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Wildlife migration corridors from Ranthambhore
JAIPUR: After Ranthambore and Sariska, Darrah. Rajasthan is all set to get its third tiger reserve, and India its 39th, very soon. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has given its in-principle approval to the project at Darrah National Park, which is about 50 km from Kota.
State forest department officials said it was very likely that the first tiger would be relocated to the forests of Darrah by 2011.
The state government had submitted a proposal to the Centre for a tiger reserve at Darrah. NTCA has given its in-principle approval to it. The surplus tigers of Ranthambore will be translocated to Darrah after the area is declared a tiger reserve under Section 83 (v) of the Wildlife Protection Act 2006, said state forest and environment minister Ramlal Jat.
According to the minister, once declared a sanctuary, it will help form a large corridor connecting Sariska, Kota, Bundi and Ranthambore to Madhya Pradesh. This will not only take away the excess visitors from Ranthambore but also help Kota attract a large number of tourists, he said.
The Darrah National Park, also called the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, consists of three wildlife sanctuaries of Darrah, Chambal and Jaswant Sagar. It was declared a national park in 2004 and is spread over a total area of 250 km. It is separated from the Ranthambore national park by another 250 sq km stretch of Ramgarh Vishdhari Wildlife Sanctuary.
The park is the only one to have a perennial source of water from the Chambal Basin with the river running 4 to 5 metres deep in certain stretches.
(The Times of India, TNN 7 November 2009, 05:21am IST)
After reading this I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
The NTCA is in a rush to declare more and more forests as tiger reserves. The fact that a lot of the newly declared reserves, neither have any tiger nor any prey, does not seem to make any difference. Declaring the “Rajiv Gandhi National Park” as a tiger reserve would be really pushing it. In fact it would be a big joke.
The Rajasthan Forest Minister’s statement – “ The surplus tigers of Ranthambore will be translocated to Darrah after the area is declared a tiger reserve ………once declared a sanctuary, it will help form a large corridor connecting Sariska, Kota, Bundi and Ranthambore to Madhya Pradesh. This will not only take away the excess visitors from Ranthambore but also help Kota attract a large number of tourists” – is absolutely ridiculous.
What the minister does not know or did not state is:
1. Ranthambhore does not have surplus tigers : the current official figure is that there are 41 tigers in Ranthambhore tiger reserve. The Ranthambhore tiger reserve is 1334 square kilometers in area. Areas that have 10 or so tigers in 100 square kilometers is considered to be a high density area. By this logic 41 in 1334 square kilometers is not really high, so where do the surplus come from? The ral story is that out of the 1334 kms of Ranthambore tiger reserve - about half the area is the Kela Devi Sanctuary, about one fourth is the Ranthambore national park and most of the balance is the Sawai Mansingh snactuary. (See the map below). The 41 tigers are distributed in the entire tiger reserve as follows - Kela Devi has one, Sawai Mansingh has 5 or 6 and the national park has the rest. In other words, half of the entire tiger reserve just has one tiger and almost all the tigers are within the national park or the immediately adjoining part of the Sawai Mansingh sanctuary. It would be correct to say that the national park has a surplus of tigers but the same can not be said for the entire tiger reserve. In fact Sawai Mansingh sanctuary only gets tigers when there is a surplus inside the national park and Kela Devi sanctuary (which is nearly half the area of the total reserve) has hardly had any tigers in the last decade or so. Tiger do drift there from the national park but they do not last very long in this sanctuary, mainly because this sanctuary has very little prey and almost no protection.
2. There already is a corridor between Ranthambhore national park and Darrah wildlife sanctuary via the forests of Sawai Mansingh sanctuary, Lakheri, Talwas and Ramgarh sanctuary. Tiger in the past have gone all the way to Darrah and in the near future have been going till the forests of Lakheri. In reality this corridor is a death trap because in the last 10 years not a single tiger that drifted this way survived for long. There is very little prey and even less protection south of the Sawai Man Singh sanctuary. The adjoining forests of Madhya Pradesh (MP) are in an even worse state, in fact, this part of MP is the poaching heartland of India. Till about two decades ago this entire corridor was an excellent wilderness area. The last tigers of Darrah and Ramgarh died out without making any noise at all) in the early 1990s. Since then this corridor has been taking a thrashing at the hands of man. Right now the forest canopy still exists but the prey species (deer, wild pigs etc) are gone. There is a lot of cattle that the tiger can kill but that leads to conflicts with man, which are often lethal for the wild animal.
3. The above mentioned corridor has no links whatsoever with Sariska, which is a true “ecological island” with no scope at all for any inwards or outward migration of wild animals. For a tiger to get from Sariska to Ranthambhore, he will have to cross a very busy national highway, miles and miles of agricultural fields, numerous villages and at least three large towns besides a number of small ones. A really tough task for any tiger.
