Archive for wildlife conservation
You are browsing the archives of wildlife conservation.
Two tiger poisoned in Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve
At around 1000 hours in the morning the Deputy Field Director of Ranthambhore national park (RS Shekhawat) called me and asked me to reach the Tadla chowki (or Forest Guard House) near Banas river as soon as possible, along with MD Parasher. He told me that the two “Chiroli cubs” were dead, probably poisoned and that he was inside the Ranthambhore national park and heading to the area where this happened. He wanted both of us to be an “independent witness” to the case.
I got in touch with MD Parasher (an artist based in Ranthambhore) and we left for the Tadla in a few minutes. When we reached the chowki there was a guard waiting for us and from there we drove towards a small village called “Tadla ka khet” about a mile ahead of Amli Deh (a deep water pool in the river). This area is across the river Banas and lies in the Baler forest range, at the edge of the Keladevi sanctuary, which is a part of Ranthambhore tiger reserve. We met up with RS Shekhawat, Range Officer Daulat Singh and the Range Officer Baler at the edge of river Banas, just beyond Amli Deh. There were about a dozen forest guards with them. The Deputy Director confirmed that the two cubs (actually sub adult tigers who had separated from their mother slightly over two months ago) were dead.
The location:
The “Tadla ka khet” village lies in the midst of ravines between the Banas river basin and the Keladevi plateau. The terrain is typical of the ravines that are found along Chambal river and its tributaries – steep and low sand cliffs that have been cut by monsoon rain fed “nallah” (streams) and there is little level ground in the entire area. There is some level ground near the village, which is used for farming.
There are very few large mammals that can be seen there in the day because of the disturbance by goat herders. One does see a lot of hoof prints and droppings so mammals like Nilgai, Wild boar, Sambar etc must be using the area, more so during the nights, when there are no herders around.
There are about 5 extended families in this small village of farmers and goat herders. Only one of these five families does not rear goats, while the other mainly depend on goat rearing for their living.
Technically this area is in the Baler range of the Keladevi Sanctuary, as it is across the river Banas but for the last two (more or less) years its management comes under the Deputy Director Ranthambhore national park and not under the Deputy Director Karauli, who administers the rest of Keladevi Sanctuary.
View Tadla ka khet in a larger map
Ranthambhore tiger reserve consists of the Ranthambhore national park, keladevi sanctuary, Sawai Mansingh sanctuary, Sawaimadhopur sanctuary, Kuwalji protected area and some smaller protected areas.
The tigers:
The two tigers that died are supposed to be 16 to 17 months old though they appeared to be older than that to me. The forest department informed us that they were first camera trapped about 13-14 months ago in the Chiroli area of the Kundera range of Ranthambhore national park. That is why they are known as the Chiroli cubs. As far as I know, they were never ever seen in any of the tourist zones and there are very few photographs of this family. They must have been regularly picked up in the camera traps in Chiroli and Bheed area of the national park but since these areas are out of bound for us I do not know much about these tigers. These two cubs had separated from their mother somewhere in January 2010 and since then had moved out of the national park to the Baler range of Keladevi sanctuary, which is a part of the tiger reserve. Right now Ranthambhore national park has far too many male tigers so the moment male cubs separate from their mother they have to start looking for a territory in the fringes of the national park. The other more dominant males ensure that they have to do that. In the last few months almost all the tigers that are moving out of the national park are young males that have just separated from their mother.
What happened on 7th March 2010 (Sunday):
Parasher and I reached near Tadla ka khet by 1100 hours. We parked about a 100 meters away from where the tigers were lying dead and where there were three other forest department jeeps. By that time the forest guards and officers had tracked the entire area but I decided to do it again for my information. The Deputy Director and the other officers present informed us that a team of forest officers and guards were searching the village and the area around for the people who could have done this. One of the forest guards (Lakshmi Pandit, who I know well from before), told me that the guards from Tadla ki chowki had seen pugmarks of the tigers on the 4th and 5th March at some distance but did not find any pugmarks on the 6th. On the 7th morning while tracking this area they smelt rotting flesh and that is how they found the dead tigers.
We walked a short distance from there to the place where the one of cubs was lying dead. This tiger (tiger 1) was lying at the edge of a dry streambed (nallah). A few meters ahead along the same nallah we saw a carcass of a goat that had been almost totally consumed. The area around this goat’s carcass was full of tiger pugmarks. Between the goat’s carcass and the dead tiger there were two tiger scats and one patch of dark vomit. Lopped off branches of thorny Acacia tree were placed around the carcass in such a way that there was only one easy way (the one on the steam bed) to get to this carcass. This was obviously done to “lead” the tiger to the goat’s carcass. The Tadla ka khet village was not more than 500 meters (as the crow flies) from this place.
About 50 feet away from this goat’s carcass, on a low mud hill, there was a lot of goat hair lying on the ground. From this place there were drag marks and human footprints to a Salvadora tree. On top of this tree was a carcass of another goat and some branches were lopped off on this tree. It was clear that some people had dragged this goat’s carcass to the tree and then placed it on a branch of the tree after lopping some small branches off.
The body of the other male tiger (Tiger 2) was lying in the open, in a saucer shaped basin, about a 100 meters away from that of the first tiger’s body. This tiger’s body was not as badly decomposed as the first ones. In fact both the bodies were not too badly decomposed. Predators decompose really fast and usually there is nothing left in 3 or 4 days time, particularly in months like March, which are pretty hot. There were broad drag marks leading away from this tiger’s body. I followed these drag marks. The marks led to a small shady Acacia tree. It was obvious that this tiger (Tiger 2) had rested and vomited under this tree for some time and then he dragged himself from this tree to the point where he finally died. This was obvious from the width of the drag marks, which had “stretched out” pugmarks and vomit spots on them. There were hyena and jackals pugmarks all over the place and it was clear that some animal had tried to eat this tiger’s carcass but had given up. A part of this tigers flank was opened up but hardly anything at all was consumed.
From reading the tracks around (I had a good couple of hours to do so) I concluded the following:
A little after noon, the team of veterinary doctor, forensic expert from Sawai Madhopur mobile Forensic unit, few other government officers and local police had arrived. By then almost all the officers of Ranthambhore tiger reserve, including the Field Director, four Assistant Conservator of Forests, two more Forest Rangers and many forest guards had arrived. Post mortem was conducted on the tigers and the goats and forensic samples were collected. A Field report was written up both Parasher and I signed it as independent witnesses. The carcasses of both the tigers and the goats were then burnt till there was nothing left. One interesting thing that the veterinary doctor told us that there were two cut marks (probably made with an axe) on the body of tiger 1. These were made after the tiger had died.
Sometimes around noon some members of the team of forest officials who were searching the neighborhood for people came back to inform the DFO that they did not find any one in the Tadla ka khet village, except one young man and one old sick man. All of them had run away when they saw the first Forest Department jeep arrive. They did find a few women form the village in their fields on the Banas riverbed. The forest officers were interrogating this young man and some other people who were working in the fields on the riverbank (about half a kilometer away from this spot). A few of them informed us that the dead goats belonged to a man called Ram Khiladi Gujjar from Tadla ka khet. All through this time we could hear men shouting (to each other) and looking at the proceedings from top of the plateau. They were clearly visible but I could not make out what they were shouting. This went on for a few hours. We could see these people but to get to the top of the plateau would have taken any one of us more than an hour. So there was no chance of catching them.
It was close to sunset by then and most of us (Parasher, the doctors and forensic people etc) left. The entire forest department team stayed behind to conduct raids in the area.
