Saturday, 12 January 2013

Radio collars for elephants in forests along rail tracks


Kumar Sambhav Shrivastava
Environment ministry wants to tag jumbos to track their movements and avert rail accidents

In the wake of the recent deaths of elephants on rail tracks in Odisha, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has decided to put radio collars on elephants that are found roaming near rail tracks. The pilot scheme will be started by radio collaring the surviving elephants of the herd that lost five of its members on January 6 after being hit by a moving train.

The elephant herd was traversing in its own corridor when five of its members , including a calf, were mowed down by a speeding Howrah-Chennai Coromandel Express near Rambha railway station in Ganjam district of Odisha. The fatal accident was attributed to lack of coordination between forest department of Odisha and the East Coast Railway.

Environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan called a meeting of forest and railway officials on January 8 to take measures to prevent such accidents. Among several directions she gave to the officials, one was to electronically tag the elephants that use forest patches near railway tracks. “There were reportedly around 20 elephants in the herd that met with the accident. We are planning to electronically tag the remaining 15-16 elephants of the same herd with the help of Wildlife Institute of India and IIT-Delhi.

If the pilot project is successful, then wildlife and forest personnel will be able to keep track of the elephant movements, and warn railway officials well in time to enable them to avoid accident,” said S S Garbyal, director general of forests (wildlife) in MoEF. Often, the time lag between spotting of the elephant, and the information reaching the driver of the train is too little to enable effective action to prevent accidents.

Who will tame speeding trains?


Biswajit Mohanty of non-profit wildlife society of Orissa, however, said the real problem is the speed of the train which has not been addressed yet effectively. “It's difficult to radio collar each and every elephant that may come near the track. What if a new elephant crosses the track other than the ones which are radio-collared. For long, railways officials have been reluctant to slow down the speed of trains which causes the accidents. The patches where wildlife is found near the tracks are just two to three kilometre long. It will not affect the journey time of the trains much,” he added.

It has been reported that the train that mowed down the elephants in Odisha was moving at a speed of nearly 100 km per hour. The impact of the collision was so severe that a mature foetus was pushed out of the womb of a female elephant. This despite the fact that the Indian Railways itself has put up at least 10 display boards, indicating it as elephant corridor.

The minister, in the meeting, pressed upon the railway officials that they should follow the advisory issued by the ministry for the movement of trains in the vulnerable patches where wildlife is found crossing the tracks, which includes slowing down of trains in all such patches. The railway officials, however, emphasized this could be done only for very small stretches, as generally slowing down of trains would be very unviable, both in terms of traffic management and economic implications.

Two rhinos killed by poachers in Assam

PTI
Two adult Rhinos with their horns
chopped off were found dead today in
separate forest areas of central Assam.
Orang National Park, located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River in Darrang district. GUWAHATI/MORIGAON: Two adult Rhinos with their horns chopped off were found dead today in separate forest areas of central Assam.

Both the male rhinos had been killed by poachers, Forest department officials said.

The carcass of one of the rhinos was recovered from Gopaljaroni area near Gohpur in Sonitpur district. The rhino's horn was chopped off, along with its tail and some other body parts, they said.

It is yet to be ascertained when it was killed, the officials said.

Following the recovery of the carcass, 12 persons were detained in Gohpur while they were engaged in distributing flesh of the rhino.

It is suspected that the rhino had strayed from the Northern Range of Kaziranga National Park. The range is located in the north bank of the Brahmaputra in Sonitpur district, while the other ranges are in the south bank.

The other rhino with its horn removed was found dead in the wetlands near Brahmaputra river in Morigaon district of Assam.

Officials said the animal was killed during the past 48 hours and left at Sheetalmari char under Belguri police station, they said.

The rhino has reportedly strayed from the Orang National Park, located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra River in Darrang district, and crossed to the southern bank in Morigaon through one of the four corridors used by animals during the winter months.

Rhino horn is highly valued across the world for its alleged aphrodisiac qualities and use in traditional medicine.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Two-rhinos-killed-by-poachers-in-Assam/articleshow/17984286.cms

Man-eating tigress shot dead


PTI
GONDIA: A man-eating tigress on prowl in areas adjoining Navegaon Bandh National Park in this east Maharashtra district was shot dead by officials in Dighori forest range today, authorities said.

The big cat had created a fear psychosis in villages, located in the 50-km radius near the national park, as it had preyed upon five persons--all women, between December 15 and January 4.

A joint team comprising forest officials, a C-60 commando squad and STPF ( Special Tiger Protection Force) unit had been chasing the tigress since January 1.

The seven-member team spotted the big cat hiding in the bushes in Dighori range between Malda and Sonjari villages at around 2pm, said a senior official.

"We tried our best to save the life of the tigress and tried to tranquilise it. But due to long distance and dense bushes, we left with no other option but to open fire as not doing so would have meant missing the opportunity to take out the elusive tigress", said Deputy Conservator of Forest (Territorial) S V Ramarao.

"A total of nine rounds were fired", he added. Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan had last week asked the forest authorities to take a call on killing the tigress to save human lives.

The tigress had escaped by a whisker on Monday when officials nearly trapped it near Salebardi village, and went on to kill three cattle in past two days.

Honorary Wildlife Warden Sawan Bahekar told PTI that the decision to kill the tigress was taken with a heavy heart.

The failure of forest officials to tame the big cat over last one month had triggered an outrage among villagers who had staged a blockade at Navegaon Bandh intersection last Saturday.

The carcass of the tigress was brought at Chulbandh for postmortem.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Man-eating-tigress-shot-dead/articleshow/17998318.cms