that, considering how chaotic life in Nepal and India can be in other respects, are surprisingly professional and well organized, though their ideas of protecting visitors may not be yours.

I didn’t think I was in Africa, where vast herds of many species surround you. But from the back of a Nepalese elephant I saw two crocodiles, a peacock, lots of deer and, most importantly, two rhinos. In the world of safaris, viewing a one-horned Indian rhinoceros is a real accomplishment. There are only about 2,500 left in the world, almost all of them in Chitwan and Kaziranga National Park in northeast India.

The rhinos seemingly had no fear of elephants; they let us get right next to them. The tourists climb a special mounting platform and sit on the elephant’s back, protected by wooden rails. The ride took us through beautiful forests, lakes and, appropriately, plains of 10-foot-high elephant grass. All-inclusive, the South African safari I took two years ago cost more than $500 a night, but in Nepal, there was no way I could have spent $500 in a week. More:

Birds of a feather

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on January 11, 2010
in Wildlife
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Gopalkrishna Gandhi in Hindustan Times. Gandhi was the Governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009.

My wife Tara is the birds-person in our family. I know next to nothing about the feathered kind. But about a couple of months before we left Kolkata after our five years’ stay in its leafy Raj Bhavan, I made friends with two mynahs.

Or rather, two mynahs flew into my life.

A verandah has edged the governor’s apartment overlooking the mansion’s spectacular south-western garden for as long as the building has stood, some 206 years. This verandah has been enclosed with a tight meshing in an ingenious design to keep the estate’s prolific pigeons out. No pigeon, or any other bird for that matter, could violate the governor’s privacy — nor anoint his person with the siftings of avian blessing.

But Tara and I longed for an unobstructed view of the garden and the trees around it. So we had the ‘cage’ opened through a series of windows. The delectably airy stretch on the first floor, a screen of blue sky and green earth, now became the site for our morning coffee, biscuits and newspapers.

One morning as I was taking in the bitter berry draught and breaking my biscuit in half to dip into the brew, a mynah darted in and stood on the window’s ledge directly in front of me, no more than two feet away. Bobbing his head, going ‘keek-keek-keek’, he made his interest clear. But would he acknowledge it? No way. He cocked his head sideways, upways, every conceivable way, as if looking for something he might have inadvertently left in this public space where his entitlements were no less than mine. More:

Billy’s pugmarks

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on January 5, 2010
in Books, India and Wildlife
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Eminent wildlife activist and author Billy Arjan Singh died at his home in Lakhimpur Kheri late on Friday night. He was 93. Rohit Brijnath in Hindustan Times on his legacy:

In the forests of India there is mourning. Billy Arjan Singh, an old tiger, is dead. Fortunately, he has gone to his own paradise, an animal heaven where only some humans are allowed entry. And so there he is, reunited finally with his dog Elie, leopards Prince, Harriet and Juliet, tigress Tara, monkeys Elizabeth Taylor and Sister Guptara, his fishing cat Tiffany. With them, Billy will be home.

The two-footed Billy, 92, spoke for the four-footed unheard. He argued on behalf of those who inhabited the jungles and asked only to live. To say he was India’s finest tiger conservationist (winner of the World Wildlife Fund gold medal), sounds silly because it is not a contest. It is a calling, an empathy for the natural world. There is a wonderful photo of him, wearing a cap, with a bird sitting on it. Was the bird tired, disoriented, who knows, but maybe it knew: this man I can trust.