I tried calling up the Deputy Director on Sunday night before I went to sleep but could not get through to him. They had not returned from the area of operation.
The next morning I called the Deputy Director as soon as I got up and what he told me was that they were conducting raids in the area till late in the night. They had managed to apprehend two main accused – Ram Khiladi Gujjar (the owner of the goats that had been killed by the tigers) and one of his friends / relatives Mukesh Gujjar. The Deputy Director also mentioned that these two main accused had told them that on the afternoon of the 4th March the two tigers had attacked the heard of goats and killed two goats. The tigers had injured a third goat that later died in the village. The herders managed to scare the two tigers off the kill. They put one of the goat’s body on top of the tree while they guarded the second goat’s body (to keep the tigers away). Ram Khiladi went to the nearby Khandar town and bought a bottle of strong pesticide (locally known as Aldrin though it is a different brand) and some syringes. He and Mukesh injected one of the goat’s carcass with this pesticide a number of times and poured the rest of the pesticide in the offal’s of the goat. They then left the poisoned goat in the nallah and cordoned a part of the nallah off with thorny branches. By the time they finished doing that it had become dark. That night the tigers did not return to the kill. However, the next night (on the 5th March) both the tigers came back and ate the entire poisoned goat. The two accused found the bodies of the tiger the next morning just after sunrise.
Unfortunately these two tigers died because the three goats that these two tigers killed were more precious for the herders than two living tigers. Rupees 2000 (about 40 US dollars) of financial loss for two people killed two living tigers. This unfortunately is the reality of tiger conservation in wild India and no amount of campaigning can change this. Unless a living tiger has financial value for most of the people who live near tiger habitats, tiger are not going to survive.
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
Interesting email exchange
Interesting email exchange between Deepali and your truly. Deepali is a naturalist, photographer and economist from Delhi. I got her permission to share this on the blog.
From: Deepali Sharma Sanwal
Date: Tue, 12 May 2009 11:11:25 +0530
To: Aditya Singh
Subject: hi from Delhi
Hi Aditya
Hello from Delhi. Read your blog.. wanted to read something on conservation after my postings and your replies on INW (www.indianaturewatch.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2362)
..I am astonished to find that the name of the poachers are so common knowledge to forest department !
interesting blog ( www.dickysingh.com) and great photos on your website ( www.ranthambhore.com).. had a word with poonam few days back as we were planning to come down to ranthambhore but the plan did not materialize.. hoping to make it sometime in June !
Regards
Deepali
–
There is an economist in all of us.
On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 5:17 PM, Aditya Singh wrote:
Hi Deepali,
Sorry you could not make it down but the end of June (from 20th onwards – park shuts on the 30th) maybe a better time. Somewhere in the mid of June we get one or two showers (just a few days after Delhi gets them) and the park just changes colors instantly. The weather and the scenery is much better after that.
I will tell you some interesting facts about poaching and tiger conservation around Ranthambhore region. I am sure these are true for all of India but since I have spent 11 years in this area, I have more examples from here.
1. The “Ranthambhore poaching region” includes Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh till Panna. This area includes all of Rajasthan’s Aravalis (good for leopards), most of river Chambal (crocs, gharials and otters), Sariska, Kuno (MP), Madhav national park (but there is nothing left there to kill and a poacher told us this) and Panna. The same guys operate in all these place. This is particularly true for the dealers and not so much for the shooters/trappers.
2. It is generally made out to be by the NGOs working in “anti-poaching” line that poachers are very secretive, very organized, very dangerous etc etc – which is a load of bullshit. They probably say so to boost their own image and get more people interested. In reality everyone locally, including the forest department, knows the names of the shooters/trappers (at least they know all the gang leaders and reputed poachers), of the buyers, of the couriers etc. It is such common knowledge that if you walked in here and did not know anyone – you could collect most of the data in a week by just asking around in the villages. Most of these people occupy the lowest social spectrum in the caste set up and they are scared of the upper castes. We have often walked into their houses and caught them. They had guns and other arms but would not dare use it against a local upper caste person.
3. The big buyer here is on old woman (and now her two sons) called Munni Bai. She has been doing this for over 30 years and most people around here know of her. At least everyone in the local forest department does. It is only the leading conservationists and senior officers in the forest department at Jaipur and Delhi level who don’t. She is not really the end buyer but she collects stuff and sells it to buyers in Gwalior, Guna etc who further sell is to the big boys in Delhi, Kanpur, Khaga etc.
4. The big centre for leopard skins is Hissar and one of their main guy here is known as “Pal.” He visits this area once or twice a year and has been doing it for over 20 years.
5. At the ground level there is no body working on anti poaching. Here Dharmendra Khandal of Tiger Watch is the only person working on collecting information on poachers. Besides him – no one. No Forest department, no police, no NGO. The problem that he faces is that he has the information about the bad guys but what can he do with it. The forest department does not want the information, the police generally speaking does not work on it because most of the time they need to cross the boundaries of the district. The general attitude is that if it is not happening in my beat it is OK.
6. The big boys of conservation - few well-known megalomaniac personalities who have cornered the conservation limelight/profits (believe me it is very profitable) and the Project Tiger (or NTCA) - are living in an elite dream world and are hopelessly out of touch with reality. They have a mutually beneficial relationship based on you scratch my back and I scratch yours.
The basic problem with tiger conservation (in fact all conservation) in India is:
1. It is too centralized and elitist. All our conservation planning is done by people who are basically rich, based in metros and are very far removed from the ground reality. As a result their plans just do not work and have not been working for over 25 years. After 25 years of failure they are still in the driving seat. This includes the Project Tiger, Supreme Court’s Special Empowered Committee etc etc. Any ground level conservation initiative is killed as soon as it starts becoming popular. The only conservation initiatives that have worked in the world are those which had support at ground level. We have such funny ones – like there was “an anti-poaching workshop” here two years ago, which was (and I am not joking) “a black tie and caviar affair, where no locals were invited.” Most of the villagers here believe that the national park was sold off by the government 20 years ago to foreigners and rich Indian – for their entertainment.
2. It is too unscientific. There has been no decent research done on tigers for the last 45 years. Schaller in Kanha did the last one in mid 1960s. The data on the basis of which conservation planning is done in India is totally false and has been falsified for the last 30 years. How can you come out with a workable solution if the data that you have it totally false.
3. It is too low priority. The government does not care, the rulers do not care, the conservationists do not care – basically we all talk but rarely act. There is no will, no funds, no responsibility and no workable plans. This for an industry that generated over US $ 2 Billion per annum and employs huge amount of people, who are often the poorest of the poor.
Sounds depressing? We got over it some time ago. Some one has to catch the bull by the horns and only then would things begin to change.
Regards,
–
Aditya Singh,
From: Deepali Sharma Sanwal
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 09:37:38 +0530
To: Aditya Singh
Subject: Re: hi from Delhi
Hi Aditya
I could not agree more with you on so many points made by you!! Though I hardly know too much and most of my ideas are from the observations I have made.
I am indeed surprised to some extent ( though not fully..no one can be who has lived and traveled in India ) that majority of people involved in this whole exercise of conservation are too far away from all this. ( Though most of us are.. and it really takes lots of guts like you did to be actually based right there leaving aside more lucrative earning options in a big city).
I strongly feel that tiger conservation needs to go beyond what it is doing right now. In my opinion people who reside inside or around really can no way be the biggest culprits as they are made to sound sometimes. It is generally the elitist who want the best without really wanting to pay a price involved. Moreover, I feel it has become an in-thing to say that ” I am into wildlife”.. probably it just means that “I visit national parks over weekends to click picture” ( no harm in that too though. people have their own objectives).
