Water security in Ranthambhore
For the last two years the tiger numbers in Ranthambhore National Park have been going up and soon there will be more tigers than the park can accommodate. A few sub adult tigers are already drifting out of the park, where the protection levels are not as high as they are in the Park. Recently a male sub adult was killed outside the boundary of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. One short-term solution for increasing the number of tigers in Ranthambhore is to improve the habitat within the Reserve so that more tigers can establish their territories inside the Reserve.
The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve consists of the following Protected Areas:
1. Ranthambhore National Park.
2. Sawai Madhopur Sanctuary.
3. Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary.
4. Kela Devi Sanctuary.
5. Certain other Forested Areas.
Out of the entire Tiger Reserve, the National Park constitutes only about 22% of the area of the Reserve and tigers are found only with the boundaries of the National Park and the Sawai Madhopur Sanctuary. A few tigers do stray to Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary and to the southeastern fringe of the Kela Devi Sanctuary but they do not establish their territories in these areas. For the last few years the officials of the Ranthambhore Tiger Project (Core Division) have been making great efforts to improve the habitat with the Reserve. As a result areas such as Balas and Chidi Kho in Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary, Kundal in Sawai Madhopur Sanctuary and Ghateshwar in Kela Devi Sanctuary have been added as potential tiger habitat.
Indala ki Dang
Within the Ranthambhore national Park there are areas that are right now not suitable tiger habitats. The three essentials that make a tiger habitat are vegetation cover (wooded areas and ground cover), presence of prey species in sufficient numbers and the presence of permanent waterholes. Most of the areas that are not suitable as tiger habitats with in the National Park are devoid of permanent Water holes. One such area is the Indala ki Dang (highlighted in the map above).
Indala ki Dang (or Indala plateau) has an area of almost 90 square kilometers, which is almost 30% of the area of the National Park. There is a small village called Indala at the southern edge of this plateau. Till a few years ago this plateau was seriously over grazed and there was little or no ground cover. Grazers from the villages that lie along the southern and eastern edge of the Park used to graze their cattle in this plateau. There was very little woodcutting in the area because the villages were too far to carry wood. As a result while there was no ground cover there were enough trees in the plateau. Due to the loss of ground cover the plateau could not retain much rainwater and barely a month after the end of monsoons almost all the water holes in the plateau used to dry out. In the last few years the Forest Department managed to drastically reduce the grazing pressure in the plateau and gradually the under growth regenerated. (see picture below)
On the 24th of December 2007 I visited the Indala ki dang, after a gap of three years, with the Deputy Field Director of Ranthambhore National Park and I was pleasantly surprised. The plateau had almost totally regenerated and was now in a shape to support tigers. There were enough wooded areas, undergrowth and prey species. The only thing that was lacking was permanent water holes. We found evidence (pugmarks and scat) of the presence of 7 different tigers. The feedback from the Forest Guards who are manning the different Forest Chowkis in Indala was that there is a lot of tiger movement in the area, however very few tigers stay permanently in the plateau and this is mainly due to the absence of permanent water holes in the area.
The natural water sources that existed in the plateau were almost totally destroyed due to cattle grazing and these may take a long time to recover. The Deputy Field Director is of the opinion that this plateau, along with its neighboring areas, has the potential to accommodate between 8 and 10 tigers and that most of the cubs and sub adult tigers of Lahpur valley, Sakri valley and Thumka valley could establish their territories in Indala, provided there were enough water sources in the area. He plans to dig 5 wells in the plateau in strategic locations and use each one of these wells to support two water holes. The cost of digging each well is about Rs. 125,000 and the cost of creating two water holes (for each well) would be a further Rs. 50,000.
The Deputy Field Director is looking for all the financial help that he can get to provide permanent water sources on Indala so that tigers form their permanent territories in the plateau and not just use it as a transitional zone. We, the people at The Ranthambhore Bagh have committed to provide the funds required for one well and two water holes that will go with this one well and work has already started. We are looking for partners who can help us dig the other 4 wells. We feel that if a mere Rs. 1,000,000 can add an area of almost 90 square kilometers of tiger habitat to the Ranthambhore National Park; it is a very small price to pay.
Hello, great blog – I visited Ranthambhore in 1998 and I’m grateful for the news on what is happening there now. I didn’t see any tigers during my visit (not surprising, really) but I did see four leopards together at night just outside the park, presumably a female and three adult-sized young. Later, I saw a sloth bear from a ridge within the park.
I’ve put a link to your blog from mine, which is about wildlife here in Britain (and occasionally Canada).
http://my.opera.com/sittingfox
Best wishes,
Adele
Dear Adele,
This is a very basic effort but it doe get the news across. I am not very net savvy and my connection is the slowest in the world. But it does carry the word across.
Regards,
Aditya
Hi Aditya, I think that I may be able to help you with funding for this, or at least some. Our Aspira Conservation Fund will make its next donations in August 2008. We could also discuss doiung something else in the meantime. I have sent you a few emails about this. Thanks
Andy Rouse
http://www.andyrouse.co.uk
Dear Andy,
Thanks a lot. We can really do with all the help that we can get. I was out of town and could not access the net for the last few days. I will get back to you on this in a day or two.