Billy was extraordinary, a writer of books who seemed to emerge from one written by Hemingway. We were distantly related and I went occasionally to Tiger Haven in Uttar Pradesh’s Dudhwa National Park where this fascinating character lived. A bow-legged, badly-dressed, wind-breaking, well-read hero. A committed man with a Charles Atlas handshake, courteous with women, brusque with the ignorant, owner of a humour dryer than London gin, cornering me about boxers and batsmen because he admired athletes. More:

Waiting for Godwits

Published
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on October 25, 2009
in India and Wildlife
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bird

Flying 2,000 km, Kunta, a one-legged grey wagtail from Central Asia, returns to her winter home, an organic coffee farm 200 km from Bangalore. Kunta means lame in Kannada. Pramila N. Phatarphekar in Open magazine:

I’m waiting for my hero to arrive,” says TS Ganesh, his gruff voice gearing down to gentle as he mentions the one-legged yellow bird who flies in from Central Asia to land in his organic coffee farm, 200 km south of Bangalore. Whipping across 2,000 km, on a wing and a stumpy red leg, this 15 gm bird uses astounding avian aeronautics to escape from the clutches of eagles and defy great gusts of winds and mountains. Just so she can spend winter on Ganesh’s farm, Indian Almond, neighbouring the Biligiri Ranganaswamy Wildlife Sanctuary.

The ability to survive such a long journey has earned this grey wagtail a title: Kunta. Though it means lame in Kannada, it’s an affectionate tribute to this plucky migrant who’s overcome her disability with her feathers of steel.

Ganesh photographed a grey wagtail pair hopping about in his garden two years ago. While processing the images, he noticed, “one bird holding a stub-leg up like a crane”. A good host, Ganesh set out rice, ragi and water. But Kunta wasn’t looking for handouts. The wounded flier found her own feed, flies and termites, contently snacking on the porch as Ganesh watched her every morning over the newspaper. That was till May, when the wagtails winged out of Indian Almond, obeying natural migratory instincts. More:

Hunting man-eating leopards

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on October 9, 2009
in India and Wildlife
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Rama Lakshmi from Garot, India, in the Washington Post:

The mustached 45-year-old with sharp eyes and oiled hair is a revered hunter of man-eating leopards in the Himalayan ranges of India’s Uttarakhand state. Since 2002, Rawat has killed 27 big cats with the state’s permission, earning both fanfare and flak in a battle between humans and wildlife conservation. Villagers hail him as a savior for eliminating the leopards that eat people, mostly children. But activists question a system that encourages him to hunt an endangered species.

The dangerous conflict between man and beast in these Himalayan villages has grown in recent years because of the shrinking number of natural prey for the spotted cat and the steady buildup of people and livestock on the forest fringes. In the past nine years, leopards have eaten 189 people in Uttarakhand.

“This makes the villagers frightened and furious. They demand immediate action against the leopard,” said K.L. Arya, the chief wildlife warden. “It is a very difficult decision to issue permits to capture or kill the man-eating leopards.” More:

Feud over lions

Andrew Buncombe in the Independent:

The Asiatic lion is one of India’s most treasured and majestic wild creatures, taking pride of place on the nation’s national emblem. The animal is found in a tiny part of the western state of Gujarat and nowhere else in the world, and is now at the centre of an increasingly bitter struggle over how best to protect it from extinction.

India’s federal government insists that to protect the rare lion population from the threat of an epidemic, some of the animals should be moved to a neighbouring state so the population is not concentrated in a single area and vulnerable to total wipeout. A location for this breakaway community has already been identified and millions of pounds has been spent to establish an appropriate habitat.

However, officials in Gujarat, headed by the fiery and controversial nationalist politician Narendra Modi, have defiantly refused to give up any of the creatures, insisting that the Indian government’s appalling record at trying to save the tiger – whose total number now stands at little more than 3,500 – means it cannot be trusted with the fate of the lion as well. The disagreement between state and federal authorities has been going on for some time, but in recent weeks it has become increasingly vitriolic. Mr Modi clashed publicly with the Environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, and accusing him of blocking grants for other environmental projects in the state to try to pressure Gujarat over the lions. More:

The Golden Langur — an endangered species

Published
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on September 24, 2009
in Bhutan, India and Wildlife
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From the Telegraph, Calcutta:

golden-langurThe Golden Langur (Trachypithecus geei), found only in Northeast India and Bhutan, is threatened by hunting and the destruction of its forested habitat. It is on the list of endangered species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and on Schedule 1 (completely protected species) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of India. Which is why any method of protection of the species is well worth looking into.