I feel the best conservation practices would come only when people who are involved in their daily lives are a part of it and also derive benefits from it..like benefits from tourism. One of the best practices and also one which I thought was working very well was what I saw in Valley of flowers. It is being maintained by joint cooperation of forest department and villagers. The place and the long trek upto the valley is so clean and well maintained, with all facilities for visitors that it comes across strikingly as a very good best practice example. I am sure there are may such examples all over that operate efficiently and silently.
As for conservation, in general, I still have my doubts with its role and placement within the Survival of fittest Darwin theory.. maybe I need to understand it from science.. but the growing human-animal conflict makes one ponder about it. ( last Sunday’s supplement in The Hindu carries three articles regarding HAC)
Lastly, most of the problems we face today are purely due to human GREED.. we ALL want our cake and eat it too.. whether it’s the financial crisis ( which as an economist, I can vouch is largely due to factors that standard theory might not be able to address) or problems of climate change and conservation… something we are not being able to control !
But I am sure there would be a way out else nature has its own way to correct disequilibrium!
Thanks Aditya for explaining in such great details.. am sure there is so much more I need to learn !
Best
Warm regards
Deepali
On Tue, May 13, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Aditya Singh wrote:
Hi Deepali,
Thanks for your mail.
I am actually making a fairly lucrative earning here (for Ranthambhore standards). In the last 11 years I have morphed from and into - a hotel owner/manager, naturalist, conservationist, photographer, traveler, activist and a local farmer. Before I came to Ranthambhore I worked for the Central Government for a short time, so I kind of understand how the government works. As a result, my problem is that I have been here for too long and pretty much understood how the whole wheel turns.
Regards,
Aditya
PS: If I had to sum up the present scenario in most tiger reserves in India, I would do it like this. [To really understand it you have to read between the lines and have a clear understanding of the keywords].
The existing situation in most tiger reserves in India is as follows:
The people who reside around the reserves that have decent wildlife are definitely not the “culprits” that they are made out to be by the “experts” and the “trendy.” Neither are they God’s own creatures as the “leftists make them out to be.”
The people who reside around the reserves are mostly “poor (with a dash of rich)” and for generations they depended on the forest for some “renewable resources” such as fuel wood, fodder, some minor forest produce “etc”.
The problem that they have is that since the forest around their villages has now been declared a “tiger reserve” it is gradually getting “more and more illegal” for them to get their requirements from the forest.
The problem that the “forest managers” have is that the population in their villages has gone up tremendously due to improved medical conditions. The forest just cannot support the needs of all locals. It could do with “lesser disturbance” as more disturbance means less wildlife.
The locals need to fulfill these “needs, so they do it illegally.”
The forest managers are “overwhelmed” by the sheer numbers of locals and are unable to stop them, so they turn a “blind eye” towards it.
The planners, experts and trendy (which is the entire lobby), however, insist that everything should be “strictly legal” as they had a big hand in “making the law (which is blinder than a bat)”. So the planners are “told” that everything is going on as per the law. The planners take it as good feedback and on the basis of this they make more laws and plans. They “periodically check” the ground to see the ground reality for themselves and almost always end up agreeing with the “feed back.”
Thus the cycle repeats itself.
I think our problem can be summed up in four points:
1. Our centralized federal planning does not even take into consideration the ground realities.
2. The implementation of the plan is done by a state government agency that is the lowest priority for most state governments.
3. There are too few voters for wildlife in India.
4. Greed at all levels.
–
Aditya Singh
Mails from Dharmendra
Sorry for not writing for a long time but I had been busy traveling (basically having a good time).Sorry for not writing for a long time but I had been busy traveling (basically having a good time).
I got a few mails from Doctor Dharmendra Khandal – the Field Biologist of Tiger Watch, a local non profit organization that is doing some amazing anti-poaching work in and around Ranthambhore. He knows more about the local poachers and their network than any other person. I have pasted below the mails without making any changes (except for some very cosmetic ones). They are alarming and go to show that despite all the media storm about dwindling tiger in India, despite all the “action taken” by the government noise made by our “conservationists” – at the ground level nothing has changed.
You should be alarmed too.
END JANUARY 2009
Hi,
Rajasthan police and Tiger Watch team ( Lokesh,Lakhan and me) caught a wanted poacher Battilal.
He is wanted since November 2005 in a Tiger Poaching case. He is the real brother of Devisingh Mogya (a dreaded tiger poacher).
Recently 10-13 Mogyas came from Madhya Pradesh (the adjoining state in Central India) side to Ranthambhore for the work of crop protection. All these people are potential poachers and all of them have illegal guns and they can harm Ranthambhore at many levels.
regards,
dharmendra khandal
PS: Ranthambhore Deputy Field Director Mr. Shekhaweat is busy in VIP tourism and Assittant Conservator of Forests Mr. Sudarshan Sharma is busy in managing tourism.
4-5 other patroling vehicles are also busy in tourism………….
 |
| From Ranthambhore |
 |
| From Ranthambhore |
END JANUARY 2009
Hi,
The first raid has been successfully complete. We have found two Bagaria tribal poachers and one illegal weapon. They were operating in Sawai Mansingh sanctuary area and regularly killing wild animals for bushmeat.
Sawai Madhopur’s Superintendent of Police Mr. Kaviraj Sharat provided a wonderful team of police personnel that conducted this raid.
The place where we caught them is just 2.5 km far from the Sawai Mansigh sanctuary area. They were regularly killing animals from sanctuary and other adjoining areas for sale as bushmeat. They are also involved in Bhagwat leopard killing.
regards,
dharmendra khandal
 |
| From Ranthambhore |
FEBRUARY 2009
Dear Aditya,
Thank you for the interest shown about the Madhya Pradesh poachers. I am sending my draft for your blog. you can edit language and grammar but try to keep it as it is.
According to my informers, at least 15 Mogyas tribal’s have congregated around Ranthambhore.
Each one of them has the experience to poach tigers in Ranthambhore. They may be not lead the gang but they belonged to some small or organized tiger poaching gang.
1. Battilal (we caught this guy)
2. Mukesh (already wanted in police for tiger killing)
3. Roop Singh (wanted in police for tiger killing)
4. Rai singh (again having experience of tiger poaching around Uliana and Chhan)
5. Kalwa
6. Suresh s/o Alamji
7. Debi
8. Mangal
9. 10 to 15 unknown migrant guys from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
Why they are dangerous?
1. becoz they are having experience to poach tigers in Ranthmabhore.
2. some of them are still wanted in tiger poaching case
3. they are purely nomadic not like our semi nomads Rajasthani Mogyas.
4. they have 2-3 identities and are not listed by any state agency. I mean they have no ration card, voter card or BPL cards etc – for all purpose they do not exist.
5. very agile and swift people
6. few bad Mogyas stated their job again like Jugraj, Lodiya and Laxman. These are people who have been caught and convicted earlier.
7. Tiger watch (the organization that I work for) has been handling women and kids of Mogyas, but we could not provide any alternative jobs to men of Mogya community. If Field Director or any state agency is ready to work with Tiger Watch we can change some Mogyas in nature trekker guide etc
But very frankly the officials of the Forest Department are spending more time to shut down Tiger watch efforts instead of supporting or guiding to us.
Now 3-4 topics that should be debated and explaination should be called for from the Forest Department:
1. Construction of undesirable water bodies in side park like entire kachida area is now been made into a wetland type habitat.
