Leopard Attacks In India - Can People Learn To Live With Leopards? @BBC

#India, #HumanWildlifeConflict, #Leopard, #BBCNaturalWorld

Facing A Patchy Future - in the survival game alongside humans

As a 10yr old, I remember leopard thoughts filling my mind while cycling through a low-hills area where I used to roam, 3-4km from home, for the thrill of freewheeling down the narrow bendy road at great speed. A leopard was caught there around that time. More surprisingly, in 2010, another leopard was caught (http://bit.ly/Lprd-KNR2010) next to the beach, another of my old cycling haunts, 8km away at Azhikode - which I re-discovered as the best location for morning beach runs, in recent years! Never thought they could reach there through densely populated countryside (From 2011 India census, the average population density of Kannur district towards the north of Kerala is 852 people per sq. km). But this latest documentary broadcast in the UK last week, gives the insights, why such things can happen, with the highly adaptable predator.  

Can people learn to live with such Animals?, is the most relevant question posed here. "To a large extent, Man-Eating Leopards are a man-made problem", said Dr Vidya Atreya who's been doing her research on leopards, around the sugar cane fields on the plains of Maharashtra!- another place you wouldn't normally expect to see leopards.

This film focusing on Leopard conflicts in India, is presented by the iconic wildlife conservationist of India, Romulus Whitaker. With footages from Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and sugarcane fields of Maharashtra, and Mumbai, where 'a stray dog a week' is enough for a leopard!.

Whitaker started off on leopard trail, after his dog was taken by one, and another of his dogs attacked, from his home on the far outskirts of Chennai in Kanchipuram dist, where he lives with his wildlife writer partner Janaki Lenin.

@BBC - Leopards 21st Century Cats :

About 85 years ago, The Man-Eater of Rudraprayag from Kumaon hills was eventually shot dead by Jim Corbett, for it was said to have killed 125 people; many pilgrims en route to Gangotri. It became famous through his book Man-Eaters of Kumaon. Even today, in this area of himalayan foothills in Uttarakhand, about 70 people are killed by leopards every year-  highest fatality rate from leopard attacks in India.
Surprisingly, the next highest fatality rate is seen in the sugarcane fields of Maharashtra, right in the densely settled plains, a 'purely human landscape' away from jungles!- the leopards there have never seen a forest in their life!!. 100 of them were captured in 3 years, to be dumped in forests upto 150miles away, only to see many return in a matter of weeks.

In Kumaon, where Lakpak, a school teacher took it upon himself to rid the nearby hills of man-eaters after 9 of his students disappeared, falling prey to leopards. Since then, in the last 10years, he has taken out 40 man-eaters with his gun!..and the story continues..

Intriguingly, in places like Rajasthan there aren't much conflicts with people- they are even 'friendly'!, other than taking their cattle.

 The increased poaching to supply body parts to SE Asia is considered one of the reasons causing increased conflicts in many places, like Kumaon.

"If an ordinary leopard sees a man, it will go away. If a man-eater sees you, it will crouch down nearby, ready to attack you. Normal leopard fear humans. Man-eaters overcome their fear"!, says Lakpak.

But the biggest surprise for me was from Mumbai- India's biggest city with 20m people, and the fourth largest metropolis in the world, has the highest density of wild leopards anywhere on earth!! 

Had read about frequent conflicts there when my workplace was just outside Sanjay Gandhi National Park boundary.. Yet, this information is almost Unbelievable!! - As is their Adaptability!

More Program info:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnnh

A leopard slinks through village fields, in Maharashtra

The 'Convicted' Man-Eater that can't be released back into the wild,
for it has developed a taste for humans and have taken many, in Maharashtra. It's been kept for some years at the enclosure run by 'Wildlife SOS', a wildlife rescue&rehabilitation NGO, which works to help reduce conflicts and builds awareness for people to live alongside wildlife.
They want to avoid creating such enclosures and sad stories for future- for people & animals.