As the sound of the langurs moving through the vegetation died down, Kartik appeared. He had been tracking the troop since early morning, partly to help us locate it, and partly to continue his observations of langur feeding behaviour as part of a scientific study that Nature’s Foster is conducting. He is one of the 12 local youths trained in such research, which they combine with their own considerable local knowledge to good effect.

Kartik is one of several villagers passionately involved in protecting the langurs and their habitat. Theirs is a story that is familiar to anyone working on community-based conservation in India. The forests of the Kakoijana hill range, once thick and diverse, had been decimated by a combination of factors. More:

[Image: Tourism Council of Bhutan]

India’s tiger country: Where anger comes in on giant cat feet

Published
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on September 8, 2009
in India and Wildlife
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Mark Magnier in the Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Sariska Tiger Reserve, India – Mention tigers to the residents of Indok Village and you elicit an immediate growl. The community of 300 families on the periphery of the Sariska Tiger Reserve says it has lost 20 cows and water buffalo in the last several months and 1,000 in a generation.

For those living at subsistence level and measuring their wealth in hooves, that’s seen as a pretty good reason to hate tigers — and their protectors.

“When the tigers attack our livestock, we’re never compensated,” said Buddhalal Meena, a farmer in his 40s dressed in a dirty undershirt, jabbing the air with a scythe to make a point. “But if our livestock enter the forest, even though we’ve lived here for centuries, they levy fines. We never do anything wrong, but we’re the ones who suffer.” More:

A tiger on Malabar Hill

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on September 5, 2009
in Books, India and Wildlife
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“]A painting shows a tiger entering a village. [Bombay Natural History Society]

A painting shows a tiger entering a village. [Bombay Natural History Society

Stanley Henry Prater, a British naturalist and writer, chronicled tiger sightings in Mumbai in the early 20th century. Mint-Lounge carries an excerpt of an essay by him from ‘Living Jewels of Indian Jungle’, a new book on Indian wildlife published by the Bombay Natural History Society.

A large tiger was shot in the vicinity of the Vehar Lake, Salsette on Tuesday, January 22, 1929. The animal was killed by Mr. J.J. Sutari, to whom I am indebted for the following particulars. Mr. Sutari and a party of friends were out after the usual type of game the Salsette jungles provide, which is mainly wild boar. They took up their positions in the vicinity of the south end of the lake shortly after sunset and waited for something to turn up. Towards 10 p.m. Mr. Sutari’s attention was aroused by the sounds of some animal approaching. One can well imagine his astonishment when a tiger walked out of the shadows into the moonlight. The tiger came steadily on, when at a distance of 12 yards, Sutari fired his 12-bore loaded with ball and dropped the animal in his tracks. The tiger in question, a straggler from the main land, probably crossed over by swimming the Thana Creek. An animal doing so would find immediate shelter in the jungles which cover the hilly portions of Salsette. More:

Fears for Indian tiger after China okays sale of endangered animal products

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on September 3, 2009
in Wildlife
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From the Times:

tiger2The world’s dwindling population of tigers could be pushed closer to extinction after China quietly approved the sale of products extracted from the endangered animals.

Environmentalists warned yesterday that the move could boost trade in illegal potions and create a market for poachers preying on the rare animals as far away as India.

Tiger tonics, such as wine made from ground bones, are regarded as potent traditional Chinese medicines and fetch a high price on the black market.

The Chinese State Forestry Administration, which is responsible for wildlife, issued a document allowing trade in legally obtained tiger and leopard skins in December 2007, but with such little fanfare that it barely rated a mention in the domestic media. More:

Flying frogs and the world’s oldest mushroom: a decade of Himalayan discovery

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on August 18, 2009
in Climate change, Wildlife and environment
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From the Guardian:

A pretty ultramarine blue flower which changes colour in response to temperature, a flying frog and the world’s oldest mushroom preserved in amber are among the 350 new species discovered in the Eastern Himalayas over the past 10 years. But experts warn the new discoveries are under pressure from demand for land and climate change.