2. Construction and erection of guard post or tent near water holes like in bakola, lakarda, berda, etc
3. They are wasting more time in tourism instead of forest department work.
Regards,
dharmendra khandal
Indala Plateau – Final for this year
We finally got all the work in Indala finished and did it just in time. The monsoons have arrived here and the rains make most of the tracks to Indala impassable. All the three wells were dug some time ago, the waterholes are ready, the water recharging structures done and the Deputy Field Director has posted two guards (who stay in tents) near each of the waterholes. All sorts of wildlife have already started using these waterholes. When Andy Rouse, Salim Ali (India’s best tiger driver – if you know what I mean) and I had gone there to take a few pictures, we found fresh pugmarks of a male tiger in the first waterhole and pugmarks of a tigress with three cubs close by. We could only photograph the first well because it was getting dark by the time we finished with that one and we had to get out of the park (which takes nearly 2 hours).
I would like to thank Paresh Upadhyaya (USA), Jayananda Govindaraj (Chennai), Ratnabh Bannerjee (New Delhi), Nitin Mistry (Goa), Hitesh Chug (New Delhi) and Andy Rouse (UK) and the clothing company “Paramo “ that sponsors his conservation work. Andy / Paramo and I each picked up about 35% of the bill while the others contributed towards the balance 30%. I still have about Rupees 35,000 left with me.
The Deputy Field Director and I discussed ways to spend this amount and we came out with a good one. There is an old lake in Indala, very close to the Indala village, which is going to be relocated outside the park very soon. This lake was made about 70 years ago by damming a non-perennial stream. About 10 years ago the dam broke and since then the lake died out. We have decided to fix the dam and to strengthen the banks of this lake. We have Rs 35,000 to do this but it is going to cost about Rs 200,000 to complete, which we will somehow manage. We had started work on the lake a few days ago but it rained a day after that and it may now be tough to complete the work. In that case we will take it up in one of the dry spells that we get in the monsoons. If we can manage that then we will have a full-fledged lake in Indala plateau when the National Park reopens in October after the monsoons.
The waterholes are ready…….
Mail from Deepa
Hi all,
I got a mail from Deepa who is based in the USA. She went through my blog (www.ranthambhore.blogspot.com) and then got in touch with me. She has some ideas about saving the tigers and other wildife in India. I am attaching the mails that we exchanged. Any ideas / comments / suggestions etc are most welcome. Please copy all replies to Deepa.
Regards,
Aditya Singh
The words in italics are my replies to her queries.
?
From: Deepa dee.r.2007@gmail.com
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 21:22:01 -0400
To:
Subject: Re: tiger conservation
Hi Aditya,
This is a really long mail, so please take your time to respond!
First of all, thank you for your prompt and detailed reply — I really appreciate it.
You are being modest about your writing skills — frankly, in this case the fact that you have a blog at all is what matters. If someone wants to read up about tiger conservation in India — on the one hand, there is a lot of information out there, but at the same time there isn’t really coherent information in one place. Someone needs to distill the information and present it like you have done with the history of Ranthambhore — I am sure each reserve has a unique and interesting history, but there is no one to tell it. And you are a very entertaining writer, too. I read your blog in it’s entirety — trust me, I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it had put me to sleep 
It is sad that there is so little information on wild life of India. Most of the websites are just trying to sell you a tour and a bad tour at that too. Many of these “Wild life tour operators” have no clue what they are talking about. Unfortunately the managers of the different Reserves in India do not believe in giving out information. For instance a tiger reserve like Ranthambhore does not have a website nor a brochure / map / guide book etc.
Here are some thoughts I had. Some of them will undoubtedly appear naive to you, but I’ll put them out there anyway– please give me your honest opinion on each of them :
1) LIVESTOCK COMPENSATION:
I understand that several of the human predator tensions inside the reserves have to do with the fact that the predators target livestock. You have an entry in your blog about how tigers are killed in revenge attacks during the monsoon. I read that WWF initiated a program in ‘97 around Corbett and a few other tiger national parks where farmers were compensated for the livestock killed by tigers, in order to mitigate revenge killings. This strategy has been adopted in several places around the world with success (eg. for cheetahs in Namibia, wolves and coyotes in America etc.). I wonder whether such compensation initiatives are still alive in tiger reserves and how successful they have been. Do you think such an initiative stands any chance of success at Ranthambhore? I would like to start something like this and fund it– even if we can save one tiger, that’s a huge gain… And it will probably help to build goodwill towards the tiger among the locals, which is I think is quite crucial for long-term conservation.
This will definitely work in Ranthambhore. A local NGO called Tiger Watch did this for some time but they ran out of money and since then no one has worked on it. I have seen how this works in Corbett. They give compensation for any livestock killed outside the boundary of the reserve. If the livestock is killed inside the reserve then there is no compensation and rightly because livestock is not supposed to be there. Not only will this effort save tigers directly but it will also help build a trusted network between conservationists and local villagers. There is none now. I don’t think this will take too much of funding because livestock kills are far and few but it would need an organization with at least 2 dedicated people with one phone line and an address. In other words it would take a sustained program (say at least 5 years) to make this work.
2) DEAD CUBS:
The picture you sent was truly painful to look at. Are these wells all over the reserve? I have been reading that a lot of lions have been dying in the Gir forest after falling into one of multitudes of open wells in and around the forest. Does this sort of thing happen in Ranthambhore too? Is something being done about it — building parapets around the wells or something else?
The deaths of these cubs was really sad and it could have easily been prevented. Unfortunately the Department of Forests assumes that they own the reserves and their managers are not open to any suggestions. Lesser mortals like you and me can not do anything inside the reserves, at least for a few years to come. Hopefully this attitude should change.
3) ADOPT-A-TIGER :
Has anyone tried an Adopt-a-tiger program as a fund-raising measure? I have a friend who co-founded a small, but very successful turtle conservation project in Kenya and she was telling me that an adopt-a-turtle program they started has met with a great deal of success online. I think people are more likely to give money when they feel a personal involvement with the animals they are giving to — and tigers certainly have far more personality than turtles And of course, adopt-an-animal has been used by several different organizations to raise money. There are a fairly small number of tigers at every reserve — you are probably able to identify each tiger at Ranthambhore. My point is that the more you personalize a cause, the more people care. When tigers go missing, I wish there would be a real outrage — which doesn’t seem to happen because these creature are largely anonymous (except to a few people like you on the ground). But if someone in say London had adopted Nick-Ear, when he went missing there would be increased awareness about that in places outside of Ranthambhore. I think we have to reach as far out as we can in an effort to save our wildlife.
Implementing such a project would require someone to take regular pictures of the various tigers and post them online, but it doesn’t seem too difficult to pull off….
I had thought of this after reading about it on the net.
Right now there are 31 tigers (18 adults and 13 cubs) that we know of for sure in Ranthambhore. Not a very large number at all and all of them have been photographed. People like us do not have access to the entire reserve and will probably never have that, at least not on a long tern basis. However the area that we do have access too (called the “tourism zone” - which is less than 50% of the national park) has the highest tiger density. In fact about 75% of Ranthambhore’s tigers are in this 50% of area. This area is heavily “patrolled” by “tourists” while few people if any go to the other parts. The managers of the national park admit to this in private but will not accept it in public. One sure way to rid an area of tigers is to close that area for “tourists”. You close an area and within a year or two there are no tigers there. This is because even the officials do not go in areas that are out of bound for tourists and that leaves that area open to wood cutters, cattle grazers, poachers etc.
We can easily monitor on a regular basis the tigers in the “tourism zone” and take regular pictures.