4. This will not only take away the excess visitors from Ranthambore but also help Kota attract a large number of tourists, said the minister. This is a pretty heavy price to pay to attract tourists to Kota.
What is needed is active and prolonged protection along this forested belt and it needs to be done now. A few years later may be too late. What is definitely not needed is to tranquilize a few tigers from inside Ranthambhore national park and fly them to Darrah Sanctuary and hope that they flourish there. Some of these tigers may have to turn vegetarian in Darrah since there is not enough meat on hooves there for them.
Don’t just take my word for it. Read what the Ranthambhore Project Tiger Management Plan 2001-2011 has to say about this (pasted below). The last para is the most interesting. (RTR means Ranthambhore tiger reserve and RNP is the Ranthambhore national park).
Ecological Boundaries:-
The flora and fauna of both Vindhyan and Aravalli hill ranges exist in the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. The forests of both the ranges were continuous in the past but due to fragmentation of vegetation cover the RTR has become an ecological island.
The RNP adjoins Keladevi sanctuary in the N.E. separated by river Banas, but the river does not present any barrier for the wild life to cross over. The Keladevi sanctuary is linked to the forest areas of Dholpur through a continuous forest tract. The forests of Keladevi sanctuary are gradually improving with increased level of protection, ban on migratory sheep and participatory forest protection strategy adopted by the villagers in the form of “Kulhadi Band (ban on use of axe) Panchayat” under the guidance of forest department.
In the south west of the RNP, Sawai Mansingh Sanctuary & Kuwalji Closed Area extend up to river Chakal and beyond. The adjoining forest areas of Bundi further connects RTR to forest areas of Kota. Therefore, a whole corridor is available for the movement of wildlife provided the adjoining areas of Dholpur, Bharatpur, Bundi and Kota districts also gets adequate protection. In fact, the area mentioned above can be a contiguous area for the Tiger.
The river Chambal in South to South East of RTR and the river Banas in North East to South East of the RNP forms a seasonal barrier to the wildlife to migrate from one area to another but there are reports of occasional presence of non-resident wild dogs in RTR and migration of wild animals such as Tigers and Leopard in Keladevi Sanctuary from M.P. forest area crossing the Chambal river as per the indirect evidences gathered from the Maharaja of Karauli.
On all other sides, RTR is surrounded by agricultural revenue land but the abundant presence of Black buck, Chinkara, Blue Bull, Smaller cats, Jackals & Foxes in the agricultural fields indicate that there is no barrier to these mammals and the area as a whole is rich in wildlife. Even tigers and panthers are reported from the habitation areas like Chouth Ka Barwada & Bhagwatgarh, which are nearly 30 Kms from RTR.
We may say that a belt of 50 Kms width along the left banks of the river Chambal from Kota up to Dholpur can be considered as the ecological boundary for the Tigers and other wild life of RTR.
The description given above indicates that a large tract constitutes the ecological boundary of RTR, but the fact remains that with the degradation of forest area, expansion of agriculture fields and other land uses, the ecological boundary tends to limit up to RTR area only in a true sense.
View Rajasthan Wildlife Corridors in a larger map
Ranthambhore – Sariska and tiger shuttle – Part II
……….About a year ago the Rajasthan Forest Department declared that they would relocate tigers from Ranthambhore to Sariska to right the wrong. When they fist came out with this plan almost everyone (including me) laughed at it. Most people (not me this time) had declared Sariska as history. A few months after it came out in the news that there were no tigers in Sariska – four of us – Dr. Dharmendra Khandal (Field Biologist of Tiger Watch), Dr. Amit Kotia (a fine botanist), Juhi Chaudhry (the then co-coordinator Kids for Tigers) and I – had gone to Sariska for a few days. At that time the Project Tiger and the Government of Rajasthan were still denying that tiger had been wiped out from Sariska. We had some great wildlife moments there. The habitat was amazing but the tigers were missing. Just a few weeks after we came back they government finally conceded that there were no tiger left in Sariska.
This was a big blow to the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Project Tiger, in fact, to the entire conservation movement in India. But nothing much changed. The budgets, priorities, procedures and staff stayed the same. But a handful of officers of the Rajasthan Forest Department and the Rajasthan police worked their heart out. The protection level went up dramatically. A number of poachers were apprehended and suddenly the poaching community (mainly members of the Mogiya and Bawaria hunting gathering tribes) was on the run. A convicted tiger poacher from Ranthambhore – Devi Singh Mogiya – told us this, on camera.
Dara male - the first tiger to be shifted from Ranthambore to sariska
The Mogiyas and Bawarias are off shoots of the larger Pardhi tribe. The general public opinion is that these people are extremely dangerous, very secretive and totally ruthless. They maybe ruthless for wildlife but they are really scared of any kind authority. They may be secretive but at the local level I was common knowledge that they were poaching big time. It is just that no one really bothered about them, till Sariska happened.