+

On a related note, here is another gripping documentary of conflicts -

The Last Man-eater (Killer Tigers of India) @National Geographic [45min].
(I did not quite like the slightly sensationalised style of presentation, yet it is insightful and extraordinary.)

Why did the Tigers of the Sunderbans acquire a taste for humans, and still are the last of the tigers in the world to regularly kill humans? 

Even after much research, No one knows for sure! 

Yet, these Indians revere Nature and the Tiger, even under severe survival conditions!

Sundarbans is a dense maize of tidal mangrove forest swamps habitat - world's largest mangrove forests (>10,000km²)

Talk@LSE- The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity : Ending the Economic Invisibility of Nature

The recent talk at London School of Economics,

"The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity : Ending the Economic Invisibility of Nature",

by economist Pavan Sukhdev, head of UN Environment Programme's Green Economy Initiative,

and Study Leader of TEEB .

Prior to his work for TEEB and UNEP, he was Head of Deutsche Bank's Global Markets Business in India

 and a founding member of the Green Indian States Trust (GIST).

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study is a major international initiative to draw attention to the global economic benefits of biodiversity, to highlight the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, and to draw together expertise from the fields of science, economics and policy to enable practical actions moving forward.

The TEEB study is being led by UNEP with financial support from the European Commission, German Federal Ministry for the Environment, and the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The study is led by Pavan Sukhdev, a senior banker from Deutsche Bank, and founder-director of the green accounting project “GIST” (Green Indian States Trusthttp://www.gistindia.org/ ) in India. Mr. Sukhdev is currently on secondment with UNEP. This proposal was endorsed by G8+5 leaders at the Heiligendamm Summit on 6-8 June 2007, and work on the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) study began.

[45min talk. 1hr 30min, including Q&A ]

If interested, the slides are available here.

I think he is heading very important initiatives and studies very relevant in the context of Sustainable Development.

This talk was held by invitation from LSE's Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change and the Environment,

chaired by Nicholas Stern, whose famous ' Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change' of 2006 discusses the effect of global warming on the world economy, the most widely known and discussed report of its kind.

Rainforest Memories, Tigers &Cry From The Ghats

Read a really good wildlife article in Frontline magazine (Jan 2010), about The Great Indian Hornbill's survival plight in the Western Ghats.
 It is the state-bird of Kerala, and such an iconic symbol of high-canopied rain-forests

 Cry from the Ghats : 

"There has been a drastic fall in the number of Great Indian Hornbills
 in their Western Ghats home."
 http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2702/stories/20100129270206400.htm

..This article brought some Memories of Rainforest :
Jungle-Dolby-Surround-Sound, and watching The Great Indian Hornbill
(The bird is known in malayalam as "Malamuzhakki Vezhambal", due to the very noticable-from-afar sound of its wingbeats.)

 Great Indian Hornbill male 
(This photo is from the North-EastIndia trip. @Kaziranga NP, Assam)

Trekking through Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala :
Reading that article, a few 'hornbill' memories came flying in.. including the latest one last July, during the Tiger Trails treks through Periyar Tiger Reserve, Thekkady. It took me to this world inside a high-canopy rainforest early in the morning; To the moments of excitement created by the sudden deep whooshing sound of flights of a pair of Great Indian Hornbills, and their sudden 'disappearance' into high canopy when trying to trace them by the direction of the sound. Then, again another round of sound.. and silence.. which repeated for a while.. Caught glimpses of their flight- during moments I traced the sound, they flashed in sight.

After each whoosh dies down, Eyes wide open, ears pricked, necks craned up to the canopy, heart pumping with excitement, fingers pointed, among hard-to-contain whispers getting louder, "there.. THERE..".. and the "Sshhhh".. to counter it. As if the birds caught the whispers, they would go again one after the other...  Whoosh... Whooooshhh...