The one problem with this scheme is that who do you give the money to. I for one am not in favour of giving money to money to the Forest Department because we then have no control on how they spend it. So we can get someone to adopt a particular tiger and get them to contribute towards saving the particular tiger but we would not be able to make any efforts to enhance the protection of that tiger. Sad but that is how tiger conservation works in India. Tiger reserves in that sense are “closed” for all but a handful of people. We are not one of these handful and will probably never be. We hope this will change soon but there are no indications on the field that it will.
4) MAPS:
We need better maps to understand the scale of the human-tiger interactions: I read in the Tiger Task Force report that there are 1500 villages in core & buffer zones. That’s roughly 65,000 families and if we assume 5 members per family, that’s = 325,000 people. No way to know if this estimate is anywhere close to the real number. I have read that there are millions of people who inhabit tiger zones (I suppose most people inhabit more peripheral zones). I am interested in creating maps with the locations of as many of these villages as possible and a rough estimate of the people in each of them with a brief description of their occupations. All we need is a GPS and someone to do the data collection and input the local knowledge (such as names of villages, etc). When these villages and their inhabitants are no longer anonymous and have their own stories to tell, it will be easier to raise support. I know that WPSI has some maps, but they are quite rudimentary.
There are some good maps at least for Ranthambhore. However these are the topographic sheets that were done by the Survey of India a long time ago. These maps do not tell the real story. They give the location of villages that existed when the maps were made but do not tell us about the many villages that came up after that. Since then mapping has changed. Someone I know told me that satellite images of Ranthambhore on a 4 x 4 meter grid can be bought online. What we need are digitized maps.
A friend of mine wanted to work in Keladevi Sanctary that is part of the Ranthambhore tiger reserve doing exactly what you have in mind (and a few more things) but we could not raise the funds and probably would not even have got permission to do the research.
Even without the permissions we can do a survey of the villages and collect data like the location of the villages, the population, live stock population, a rough socio-economic survey of the population etc.
5) VOLUNTEERS:
I wonder why there are no international volunteers in tiger habitats.
You might have heard of this organization called Earthwatch. They support scientific field research projects all over the world by offering volunteers the opportunity to join the research teams. They are quite a popular and successful organization and get a fair amount of positive buzz in the media. Volunteers pay a fairly high fee for these volunteering opportunities and all their activities are funded by volunteer fees.
They don’t seem to have a presence in India and I wonder why that is (is it just Indian bureaucratic hurdles at work here?) They have a presence on every continent, and esp. in places with endangered habitats.
I don’t think any of the scientists working on their environmental projects really need so many volunteers, but that’s beside the point somewhat. Usually these volunteers are very passionate about these causes and willing to live in modest conditions and rough it out. Mostly, they act as ambassadors for the cause when they get back home and can be quite instrumental in raising awareness in their communities. In the last few years, there has been a real surge in this so-called volunteer-tourism as witnessed by several articles to that effect in the NY Times and other newspapers.
There are no volunteers for tiger conservation in India. This is purely because of bureaucratic hurdles. The volunteers would not even be allowed to get close to the reserve. There are thousands of very dedicated people in India who could do some great work as volunteers but the government would not allow them to do any work in the reserves.
Even if they are not allowed inside the Core area of the reserve they can still do some great work just outside the reserve, for which they do not need any permissions. Its just that no one has thought of co-ordinating such an effort. For instance the entire mapping could be done in one month using volunteers.
My friend (who co-founded the turtle conservation project) was telling me that when her project first got started they would have volunteers come to help (mostly from Britain during their gap year). In the beginning these volunteers were a drain on the resources of the staff members working full time on the project. But eventually the staff streamlined the process and figured out ways for the volunteers to make themselves useful. After that, the volunteers became productive members of the project — more importantly, they would spread the word around and keep the contributions coming in. They would often go back to volunteer.
I don’t see why a volunteer program cannot be started in tiger habitats. These volunteers are not a drain on financial resources since they would pay for all their expenses. And it is perfectly reasonable to make it mandatory for them to make a small donation. I can’t imagine there would be any dearth of volunteer interest in such an initiative, although it will take some time to get the word out. Some of the cheetah conservancy projects in Namibia accept applications up to a year in advance. Besides, India has a lot to offer by way of tourism….http://www.earthwatch.org
The hard part, of course, is that someone knowledgeable on the ground will have to figure out a program for them to train them and to keep them busy. I am willing to work very hard on this to put together a program, elicit applications, sift through resumes and pick the right people to volunteer. You have mentioned several wonderful people in your blog — like Dharmendra, Vakil and others, who have the know-how to put together a field program using volunteers. There might be other such people who could be employed?http://www.earthwatch.org
I think this can be done. It just needs the first push and then it can be on track for a long time to come.
So something tells me that this is very much in the realm of possibilities.I am really interested in scoping out the potential for a volunteer program. I think there is an opportunity here. But please tell me what you think.
6) MOGIYAS AND MICROFINANCE:
Your blog entries about the 
The question is will the Mogiyas and the other tribes be interested in these soft loans which will enable them to cultivate alternate sources of income? I can work to put these people on the map of the micro-finance world. But I need to be convinced that this will be a useful step. I mean a KIVA-type model works when people have at least some inclination towards honesty and hard-work. So what do you think — will it work in the context of these tribal groups? I know you are involved in doing work towards rehabilitating one of these families.
Micro finance and Mogiyas – I think that could do wonders. No one has thought about doing anything for these people and they are amongst the poorest people here. Their needs are very basic but they do not even have the means to get those together. I see people here who spend on one dinner what a Mogiya family would make in a month. We would need to get the procedure right and this can really work. In fact anything that is done outside the reserve will work. Inside the reserve we have no say.
7) BLOGS:
The reason I am writing to you is entirely because of your blog. I want to think of ways to get people on the ground at other tiger reserves to participate too. Do you think there are ways to find such people and get them to contribute their experiences and knowledge? I know it’s a cliche — but the world has truly gotten smaller thanks to the internet and one can reach so many more people now than one could ever before.
A friend of mine got me started on my blog. I am not too much of an “online” person but I found this a great way to let out news from here. I strongly feel that there should be a few blogs coming out of every wildlife area in India. It does not make a difference how well it is written as long as it is written regularly.
All suggestions/comments are welcome. I am hoping to cull these thoughts down and have a few initiatives we can try. But I am really serious about doing something — this is not a passing fancy.
Thanks much,
–Deepa.
Mail from Roy
I got a mail from Roy Fallon - my good friend from UK. He is very keen on Indian wildlife and is a great friend of tigers. Lately he has been very concerned about the “tiger crisis” in India. I think every one interested in wild tigers should go through this mail exchange that we just had.
Dear Roy,
Nice to hear from you.
The tiger situation is indeed bad (to say the least).
It appears that the government of India (the Federal government) is waking up to it but we just hope they don’t take a few years to to do so. The Prime Minister has been giving some statements lately that the tiger situation is really bad and they have to take some urgent steps to correct it. They have “plans” to set up a nation wide cell against wildlife crime and a National Tiger Conservation Authority, something like the FBI. They are also planning to recruit retired military personnel to guard the tiger reserves. I really hope that these plans are implemented “properly” and soon. There is not much time left. In fact we are already about 6 to 7 years late.
I may not really be an authority on tigers in India but I do know much more than the average Joe and I foresee a few major problems with these plans:
1. Timing
If anything has to be done it has to be done now. The Indian government has a very strong tendency to delay implementation till it does not matter any more. Right now even a bad plan would do a lot of good if it is executed right away. Doing something right away is definitely better than doing nothing at all. I just hope that they do not keep planning and delay the implementation of the few ideas that they have. And believe me they have a very few ideas.