Dara male - the first tiger to be shifted from Ranthambore to sariska
Once the protection level increased tiger numbers in Ranthambore gradually recovered. In May 2005 the Rajasthan State Empowered Committee had declared that there were 26 tigers in Ranthambhore, which was untrue. At that time there were only 18 tigers – 13 adults and 5 cubs. Till a month or so ago there were 23 adults (one of the earlier 18 – Yuvraj - a young male was killed by Mogiyas somewhere in the end of November and six newer cubs had grown up), 6 sub adults and 8 young cubs. I could be wrong here by one or two but that would be about it.
There were recent media reports that the forest authorities had sighted 14 cubs (below the age of 4 months) during the hot summer months of 2008. This was hogwash. There are right now 8 cubs (in four different families) and not 14. And out of these 8 only 4 had been positively till the end of May. I don’t know how this figure of 14 came up. Anyways these figures are not really important. What is more relevant is that the population is on the recovery mode. Ranthambhore is not overflowing with tigers (as it is made out to be) but it is definitely on a rapid recovery mode.
By the beginning of this year the relocation plan became very serious. A lot of our “cocktail party” conservationists were dead against the plan. A few (that included me) were skeptical about it (in fact till a month ago I use to think that the Forest Department may not finally have the nerve to pull it off) but were not against it in principle. This was the only idea if Sariska had to be revived as a tiger reserve. The habitat and prey was there in Sariska but the tiger was missing. The experiment had to be tried out, even if it failed.
I have not been to Sariska in the last 6 months but the news that I was getting was that a few, actually five, enclosures – where the tigers would be released as soon as they reach Sariska. Once the tigers get over their “trauma” of the journey, they would be released.
Bachhi - the first tigress to be shfted to Sariska from ranthambore
By the second week of May most parts of the park were closed for tourists. The only part that was left open was the area of the lakes and the part from the lakes to a forest guard post called Guda (towards the southern end of the Ranthambore national park). The tourists were not complaining because this is one of the most popular part of the national park. Monitoring of tigers in the closed part of the park was intensified and some tigers were short listed for relocation. By the middle of June a few of the shortlisted tigers were radio collared, besides the three that had been radio collared some months ago.
Bachhi - the first tigress to be shfted to Sariska from ranthambore
The tigers that were shortlisted were young tigers that had separated from their mothers about a year or so ago. A tiger of that age group would have just about established (particularly females) their territories in Ranthambhore but would not have been totally entrenched there. To move even one tiger, four or five would have to be identified so that they would be able to surely find one of them to tranquilize a few hours before they were to be air lifted.
The plan was to make a stopgap helipad inside the Ranthambore national park, where an Indian air force helicopter could land. Experts from the Wildlife Institute of India would tranquilize one of the identified tigers, put them in a covered cage, load this cage on the helicopter and fly them to Sariska, where they would be released inside the enclosures. Sounds easy but it is very difficult to pull off.
In late 2007, three tigers were radio collared in Ranthambore for monitoring purpose. When this was done, we suddenly realized that the Forest Department was serious about shifting tigers to Sariska. One of these three tigers – a male that is slightly over 3 years old and is known as the Darra male or T 10 – was the first tiger that was the first tiger to be relocated to Sariska. The helicopter arrived in Ranthambhore on the evening of the 28th of June. The idea was to relocate the first (of the five – 2 males and 3 females) tiger on the morning of the 29th. It almost did not work out because it was raining heavily on the 29th morning. The tiger (Darra male) was located and the entire forest team was waiting for the rains to stop. Slightly after 1000 hours or so the rain stopped, the tiger was tranquilized, put in the cage and airlifted. It was real touch and go. The tiger recovered from the tranquilizing dose in midair but was still too dazed to move around. They managed to land him in Sariska and move the cage to one of the enclosures. The top brass of Rajasthan Forest Department was in the helicopter with the tiger.
A forest officer told me that the moment they opened the gate of the cage, the tiger almost charged out of it and hid behind some bushes in the enclosure. They had left a bait for him in the enclosure, which he killed a few hours after being released but did not eat till much later.
On the 6th of July a tigress, known here as Bachhi (or daughter – because she is the daughter of a Ranthambhore most famous tigress – Machali – from the last litter) was similarly moved. This time the entire operation went like clockwork. Bachhi was my favorite, an absolute beauty, and I have some amazing pictures of her. What was interesting is that these two were territorial neighbors and had mated about a month ago. Both of them are still very young so the mating may not be fruitful but they would be surely recognizing each other’s scent. A day after Bachhi reached Sariska, the Darra male was released from his enclosure. He is now free to establish his domain. The forest department has been cleared the first big hurdle but there is still a big hill to climb. I am sure they will climb it.