What a way to start a day!!, I felt, walking on the soggy leaves through the misty morning in the forest, while the sun was still warming up, slanting yellow streams of light filtering through the high foliage. Had already seen fresh-from-the-night pugmarks of a tiger after a light night rain.. earlier in the trek. 
( More about TigerTrails experience : 
 http://greenwich-times.blogspot.com/2009/08/conservation-new-killer.html )

Tiger Trails! Fresh pugmark of a female Tiger.
(Click for: WWF guide on Identifying Pugmarks )

Jungle-Dolby-Surround-Sound

When walking back to the tent, had another first-of-a-kind "jungle-dolby-surround-sound" experience. For a few minutes, while walking I was distracted (from looking for birds and scattered reflections in the mind about the forest), by a vague and a bit far-away sounding buzz. It felt like, may be someone disturbed a honey comb or stirred up a hornet's nest (and That 'Someone' could even be a Sloth Bear- one was seen near the tent the previous day;). The buzz was barely perceptible, fading and then back, slightly surging for a while. I scanned for any signs of honeycombs. Nothing. Then left trailing the sound and forgot about it.

 About 20minutes later, it came up again, this time more sustained, and was getting clearer, and louder and louder... like a marauding army of a huge swarm of wasps coming towards you. Didn't really know, what to expect- and was thinking of escape routes and whether can escape it at all, as it sounded overwhelmingly huge. Then slowly realised, it's not 'from inside', but a swarm flying just above the forest cover, as it grew from a threateningly approaching booming hum into a pleasant crescendo that takes you to a wonderful High. Almost surreal, when a swarm of insects, barely seen, only like a faint light wispy 'fluid smoke cloud', of wasps perhaps, teeming with life, buzzed past overhead as a unit, leaving a unique, never-before, sensational auditory feeling, as if you could feel your tympanum vibrating even after it faded out in the direction opposite to where it came booming-in from..

..and then, there was a feeling of relief as well, like a soldier might feel, escaping the eagle-eyes of an enemy military recce flight passing overhead!, as the engine drone fades away! ;)

--x--

From a Misty Morning in a Mystic Tiger Forest
Dew on gossamer on the grass blades in an open glade in the tiger forest.

Edges of Tiger Forest.
Meditative Landscape: Tranquility of a Tamed, Quietened River?
Periyar Reservoir

Memories perched quietly
On the gnarled branches of time
On faraway lands
Like dew on slender gossamer strands
Swaying timidly,
Adrift in the whispering wind;
Like secrets and quiet tears
Suspended graciously over 
Blades of grass on
Glades of a Tiger Forest.

@Kaziranga NP, Assam
The back of the casque is reddish in females while the underside of the front and back of the casque is black in males.
The male spreads the preen gland secretion which is yellow onto the primaries and bill to give them the bright yellow colour. (primaries -flight feathers- can be seen yellowish on the white band, in the flight photo on top. 
Also Females are smaller than males and have bluish-white instead of red eyes although the orbital skin is pinkish. Like other hornbills, they have prominent "eyelashes".

In India, found in a few forest areas in the Western Ghats and along the sub-Himalayan forests.
Their distribution extends into Thailand, Burma, Malaya and Sumatra/Indonesia.
 Their habitat is dense old growth (unlogged) forests in hilly regions. 
They appear to be dependent on large stretches of forest unlike many of the smaller hornbills.)

Birding Trek in Assam, North-East India: 

Another exciting day with Hornbill was while staying at Nameri Wildlife Sanctuary, Assam, during a NE India trip, where we did a birding trek. But even before the trek began, the presence of birds there was so filling! I woke up early morning in a thatched hut-dorm, and after freshening up was lazing in bed listening to the piercing din of bird calls from all sides while morning mist was filling me with freshness..That's when I heard the loud whooshing wing-beats of a hornbill, and I rushed out of bed grabbing my binocs- a Great Indian Hornbill!!, right there!! What a place, to see a Hornbill right when you step out from bed! Got my pal Luke also out from the dorm to catch sight of it. We followed it for half an hour. What an unforgettable morning that is!. My ears fill with bird calls everytime I think of that place.