A report published today by the WWF, The Eastern Himalayas – Where Worlds Collide, lists 242 new types of plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, two birds and two mammals and 61 new invertebrates. The cache, quality and diversity of species newly discovered between 1998 and 2008 make the mountainous region one of the world’s most important biological hotspots.

The WWF is asking the governments of Bhutan, India and Nepal to commit to cooperate on conservation efforts in the geographic region that transcends the borders of the three countries to protect the landscape and the livelihoods of people living in the Eastern Himalayas. More:

The wise tigress and a silly fool with a gun

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on August 10, 2009
in Wildlife and environment
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Sher Khan in Kipling's Jungle Book

Sher Khan in Kipling's Jungle Book

A short story by Bulbul Sharma in the Times of India:

They call me Rani which I think is a silly name since I have no royal blood in me but I cannot do anything about it. Men have their own odd ways and ever since they came to live on earth with us we have had to go along with them to survive. Sometimes we lash out, like my old uncle Sher Khan who turned maneater in his old age. His teeth always gave him trouble after that and his skin began to smell really awful. But he was a rare case. For thousands of years we have hunted our four- legged prey in the grassy meadows and never looked at
man as our next meal.
He was frightened of us even when he lived in a cave and hunted with sharp-edged stones. They say he drew pictures of my ancestors on his cave walls so that he could trap their spirits to enable him to hunt them easily in real life. He loved our skin even then and wore our teeth around his neck. Silly fool.
Later when he grew a little wiser, he started worshipping us and wrote many songs about our great strength and cunning. He stamped our heads on seals and even carved our figures in clay. Later when he built temples he made us stand like guards at the gate and then we all felt so proud when the Goddess Durga chose one of us as her ‘vahan’. Even to this day, you can see her fierce and beautiful form riding a tiger as she slays the buffalo-demon. Though sometimes I see our cousin the Lion with her and then I feel quite upset. We have always been the rulers of the forest and every animal fears us, except the elephant. More:

Hunting the hunted: The war on India’s tigers

Published
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on July 22, 2009
in Wildlife
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Squeezed for space and targeted by poachers, India’s tigers have reached a tipping point. But deep in the world’s most celebrated tiger sanctuary, an unlikely hero has emerged. He’s smart. He’s driven. He’s a God-fearing vegetarian with Jack Bauer tendencies. Too bad wildlife officials hate his guts. Paul Kvinta in the National Geographic:

tigers-615On the morning of his planned raid on the illegal gunmaker, Dharmendra Khandal wakes well before sunrise, purifies himself with a ritual bath, and then studies several verses of the Durga Saptashati, one of Hinduism’s holiest books. Given the nature of the war Khandal is waging, it seems an appropriate text. In it, the radiant goddess Durga—“the One who can redeem in situations of utmost distress”—rides on the back of a tiger, her ten arms brandishing weapons and a lotus flower as she hunts down and destroys the demon Mahisasura. more

Click here for the photofeature by Tom Pietrasik in National Geographic

India’s disappearing vultures

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on June 13, 2009
in Wildlife and environment
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Nava Thakuria at Asia Sentinel:

india-_vulturesThe Parsis, who fled Persia –the present day Iran — centuries back and made India their permanent homeland, practice the religion of Zoroastrianism. About 100,000 live in major cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. According to their religious practice, the dead bodies cannot be buried or burnt because the corpses could pollute the Panchabhootam (earth, water, air, ether and fire). Hence their bodies are left in a high-rise ‘Tower of Silence’ to be consumed by the scavengers.

“Unfortunately the vultures have disappeared from our region and a sustained breeding project for vultures has become essential,” said Khojeste P. Mistree of the World Alliance of Parsi and Irani Zoroastrians, in an interview. “The vulture happens to have been the first scavenger of the world and hence they should be brought back for a sustained ecological balance.”