Regards,
Aditya Singh
Dear Aditya,
Thank you for the fantastic blog and alerting us about this urgent requirement of funds.
I am based out of Bombay and will be able to help you out. Kindly email a telephone / mobile number that I can call you on to jitin(at)21tigers(dot)com.
Best regards,
Jitin Abraham
Hey Aditya finally got to see your website….its awesome. couldnt you put up all the other tiger pics as well? Ranjan
Hello Aditya,
Excellent Job.
Your love and concern for the tigers shine through clearly.
We are a group of 4 based in Mumbai who have been trying to do out best to creat awareness regarding the tiger and its endangered survival.
After an unsuccessful attempt to catch a glimpse of the tiger in Corbett last year, we are coming to Ranthambhore in April this year.
Hope we can see the king in all his glory.
Carry on the good work.
Best Wishes and Regards,
Dr. Akshay G Nair
What I understand in life a businessmen doesn’t do any thing without profit. This money collection spree also looks like the same. In fact this is a nice way of publicizing one’s enterprise.
I have seen the Ranthambhore, Panna, Corbett and a few more places and have figured out that wherever the local residents respect the nature their you see the growth in the flora and fauna. Digging a water hole in the park is no way helpfull if the people keep on going there and keep on cutting the trees and keep on damaging the forest. Your water hole will serve their purpose as well. Let the nature be as it was. Digging a holes in the park is interfrance in the nature, but it will benefit the businessman. As if the tigers find another habitat than ‘Tourists’ will divert there and it will be loss to you. Therefore whatever may be the effect on the nature dig holes in the park and save your business. Please understand on fact very clearly no power can stay in force without the support and acceptances of the masses. Till such time there are clashes between human and animal interest animals won’t survive. If you are really woking for the safeguard of the wildlife than try to reduce this conflict instead of money collection spree.
Try to educate the masses. Create awareness amongst people about the nature and it’s importance for the human being. It needs a mass movement and big political will not merely a million rupees. It needs an effort like Sunderlal Bahugana in Garhwal Himalayas through Chipko movement. It doesn’t need an effort of a businessmen to collect the money and invisibly promote his business. It needs the accepatnces of masses.
I have visited Ranthambhore many a times and every time I see a few more hotels and houses. Forest cover is shrinking, rain fall dropping and the pressure of the populace is increasing on the forest. All the ‘Tiger Activists’ are running hotel or are engaged in some other tourist related profitable business activity. In fact every one is behind the ‘Dollar’ in the name of tiger may it be government officials or the ‘Tiger Activist’. The mute aim of everybody is to earn profits and profits. This thought needs to be changed. Do not see the Ranthambhore Tiger wraped in Dollars. See it as tiger in all it’s glory and might.
Dear Anonymous,
To start with we are not raising money from anyone. In fact we do not even have any mechanism to do so. There is a small bunch of us who are putting in the money from our own pockets. So much for being a “businessman”.
the terms that you use like “interference with nature”, “people cutting trees”, “tourists v/s pure nature” etc etc are good for a school debate but they just don’t work in reality.
Right now tigers exist only in a handful of forests that had been popular with tourists for along time. In areas where “there was no interference with nature” there are no tigers left.
You are right – hotels and houses are coming up fast in Ranthambhore, but you forgot to add that they are coming up in a 5 kilometer long strip in Sawai Madhopur town, which adjoining a very small part of Ranthambhore. Ranthambhore’s boundaries, incidentally, are over 2000 kilometers long and forests exist here because people did not cut them down as they did in almost all other parts of India.
I would also like to add that in Ranthambhore tigers exist only in the tourism zone or areas touching the tourism zone. In the balance 75% of Ranthambhore tiger reserve there are no tigers. It is this area that we are trying to make into tiger habitats. Did you know that the Ranthambhore that you saw – the lakes, ruins, almost all the “natural” water holes – are man made. In late 1960s Ranthambhore was a network of large villages with interspersed forests.
Please get a few facts right before preaching.
Regards,
Aditya Singh
Good on you Aditya.
Congratulations on having achieved your task.
Hope your hard work bears good fruit despite sceptics such as the blogger here who thinks big enough of himself to have such a distorted opinion of the truth and publicize it and force it but is not man enough to tell us his true identity.
Hope to meet you in April.
Regards,
Dr. Akshay G N I
Dear Aditya
No need to be upset or angry and make your bad feelings known in words. The fact still remains what ever you may do if this is not a peoples movement it is not going to sustain. This is not school debate this is reality. You can get underground water provided you protact the vegetation on the top. How fast the level of underground water is dropping is known to every one.
You have correctly said about the water bodies in the park. They are man made of course but were not filled by the man. Old wells ae drying out due to deforestation. I believe the key is forestation of the areas in the outskirts of the park. This is task which needs patient and long time.
I was and am not preaching you. I was letting others to know the reality of the mushrooming environmentalists. I still reitrate my fellings that most of tham are in the ‘business’to promote their own interest. Tiger is up there in the jungle and no one is worried about it not even the forest department.
Bye and best of luck. Don’t feel bad and keep your spirits high.