After this morning high, went to the small nature-books library there in that compound of thatched roof buildings and found this very interesting book by Vikram Seth--his anthology titled "Beastly Tales from Here and There" (1992)- 'A group of 10 animal fables in rhymed couplets'. 'The Elephant and The Tragopan' is one of them, an 800-line  'Eco-Poem' with lot of socio-political significance, dramatically highlighting the mindless destruction of the environment in the name of so-called "Development".According to the author, the book is set 'in the grand tradition of Panchatantra'. I came upon this in the small collection there, as we were about to leave for the morning trek, and I had to rush through the initial part of it, liked it quite a bit, and so took photos of all the 25 or so pages of that poem, to read during the journeys, before it was time to leave the place for the trek into the forest..

Later I was to find out that The poem The Elephant and The Tragopan
was inspired by work done by Vikram Seth's brother Shantum Seth 
(through the Seven Sisters environmental group) in 1991 on the conservation of 
the Dzukou Valley in Nagaland and Manipur in NE India 
and to highlight the adverse effects of a proposed dam there. 

 (Tragopan is a very colourful bird, a beautiful pheasant, 
some species found only in the Himalayas, 
and others also seen in parts of China, Southeast Asia etc).

+ What You Save, When You Save The Tigers & Their Forests ?- It's the Complete Ecosystem!.
   Here are Some Beautiful Sights - If We Look Close Enough :
(Shots from Periyar Tiger Reserve, Thekkady) 

This is from the wing of Common Banded Peacock!, from the Western Ghats..You must have seen!  Apparently, the distinct "dots" with magnificent colours are "scales in interior of its wings"!..Found some fascinating e-microscope images of these here- Wing Scales of Butterflies! How they get those colours!! - http://bit.ly/ButterflyWingScales

Common Banded Peacock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papilio_crino  

Interestingly, for a related species, Malabar Banded Peacok, taxonomic name is 'Papilio BUDDHA' ;)). Wonder why they named it so!.. Did someone spot it meditating too much on a Lotus?! 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papilio_buddha

• + What is the Trick to Making the Most Waterproof Stuff on Earth? : It's all in the texture. An MIT-led team of mechanical engineers is creating a super water-resistant material inspired by the wings of butterflies -  “For years industry has been copying the lotus. They should start thinking about copying butterflies and nasturtiums,” MIT engineering professor Kripa Varanasi tells BBC News. “We believe these are the most super-hydrophobic surfaces yet.”

Spooky patterns on the Spotted Grasshopper- Aularches miliaris

+ Fascinating article.. which says, Some Grasshoppers can miraculously morph into

 Locusts- of entirely different social behaviour, at short notice- within hours!!!, 

and some can quickly return to original form!!

(Not sure whether we have such species of Grasshoppers in India)

 http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/why-its-time-to-lay-the-selfish-gene-to-rest/

Wing patterns of the Spotted Grasshopper- Aularches miliaris

Mushroom Patterns

The Malabar Whistling Thrush
Also known as 'the whistling school boy'

And finally, Us, Humans!

Crossing the Periyar!

Returning to the tent after the trek.
Aami on the raft. 

The dew was shot a few minutes after the sighting of fresh tiger pug marks on wet mud, 
which had powerful impact on the mind.. 
I was sort of meditating on those dew drops on forest floor..with my close-up lens, holding breath, as the smallest draft would disturb the tenderly perched dew and make it out of focus.Slightly ahead in the trek route, my dear cousin Aami was fidgeting impatiently, waving and slashing a long twig in her hands on the grass around, waiting for me to be just done with that kneeling on the ground and move on, with our guide towards the river.. I guess she was anxious after seeing the pugmarks on wet mud and lots of hoofs strewn around nearby..-"Is the tigress around? Was there a kill??"..her mind might have gone into overdrive.. and to add to it, there was the story of tiger-roars which the guide claimed to have heard from the tent during the night! ;)