In the map pasted below Bachhi’s territory is marked in red, while the Darra male’s territory is marked out in black. Hope they do well.
Map of Ranthambore
Hats off to officers like R N Mehrotra (Chief Wildlife Warden, Rajasthan), R S Shekhawat (Deputy Field Director, Ranthambhore national park), R S Somashekhar (DFO Sariska) and their supporting staff. You pulled out the first two rabbits out of the hat. Congrats.
Ranthambhore – Sariska and tiger shuttle – Part I
About an hour ago I checked my mail and got a shock. There was this comment on my last post (Shooting with Andy Rouse) from Anubhav, who I presume is a person of Indian origin living in the USA. It goes something like this (for those who are too lazy to read the entire comment).
Hello Aditya,
Nice to know about your nature photography 101. Reading your blog for the past 1 year. I have come to expect a lot of the serious stuff plaguing the park like what were your observations on Sariska translocation? How is the dam doing? Did you find takers for cash pooling? Are the poaching tribes still on the fringes?
May I politely suggest that please keep your post like you kept them earlier i.e. mainstream pressing issues get the lime light……..Keep justifying your name– THE SUN– and give life to Ranthambhore.
I began replying to him ………………………………
Dear Anubhav,
I though there was just an overkill of “serious” tiger news in the media and on the net for the last few months. :)…………..Almost everyone in India has overnight become an expert…… and is working to save the tigers. Just got bored of serious stuff and taking a break from it. That is one of the reasons I have not been posting much for the last 4 months or so.
There were two thoughts going through my head. One, I did not know that people actually “read” my blog. And two, I did not know that people take me seriously (my wife does not). And then I decided to blog it. Seriously.
Tigress with young cubs in ranthambore
Sariska Tiger Reserve was one of the original “nine” wildlife sanctuaries that were taken up under the Project Tiger in 1973. It was an excellent tiger habitat (still is) but due to poor protection the number of tigers there started dwindling in the middle 1990s. Somewhere in the later half of 2004, tiger disappeared from Sariska, shot dead by commercial poachers. Most of us (including the Project Tiger directorate in Delhi) came to know about it, when a friend of mine – Jay Mazumdar – wrote about it in a national daily newspaper called the Indian Express. I have an earlier post about it.
Soon after that there was a big media outcry about tigers. For almost a year before “Sariska Zero” became news there were reports of tiger crisis coming from almost all over India and Corbett tiger reserve was probably the only Project Tiger Reserve that stayed crisis free. Suddenly everyone became with access to media became tiger experts and lot of wildlife conservationists woke up from their sleep. And all this happened over night. There was no crisis till the day before Indian Express exposed Sariska zero. What followed became wildlife history in India. We heard stuff like “Rajasthan does not deserve tigers”, “hang the managers of these reserves” etc. But nothing changed at the ground level (I mean at the various Project Tiger Reserve level).
Tigress shifted to Sariska
Of course no such hanging took place. A few Forest guards in Sariska were suspended, a few committees and Task Forces were formed and they published their reports. The Government of India and Rajasthan ended up with egg on their face and Project Tiger got really bad press publicity. A lot of “tiger lovers” and “wildlife conservationists” – both professional and amateur – got all excited and tried to get their “15 seconds of fame” and some got much more than that. Everyone declared Sariska a “basket case.”
Does Rajasthan deserve its tigers? Tough question to answer. I think India does not deserve its tigers. But we have to remember that tiger are not just our national heritage, they are our planet’s heritage. And I don’t think we, Indians, deserve to be the guardian of this global treasure. Why? Because despite such a big outcry nothing really happened. We were very happy shouting and cursing the Forest Department but we just plain refused to really correct the situation. A few very superficial measures were undertaken and we were happy. The conservationists declared that the crisis was over and “good news” started pouring from all over. We started hearing things like “massive budgetary outlay for tiger protection from now on, army commandos deployed in tiger reserves, tiger reserves have been sealed and declared inviolate” and so on. No such thing happened at the ground level. The budgets did go up – from pathetically low to very low, army commandos were actually retired army personnel who had no understanding of wildlife, Wildlife issues rose from lowest priority for the government to very low priority. Basically nothing changed at the ground level.
There was some genuine good news. Ranthambhore, which had almost got decimated, revived but that was mainly because a few officers and officials worked their heart out. Corbett was another good news – again thanks to a handful of officers and officials. There was no change in the outlook of the Government of India, except for some very slick media management. And most of the media lapped it up. There were a few sane voices in the media – journalists like Bittu Sehgal – the editor of Sanctuary magazine, Jay Mazoomdaar, Prerna Singh Bindra and a few more but their voices were partially drowned out in the din.
About a year ago the Rajasthan Forest Department declared that they would relocate tigers from Ranthambhore to Sariska to right the wrong……….