How long there were will be enough Parsis around to satisfy the vultures is another question. According to “Parsi Khabar,” a website for the Parsi community in India, the Zoroastrian sect’s numbers are diminishing because of self-imposed discouragement of intercommunity marriages, leading to inbreeding. Members of the community from Hyderabad point out that by rough estimates there are just 70,000 Parsis in Mumbai and 1,200 in Hyderabad. More:

In search of the Bugun Liocichla and other parables from Eaglenest

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on April 15, 2009
in India and Wildlife
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Birdwatchers Bikram Grewal (text) and  Ramki Sreenivasan (photographs) at kolkatabirds.com:

Ward's Trogon

Ward's Trogon

The first thing I learnt that it was simply called Eaglenest, not Eagle’s Nest or even Eagles-Nest. This 218 Sq km park was supposedly named after the 4th Indian Army division, which had a red eagle as its standard and which was posted in the area in the 1950s. I still don’t know the veracity of this claim but it is a good story anyway. The second thing I learnt that Eaglenest lay along a now abandoned, but jeepable track, that ran from approximately the Lama Camp 2350m through the highest point on the road at Eaglenest Pass 2800m (the official starting point of the sanctuary), then descending to Sunderview 2465m, Chakoo 2405 m through the abandoned GREF camps at Bompu 1940m and Sessni 1250m and finally down to Khellong 750m in the plains. As can be seen from the relative heights, it covers a vast range of altitudes and this is reflected in the changing habitats and in turn in its birdlife. The road has a rather interesting history. Till India’s war with China in 1961, this was the only road that connected the Tawang Monastery to lowland Assam. From Tawang, the road went over the Sela Pass before reaching Bomdila and then on to Tenga, before turning right and taking the route mentioned above, till it passed Khellong, and went on via Doimara and Missamari before hitting Assam near Balipara and Tezpur. It was on this road that the Dalai Lama fled, when he escaped the Chinese in March of 1959. He was weakened by dysentery and could not ride a horse as befitted his stature. Instead he had to be carried on a dzo, a hybrid between a yak and a cow and considered the lowest form of transportation. I wondered what he made of this evergreen forest, and did he tarry to admire the birds?

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Leopard rescue

Published
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on March 29, 2009
in India and Wildlife
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leopard

This leopard was prowling for food near the Sonaigali village in Guwahati city, northeast India, when she fell into the well. There was not much of water in the well.

Local residents spotted the trapped animal when they came to draw water from the well Saturday morning, and informed the police who in turn contacted the forest rangers.

The rangers tranquilized the leopard and then veterinarian Bijoy Gogoi brought it out of the well and took it to the local zoo. [Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar in The Hindu]

Tiger or tigress? How to read the pugmark

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on March 16, 2009
in Technology and Wildlife
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Neha Sinha in The Indian Express:

Photo ianduffy / Flickr

Photo ianduffy / Flickr

Tiger scientist Ullas Karanth, working with the Lex Hiby of Conservation Limited and a team of scientists, has created a new software which can identify tigers by their unique stripe pattern, a first in tiger science. “The method of recognising a tiger by its pugmark has no efficacy and is prone to error. The new software has pattern recognition which can help match two photos of a tiger and identify individual animals,” Karanth says.

The software will also plug a loophole in the present system: identifying where a poached tiger originated from. “This software will be very helpful in long term research, and it will also help in identifying where a poached tiger was poached from provided we have an existing picture of the animal,” he says. “The software can be downloaded for use by anyone, and is currently being used in Karnataka,” he says. The team is now working on a spot identification pattern for leopards.

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West Bengal’s mangroves

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on March 11, 2009
in India, Travel and Wildlife
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Kevin Fitzgerald in The Financial Times:

sunderbans

At 5am in the mangrove jungle of the Sunderbans National Park in West Bengal, the inhabitants, human and animal, have already been up for several hours. Nothing is yet visible through the cool mist.