2. Data
It is a shame that we don’t have enough scientific data on tigers, their habitat and their problems. There is hardly any research material on tigers in India. Research on tiger was discouraged in all parts of India. Whatever little data that we do have is very basic and often faulty.
One Field Director of Ranthambhore tiger reserve had once told me that “we do not need any research on tigers. We know all there is to know about them and the problems that they face.” He then went on to tell me that “one of the biggest problems that tigers face is traffic jams from photographers.” Was this guy nuts? Yes he definitely was. The problem is that the Government has given him the authority to implement whatever weird ideas that he comes up with.
He was talking about “traffic jams by photographers” when people were shooting tigers all over Ranthambhore. A shot by a camera is forever but a shot from a gun is not. And what traffic jams was he talking about? In a Park like Ranthambhore – which probably gets one of the highest number of tourists out of all the tigers reserves in India – a maximum of 40 vehicles are permitted to go at any one time. These are divided into 5 different zone. So one zone does not have more than 8 vehicles at any given time. These vehicles have to stay on the man-made tracks in the zones. They just can not stray off the track, while the tiger can go where ever he pleases to go. When ever the tigers feels disturbed by visitor’s vehicles he just walks away from the tracks and that’s it. I have seen this repeatedly in Ranthambhore for the last 10 years.
We joke that when ever there is a wildlife related crime the Forest Department officials are the last people to know about it.
The data that is submitted from the field through the Forest Department is “faked” to make the Field officers look good. For instance “Tigers don’t get poached they migrate”, “habitat is never degraded”, “there is an annual 10% rise in tiger population in all India reserves”. The list goes on.
Conservation cannot work unless there is a good and regular supply of data, intelligence, observations etc. We just have to open up the parks to researchers from all over the world. I think that every protected area should have at least on team of researchers, that is neither responsible to the Forest Department nor funded by them.
3. Monitoring
As long as Indian tiger reserves do not have an independent monitoring team, the “faked” data will keep coming up. These teams should have total and unlimited access and they should report to a Centralized authority. Their funding should not be from the Forest Department and they should not be responsible to the Forest Department. Their finding should be published online and should be available to everyone in the world. Tigers belong to all of us on this planet. They are not the exclusive preserve of the Government of India. Even if no action is taken on the findings of such monitoring teams at least let the world know about what is really going on in the tigers reserves. Such teams should carry out an “annual audit” which should be submitted to the highest authority. Believe me nothing works like “Public Pressure”. This team should be different from the research team, like activists to scientists.
4. Role of the states
Forests and wildlife in India have a funny legal status. Technically Forest and Wildlife is a state subject. That means that it is controlled by the state government and not the Federal government. We have a Central authority (it was the Project Tiger a few months ago but it is called “National Tiger Authority” or something like that now) that gives directions to the state Forest Department but the directions are not binding on them. In fact the State Forest Department often has a mind of their own.
For instance the Project Tiger conducted a nation wide survey through the Wildlife Institute of India that came out with some horrifying results, such as, there are no more than 1300 tigers left in India, Madhya Pradesh barely has 250 or so tigers (and not 600 – 700 odd that they claim) and so on. However, most of the states (and it started with Madhya Pradesh) refuse to accept the census.
We have a weird situation here. The Prime Minister of India is going around saying that tigers are on the verge of extinction in India while the State Governments are saying that their state has no problems with tigers. There might be a problem with other states but none in their own state. If they don’t even acknowledge that they have a problem how the hell are they going to sort it out.
All the Tiger Reserves in India should be under the direct control of the Federal Government and not the State Government.
5. Role of Conservationists
We have a small group of “bleeding heart” conservationists in India who are a big stumbling block for any tiger conservation measure. They are part of the “planners” at the Central level and they come out with some of the weirdest ideas you can imagine. Most of them do not have any following at the ground level. They do not like new people to do any kind of conservation work.
I will give you an example: When tigers were decimated in Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan state (and they were nearly decimated in Ranthambhore, that lies in the same state) the Chief Minister of Rajasthan set up a “State Empowered Committee” of Rajasthan Government to look into the problems that tigers in Rajasthan face and to suggest solutions for the same. The Chairman of this committee was a Member of Parliament from Rajasthan and there were a few “well known conservationists” in the committee. When the committee was formed we thought that the Chairman will push the issue under the carpet but the “conservationist” members will kick some ass. What finally happened was exactly the opposite. The “so called conservationists” diluted the issue while the “only man” in the entire committee turned out to the the Chairman.
It is high time the Government “expanded” its group of non-governmental tiger experts to include people from the field in India and experts from all over the world. The two best “tiger guys” in the world are based in USA and our government has nothing to do with them. Can you imagine that?
6. Role of tourism
Indian conservationists and the government does not accept the fact that “tourism is the most powerful conservation tool that they have.” It is a well known fact that in protected areas that are surrounded by high human population density (and most Tiger reserves in India are) tourism is probably the only savior for wildlife. The Forest Department and the conservationists in India believe that tourism is a big “disturbance”. Well managed tourism is the biggest conservation tool in the world.
I will give you an example. The worst managed tiger tour reserve in India is Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh. The tourism area is about a 100 square kilometers (much smaller than Ranthambhore) and on an average there are 50 to 75 vehicles in that area. This area also has the highest tiger density any where in the world – almost 5 to 10 times higher than other places. There are about 30 adult tigers and almost 15 to 20 cubs right now in an area of 100 square kilometers. The numbers are growing every year, while tigers all over Madhya Pradesh are getting decimated.
Wildlife tourism has to be used as a conservation tool in India. We have no choice on this front.
For a long term tiger crisis solution in India we have to address the above issues. I just hope the Prime Minister is listening.
Cheers,
Aditya Singh
PS: I am putting your mail and my reply on my weblog. Check out www.ranthambhore.blogspot.com soon
–
The Ranthambhore Bagh
Ranthambhore Road
Sawai Madhopur 322001
India
—— Forwarded Message
From: ROY FALLON
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:45:24 +0100 (BST)
To: Aditya Singh
Subject: Contact
Hi Aditya
Just contacting you to see how things are going. Lots of good discussion on the Wildlife India forum the last few days. I have replied to a few of them myself.
Looking at the tiger situation from the outside, as I am, it seems difficult to understand why the authorities in India cannot get to grips with the situation. They seem to know exactly who and where the poachers are at almost any one time, yet nothing gets done that is of any significance.
The government seems to leave the problem to the local authorities to sort it out, but I cannot imagine anything getting done in that way. The locals are too dissorganised and too easy to corrupt. The poachers dont stay in one area, they cross borders and seem to just laugh in the face of the law.
I think it requires a national force to be set up, like the U.S.A.’s National Guard and their F.B.I. to harrass and chase these poachers until they can hardly draw breath.
They seem to be left to do exactly as they please and even if they are caught they are released and the penalties are paltry.
When India, loses its tigers, and I am convinced it will, it will be an unimaginable disaster for the whole country. Worse than any earthquake.
The Madhya Pradesh tourist authority has stated that more than 80% of India’s tourism is nature driven and that 75% of it is tiger tourism. They have said that the imbalance of tiger tourism is actually causing problems because certain areas are getting worn out due to the demand to see tigers, whilst others are getting less tourism than desired. Well let the tigers spread themselves out and that will be solved. Open up the corridors between the forests and the tigers will work out where they need to be.
The thing is, most of India’s tourism budget is generated by tiger watchers. That is a massive amount of money coming into the country. When the tiger has gone, people will start going elsewhere. If you take the whole population of India, I am sure that the poachers would hardly show up as a number on a graph, but these greedy and ruthless few are depriving the whole nation of its pride and heritage.