By 6am the mist is lifting and fishermen are finishing their all-night vigils in small wooden boats. They have spent the night with small oil lamps to attract fish, and with that catch safely stowed in the bottom of their boats, they are fishing in the shallows for crabs.

Soon the sun is revealing sari-clad women, knee-deep in mud, fishing for prawn fry and men venturing deep into the mangrove, searching for honey and wood. It’s a picturesque scene.

More:

[Photo: Loony Libberswick]

Wildlife of Pakistan

Published
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on February 11, 2009
in Pakistan and Wildlife
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wildlife

The above website on the Wildlife of Pakistan has been highly recommended by All Things Pakistan: “What impressed me most is that it displays a very well researched material, which is also very up to date. It is a rarity in my opinion, to find this unique topic about Pakistan on the web.”

The site is run by Sheikh Nausherwan Sarshar Ahmed who lives in Iowa, USA. Click on the image to go to the site.

12 new frogs in India’s Western Ghats

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on February 4, 2009
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Uma Vishnu in The Indian Express:

frogsIf they could, all the frogs of the world would croak a toast to this. Twelve new species of frogs have been discovered in the jungles of the Western Ghats, among the largest such reported finds, and a giant leap for amphibian research.

S D Biju of Delhi University and Franky Bossyut of the Amphibian Evolution Lab, Vrije University, Brussels, have published their findings in the latest issue of the Zoological Journal of Linnean Society, London, one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific journals. This is the first time that 12 frog species finds have been reported in a single issue of a publication.

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Birdwatching in Bhutan

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on January 21, 2009
in Bhutan and Wildlife
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Three birdwatchers — Bikram Grewal, Ramki Srinivasan and Sumit Sen — do some birding in western Bhutan. From kolkatabirds.com:

A Fire-tailed Myzornis and an Ibisbill.

A Fire-tailed Myzornis and an Ibisbill.

A Blue-fronted Redstart sat on a post and the ubiquitous Hodgson’s Redstarts were everywhere. We drove past the village of Begana and the road soon ended at a place called Dodina, where the track to the Cheri Goemba starts. The monks at this monastery look after the Gorals (a kind of mountain goat) and feed the pheasants who are exceeding tame. But like all good things in life, they come for a price. In this case you have to climb almost vertically for over an hour before you get to see the game. Our guide Tashi did not think this effort was worth to see a few birds, but it did not deter a slightly-built Bhutanese gentleman, from carrying a humongous cupboard on his back to be delivered to the holy men at the monastery. We crossed the Wang Chu by a lovely covered bridge and came to an open glade where breakfast was served, while Nutcrackers and Choughs soared overhead.

We decided to walk up a path that went gently uphill along the river when suddenly bird activity stated in earnest – Ramki started photographing a Hoary-throated Barwing, Swarna found a Rusty-flanked Treecreeper climbing a mud wall and Sumit discovered a flock, yes a flock of Green-Shrike Babblers. Hell broke loose with people running from one vantage point to the other. Not to be outdone a group of Golden-breasted Fulvettas made a fleeting and sudden appearance and a Little Forktail popped up on the river for good measure. A pair of Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrushes played hide and seek in the low shrubbery.

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Frolicking with dolphins

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on January 18, 2009
in India, Travel and Wildlife
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The Gangetic dolphin is one of the few remaining species of fresh water dolphins in the world. With the Chinese river dolphin Baiji recently termed functionally extinct, the Gangetic and the Amazon river dolphins are now the only two remaining freshwater dolphins. Take a cruise in the Brahmaputra and see the Gangetic dolphin. S. Mitra Kalita in Mint Lounge:

dolphinAs our boat approached the Brahmaputra, an unmistakable hump rose out of the river. In those seconds, the 10 of us on board reverted to childhood mannerisms to express joy: We cooed, squealed, aahh-ed, clapped hands.

For the next hour or so, our eyes darted here and there to catch a glimpse, each sighting greeted as enthusiastically as the last. If we happened to see a nose or rear or even the blowhole, the delight was much more palpable-and loud.

Just an hour outside Guwahati, the Brahmaputra is home to scores of Gangetic dolphins, locally called xihu (the “x” sounds similar to “h”). A few years ago, my good friend Sanjoy Hazarika, the well-known journalist and an expert on the North-East, had mentioned dolphins among the many causes he was involved with and urged me to take my daughter on a dolphin-watching trip. Last month, Hazarika-fresh from the festival-circuit success of Children of the River: The Xihus of Assam, a documentary he had produced- repeated his plea. And this time, I obeyed.

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Most viewed photos of 2008

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on December 28, 2008
in Media and Wildlife
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Among National Geographic’s top ten most viewed photos of 2008 is this image of the snowstorm leopard in India’s Hemis National Park:

leopard

Stalking India’s Hemis National Park, an extremely rare snow leopard lives up to its name in U.S. photographer Steve Winter’s award-winning National Geographic magazine image.

On October 30, 2008, “Snowstorm Leopard” was named best overall photo in the 2008 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, organized by the Natural History Museum of London and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Click here for more of the best photos of 2008

India’s elephants in peril

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on December 18, 2008
in India and Wildlife
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Sankar Roy at Asia Sentinel:

india-elephantAlthough the world’s concern has risen over the fate of India’s tigers, the descending numbers of India’s elephants have not caused alarm. They are not listed as endangered species. The Federal Ministry of Environment and Forests estimated the population of wild elephants at 26,413 in 2002, the last figure available. Although officials say the population has risen, the World Wildlife Fund believes that India’s elephant population has fallen by 50 percent over the last two decades. Statistical estimation on either tigers or elephants is not sound.

Obviously, as man encroaches, the elephant population faces problems, not least because they love to break into human settlements and poach not only crops but vats of homemade liquor. An Indian elephant needs some 500 square miles to roam, consumes 250 kilograms of leaves and wild fruits and drinks as much as 180 liters of water a day. Indiscriminate felling of trees and development projects cuts their habitat. Although the federal government has written and passed laws, implementation is in the hands of state governments, which often look the other way when poachers strike.

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Wildlife photographer of the year

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on October 31, 2008
in Media and Wildlife
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American photographer Steve Winter spent 10 months in remote Indian mountains using remote-controlled cameras to take pictures of snow leopards. One freezing May morning, he found this snow leopard gazing back at him. “I was thrilled to have finally captured the shot I had dreamed of – a wild snow leopard in its true element.”

Steve Winter was today named as wildlife photographer of the year.

More pictures on The Guardian website:

Czech butterfly collector flees India

Published
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on October 30, 2008
in Crime and Wildlife
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Compiled from dispatches:

Svacha and Kucera

Svacha and Kucera

In August this year, two Czech nationals were arrested “for stealing insects” near the Singalila National Park in Darjeeling. In September, the two — Prague-based entomologist Petr Svacha and his colleague Emil Kucera — were convicted by a local court.

Last week, Kucera, 52, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment for collecting rare insects without permission, fled the country after jumping bail and has reached his home country. Mr Svacha was let off with a fine. Details of the story here and here.

On October 26, after Kucera reached home, a Czech republic-based scientist wrote on his blog, The Reference Frame: “He (Kucera )has contacted his girlfriend in Czechia and asked her for contacts in India, a credit card, plus his second legally held passport. After four kilometers in a Jeep, he spent two hours by getting into Nepal. Again a Jeep, and a bus, and a fine in Nepal for being there without visas. Finally, he legally received the Nepali visas, after some discussions and 2,000 rupees (= USD 40) in bribes (an online interview with readers), and bought an air ticket to Bangkok, Frankfurt, and Prague from a travel agency. That’s what I call transparency. :-) ”

And he quotes Kucera’s letter written after reaching home: “…because it’s been quite some time since I began to feel that Darjeeling District is not able to guarantee my right for a fair trial, I decided to solve the difficult situation by a graceful exit of mine. At this moment, I am already on the territory of the Czech Republic. ” More:

Man-eaters rule in a land of widows

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on October 28, 2008
in Wildlife
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West Bengal’s villagers are increasingly the prey of tigers driven out of Bangladesh by flooding. Gethin Chamberlain in the Obserever:

In the remote village of Deulbari, everyone knows someone who has been attacked by a tiger. Until now, humans and tigers have coexisted uneasily in this outpost in the Sundarbans area of West Bengal, where 274 tigers were counted in the last census in 2004. This year has been different.