Not just the nation of India but the whole World.
African governments saw this coming a long time ago and did something about it. They made poachers public enemy number one, with the exception of that lunatic in Zimbabwe and the puppets in Uganda and the Gambia.
A lot of people will still go to India to see the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple at Amritsar etc. but they will just do a round trip of all these and similar places and that will be the end of their interest in the country. The Taj Mahal, I am sure, is a wonderful and beautiful building, but at the end of the day, thats all it is… a building… made by men. The tiger is a gift from the Gods, whichever God(s) exist. Once people have travelled to see the amazing monuments, forts and palaces of India they have seen them and there is nothing more to see about them. But when they see a tiger, walking in the forest, it is an emotional experience that they will want to repeat over and over again.
I sincerely believe that to save the tiger from extinction is to save and preserve all the creatures and the forest environment.
The balance has to exist, the tiger feeds on the herbivores and the herbivores feed on the forest, if the tiger dissappears the lesser carnivores multiply and get out of control, they then ravage the forest of its prey stock, then they enter the villages and farms and take the domestic livestock.
This has been proven in Australia, of all places, where a whole colony of dingoes were exterminated as pests. The dingoes were the apex predators in the area and when they were gone the lesser predators bred like wildfire and decimated the other wildlife of the area, and of course, they then turned to domestic stock….man’s management or man’s interference?
Even the smallest and most insignificant ecosystems that you can think of fall apart in the same way.
A local farmer here in my town, built himself a huge house on, green belt land (land not to be built on). He built a load of stables and a dog boarding kennels. Here in England, those bloody peacocks are seen as a bit of a status symbol. If you are someone who think that you special, you have a load of land round your house and you get yourself a few peacocks to make it look pretty and picturesque. So this farmer got himself 6 peacocks and, as all lazy farmers do, he let them run around his grounds without any protection. So they laid eggs, when the eggs hatched there were baby peacocks running around the grounds.
Guess what???
It may astonish and surprise you, because it did astonish and surprise the farmer, when the local foxes killed all the peacock chicks. So what did this guy, who had introduced an unnatural prey species into the foxes territory, do? He shot all the foxes, of course. He dragged the fox cubs out of their dens and he battered them all to death with a shovel. He proudly acclaimed this feat of bravery to anyone who would listen.He stayed away from me of course, and he still does.
Now, as strange as it may seem, he is complaining about the local wildlife again. Obviously not because his peacock chicks are being eaten, cos there are no predators left to do that. But now he is over run with rabbits, rats and hedgehogs. The rats and hedgehogs are eating all his peacock and chicken eggs and the rabbits are eating all his horse, dog and peacock foods, the rats are at that stuff as well. So now, he is setting traps for the rest of the wildlfe on “his” land. Of course he calls the rabbits, rats and hedgehogs pests and blames them for his dilemma but any child of 8 could tell him that he is the real pest.
Anyway mate I gotta go now, time to get some dinner, my stomach thinks that my throat has been cut.
Talk soon
Roy Fallon
Migration
Recently a judge in the Rajasthan High Court passed a ruling that Ranthambhore should be closed for 2 days in a week so that the animals can get “rest” from tourists.
The Park is shut for tourists during the monsoons from July to end September. The people living around the park have a free run during this time. They go in for grazing their cattle, stocking up firewood for the winters, collecting forest produce like antlers etc, poaching etc etc. There is zero patrolling and I really mean zero. We joke that the rarest sight in Indian parks is a “Forest Guard patrolling his beat”. But believe me this is not a joke.
On a conservative estimate the amount of people who go into Ranthambhore on monsoons (when the park is shut for tourists) is ten times more than the amount of tourists who visit the park throughout the year. However, the authority just chooses to ignore people who go to the park in the monsoons and since there is no official record of such offenders, they officially do not exist.
Every year a few tigers disappear in the monsoon months and are never seen again. The official version (when there is one) is that the tigers have migrated. Migrated to where? This story is probably true for all parks in India, with the exception of Kaziranga - where they shoot first and ask later.
When I moved to Ranthambhore, about 10 years ago, there were over 30 tigers. How am I so sure? Well there was a family in the lake area - a tigress with 3 full grown cubs. There were four other families with three to four cubs each in Kachida, Chiroli, Lahpur and Thumka. There were 4 big males and a few sub adult males and at least 5 tigresses without cubs.
Since then I have seen over 60 cubs grow up to maturity and separate from their mother and then disappear to be never seen again. They just disappear , sorry “migrate” and are never seen again. A noted poacher had told me once that sub adult tigers are the best ones to “milk” - they are nearly full grown (perfect skin size) and no one notices their disappearance. Believe me, when I say that professional poachers actually “milk” tigers for their skin and bones. They never wipe out the entire lot. They really messed up in Sariska - where they ate the chicken instead of the eggs every day.
NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY IN INDIA
Planning your trip
1. Identify the subjects that you want to shoot and the best locations and the best times in the different locations to shoot them.
The first thing that you need to ask yourself is what all are you looking to shoot. Once you have figured this out then make an “Ideal Wish List” of all the shots that you want. You may never get most of them but this is a good way to start planning your trip. The next step after you have got your “Wish List” together is to identify the different locations, which would suit your purpose.
Once you have frozen the destinations that you want to visit, the next step is to find out the best seasons in the different locations for shooting your preferred subjects. At the same time you would also need to figure out how many days would you need in each of your preferred destinations to get reasonably good photo opportunities. For instance, if you want to shoot Asiatic Elephants, one week in Corbett National Park in May, will get you a lot of great pictures. However, if you went to the same Park in December, a month would not be good enough.
2. Plan your itinerary well.
A well-planned itinerary will save you a lot of time and money. The two main things that you have to plan for are:
• Travel arrangements – have to be planned so that you spend the least amount of time in transit and the maximum amount of time in the field taking pictures.
• Naturalists, Guides and Drivers – These are the people who can make or break your trip. They are your local contacts who have probably spent years in the field and know the place like the back of their hands. It is very important to have a good local team and to build a good working relationship with them, since they are the ones who arrange the shooting opportunities. Remember to tip them well and to let them know at the onset that you are going to do so. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys and you definitely do not want monkeys to guide you in the shoot.
Planning you itinerary well is easier said than done, especially if you are going to an area where you have not been before. Most of the Tour Operators and Ground-handling agents claim to know a lot about photography but very few of them actually do. One good way to find out how much your tour operator knows is to ask them specific questions and judge from the answers. You could also ask them to give you references of the photographers that they have dealt with and them cross check with the photographers.
Before your Departure, Care and Maintenance
1. Get information about your locations.
You definitely need some up to date information about all the places that you plan to visit, a few weeks before you leave for your trip, so that you come prepared. I have met a lot of people who land up with the wrong films, without beanbags etc - just because they did not have the right information. Some of the most important information that you need is:
• Light conditions - The light conditions in most parts of India are highly variable depending on the seasons. For instance, in a Ranthambhore National Park (a great place to shoot action shots of tigers) the temperatures vary from 4 degrees centigrade (in peak winters) to 45 degrees Centigrade (in peak summers) and so the light goes from really soft in winters to really harsh in summers.
• Wildlife viewing – The kind and number of wildlife that you see depends a lot on the weather conditions. Generally speaking, you can see more mega-fauna in the summers (when the light is very harsh) than in winters (when the light is fantastic).
What you need is “current information” about the different locations, just before you are leaving for the trip and not general information about the different places.
2. Find out what all equipment you would need.
• Camera bodies – I would recommend at least two camera bodies for each format that you shoot in. I personally use two digital SLR bodies and two film camera bodies) in which I load films of two different speeds – mostly 100 and 400 ISO). This really helps because when action is happening I do not have to change lenses.
• Lenses – This is tricky one but I would recommend carrying one wide angle lens, one normal lens (around 50 mm), one zoom in the range of 70 to 200 and one longer telephoto (300 mm is great for most mega fauna but may not be powerful enough for birds and lesser fauna). At least one of the two longer lenses should be a fast one (f 2.8 or 4.0). I personally prefer to carry a 17-35 mm, one 24 to 80 mm, one 120 to 300 mm Sigma f 2.8 (an amazingly versatile lens) and a 500 mm. I also carry a 100 mm macro (though I do not do too much of macro work) and a 1.4 times converter.
• Digital Cards and Hard drives and/or Laptops – If you are using digital format, you are strongly advised to carry spare memory cards and to carry a portable hard drive and/or a laptop with sufficient memory. In most of the bigger towns you can download the cards on to a CD or DVD (just ensure that the pictures are deleted from the computer that they have been downloaded on as most Indians do not understand the meaning of copyright) but it is still better to carry spare memory.
• Films or Tapes for video – Carry all the films and tapes that you think you will need. In fact it is better to carry excess. It is not advisable to buy films or tapes locally as they are usually not stored properly. In case you have to buy them in India then go to a big store in one of the big cities. Remember to carry the films and tapes in hand baggage, as the powerful X-ray machines in the airports can destroy them.
• Tripod / Monopod / Beanbags - These are probably the most important pieces of equipment that you would need. If you are going to do most of your shooting from jeeps or elephant backs then the tripods are not very useful. Monopods and Beanbags work very well if you are in a jeep. If you are on an elephant back then you have no choice but to hand hold the camera.
• Cleaning equipment – Dust is a big problem in India and you would probably have to clean the equipment every day. It is very important to carry all the cleaning equipment that you think you would need and you would need a lot of it. If you are using digital SLRs, be very careful when you change the lenses or you would end up with a lot of dust on the sensor.
• Bags – I would strongly recommend carrying one bag that fits all your equipment. It helps if you have straps on the back.
• Batteries / Chargers / Adapters – Indian electricity works on 240 volts and 50-60 Hertz and circular plug points. You may need to carry adapters for the chargers accordingly. It is recommended to carry spare batteries.
• Flash – Flash photography is not permitted inside most of the National Parks and Sanctuaries in India and in many ancient monuments. However, I would still recommend that you carry a flash, even though you may not be permitted to use them in many places.
3. Check & Clean your equipment before you leave for the trip.
Insurance for the equipment is advisable though not necessary. In case the insurance is very expensive (and it usually is), you can do without it but just be very careful especially when you are in transit. Make a list of serial numbers of camera bodies and lenses.
4. Test your equipment before you hit the field. Never (and I mean NEVER) go out to the field with untested equipment.
Some tips for nature photography in India
• Vehicles, Drivers and Guides – Most of the wildlife photography in India is done from a small Suzuki jeep (locally known as Gypsys). These are not very comfortable but are very tough and do very well on bad terrain. There is often not enough space in these Gypsys to set up a tripod (unless you remove or fold one of the two rear seats). However, beanbags are very handy if you are in one of these vehicles. Since these vehicles are small, they can at the most take 3 photographers (ideally only 2). It is very important to get a good driver, since he is the one who is going to set the angle for you. It is also very important to brief the driver and the guide (who are compulsory in most wildlife sanctuaries and parks) about the angles etc that you like (and you will have to do this).
• Best time in the day for shooting – The best light conditions are found in the early mornings and the late hours of the evenings. This is also the time when wildlife is most active. This is particularly true for summers, when the light is good only for about an hour or two in the mornings and evenings.
• Best time in the year for shooting – Generally speaking, in most parts of India, winters is a much better time to shoot than summers. In winters the light is softer, the wildlife more active and the backgrounds more colorful. However, this is a broad generalization. In summers, it is generally easier to find wildlife (this is most apt for mega-fauna like tigers, elephants, deer etc) because they tend to congregate around the few water holes that still have water.
• Dust – In most of India (especially in the wildlife areas) dust is ever present (and in large quantities). This can be tough for the equipment and it is advisable to be prepared for it. However, dust can also make for great backgrounds, particularly at dawn and dusk.
• Patience – You most probably already know about the amount of patience required in nature photography. However, I would like to add that in India you need much more of this quality than you would in other countries.
• Shooting from Elephant back – Elephant back safaris are very popular in many wildlife reserves in India (except in Western part of India). Elephants are the most marvelous off road “vehicles” and can reach almost everywhere. However, they are not very comfortable and on elephant back you have no choice but to hand hold the camera. If you are planning to do a lot of shooting from elephant back, then it is advisable to use high-speed films and lenses. Image Stabilizing (IS) or Vibration Reduction (VR) technology is very handy when you are on elephant back. Wild animals show a lot of tolerance towards elephants and elephants can get very close to wild animals, so you do not need a very large telephoto when on an elephant back. I personally think that a 70 – 200 mm f 2.8 zoom (with IS or VR) with a 400 ISO film or sensor setting is ideal for shooting from elephant backs.
• Safety of your equipment – In most of the wildlife parks and sanctuaries, your equipment is generally safe. However, I would advise you to be very careful when traveling in trains and when you are in urban areas. In such areas, stick to your equipment.
Look out for bonuses
India, with its vibrant colors, diverse culture and teeming population is paradise for photographers. A friend of mine once remarked that if you blindfold yourself, take a camera and walk down a market, taking random pictures, you can end up with a few great shots – that is you do not get run down. India offers a lot of great photo opportunities in every day life. Take advantage of this and look out for bonuses. Even if you are going to a Nature reserve for photography do not miss the brilliant opportunities that you will get in railway stations, roads, markets etc. I would recommend that you keep a camera handy all the time.
Inside Ranthambhore Fort
The Fort is a national historic monument but much more understanding of the importance of conserving our heritage as much as our environment needs to be communicated. While there are numerous different pressures on the park, awareness is important of the need for preserving the past for future generations.
One can almost hear the ghungroos of the dancers on their way to entertain the royal guests and courtiers in the many pillared palace of entertainments. Dusk would have fallen and the lamps lit, myriads of them, placed in their hundreds of niches in the walls surrounding the stage, shimmering and wavering to provide brilliance for the performers to shine.
There are many holy places inside this fort and villagers from the surrounding regions make pilgrimages from miles away to make obeisance at their favourite saint or chosen god’s temple.
This is the palace of Veer Hammir - the most famous of the local Rajput kings, and on the left it extends into the now derelict Queen’s palace. In front of this is the garden with royal blue peacocks making it their home.
This was where the kings of old would have their sacrifices [yagna] before beginning any martial activity such as war or invasion or defence.
The Ganesh temple inside the Ranthambhore Fort is one of the most famous in the region with pilgrims coming around for miles during the annual Mela. The grounds are full of the local “tame” langurs, considered holy and part of the temple thus not to be harmed. They are spoilt by tourists and visitors and can get quite aggressive about snatching flowers and snacks right out of your hands.
An old myth on the way to the temple has it that if you wish to build a house, you must build one here on the side of the path with the flat stones that are lying around. A number of such cairnlike houses line both sides of the pathway inside the Fort’s grounds.
On the way back to Ranthambhore Bagh - the setting desert sun hangs over the western sky as we return to the 21st century again.