Approached through vivid green paddy fields dotted with pink water lilies, Deulbari is a village of roughly constructed houses, some with corrugated iron roofs, others just straw, bleached by the sun. It sits on the Indian shores of the mangrove forests that straddle the border between India and Bangladesh. After a cyclone last winter led to rising water levels and forced tigers from the Bangladeshi side over the border into India, the number of documented tiger attacks has soared. According to villagers, there have been 15 already this year, six of them fatal. The ranks of the tiger widows are swelling, and the horrifying tales are multiplying.

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One last stand: a new strategy to save the tiger

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on October 27, 2008
in Wildlife
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Sequestering tigers in nature reserves may doom them to a slow, genetic death. To save them, conservationists want to give them freedom to roam. Lily Huang in Newsweek:

Alan Rabinowitz has spent nearly three decades in a pitched battle to save the world’s few remaining havens for predator cats. He’s turned the Coxcombe Basin in Belize into the world’s first jaguar preserve, and built the largest nature reserve in Taiwan, the first national park in the Himalayas, and the world’s largest tiger reserve in Burma. Nevertheless, he knows he is losing.

The problem, Rabinowitz and other leading biologists now know, is that the classic conservation strategy of preserving habitat is in fact no defense against extinction. Twenty years ago, the devastation of natural forest was a visible danger. What went unseen was the damage sustained on a larger field of battle: the gene pool. A reserve may be a refuge for wildlife, but it is also a genetic sink. When a population of large predators is confined to pristine island of wilderness over time, they fall to inbreeding, leaving the species with weaker young and fewer defenses in an environment increasingly distorted by climate change. This is the deepening lesson of wildlife conservation from the post-industrial age to the genomic age: you can’t save animals without saving their homes, and you can’t save species without saving their genes.

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The pleasure of watching birds

Published
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on October 10, 2008
in Art and Wildlife
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John James Audubon was a naturalist and a brilliant wildlife artist. But some ornithologists, like Salim Ali, believed that illustrations are meant to be functional. Malavika Karlekar in The Telegraph, Calcutta:

Tropical Birding

Blue-throated Barbet / Photo: Tropical Birding

A few years later, as the civil-servant-cum-ornithologist, Allan Octavian Hume, was settling into retirement in England, Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was born to Zeenat-un-Nissa and Moizuddin, one of nine children. This was in Bombay in November 1896. On being orphaned, the brood “grew up under the loving care of a maternal uncle, Amiruddin Tyabji, and his childless wife, Hamida Begam”. Amiruddin was one of the earliest Indian members of the Bombay Natural History Society, and after an unusual sparrow with a yellow patch on its throat had fallen prey to young Salim’s airgun, he sent him off to meet Walter Samuel Millard, a British entrepreneur and naturalist who was honorary secretary of the Society and editor of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society.

It was in 1908 that a nervous adolescent entered the “quaint old single-storeyed building through its solid teakwood portal”. He need not have been so fearful at the thought of “meeting a full-grown sahib face to face”, as Millard not only identified the bird as a Yellowthroated Sparrow, but also took Salim on a conducted tour of many reference cabinets full of stuffed specimens. “The fortuitous incident with the Yellowthroated Sparrow,” wrote Salim Ali in his autobiography, aptly named The Fall of a Sparrow, “opened up undreamt of vistas for me”. In fact, it was the beginning of a long life of dedication to and involvement with Indian birds and ornithological experiences.

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