An eye on the Hangul

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ, The Hindu  | April 14, 2013

Gathering: This sub-specie of the European red deer is endangered. Photo: Rashid Naqash

A first-ever satellite telemetry tracking of Hanguls in Kashmir’s Dachigam National Park to study the deer’s behaviour and the reasons behind its falling numbers

The Dachigam National Park, habitat of the majestic Hangul, near Srinagar is these days in for an activity never witnessed in the Valley. Technology has ultimately changed what Harwan’s legendary wildlife guard Qasim Wani did for decades before his death at the age of 100 with his empty hands and naked eyes: studying the behaviour of the dreaded Himalayan black bear, leopard, shy musk deer and Hangul.

The multi-terrain expanse of 141 sq km, spread over the plains, dense forest and barren hills from the picturesque Zabarvan range to the high-altitude ridges of Tral, is under the radar to track the Hangul alone. The other inmates in this landscape are musk deer, leopard, Himalayan grey langur, Himalayan black bear, Himalayan brown bear, hill fox, Himalayan weasel, yellow-throated marten, long-tailed marmot and otter.

Hangul, or cervus ellaphus hanglu, a sub-specie of the European red deer known to be existing only in Kashmir, has been for the first time chemically captured and fitted with a state-of-the-art satellite collar by a dedicated team of 30-odd officials and experts from the State government’s Department of Wildlife Protection, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST) and the Dehra Dun-based Wildlife Institute of India [WII]. It is a Rs. 40 lakh research initiative and is being supported by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).

“It was literally an uphill task,” says Dr. Parag Nigam, wildlife health management scientist at WII, “to habituate and chemically capture the animal. It took us three months before we hit success on March 16.” Never before had the Hangul been captured and fitted with a satellite collar, Dr. Nigam claimed. He narrated how arduously one of these fastest running big deer had been lured into the Oak Patch of the national park, habituated for weeks and finally immobilised with a remote drug delivery system, called the syringe projector or a ‘dot gun’. It was hit from a distance of 30 metres by Dr. Nigam.

Candid shot: A Hangul in Dachigam National Park.
Photo: Rashid Naqash

The only Asiatic survivor of the red deer, Hangul, has been declared (the locally) critically engendered wildlife specie in the Red List of The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in 1996. It has similar categorisation in the list of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) which has India as a signatory. It has been incorporated in Schedule-1 of both the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 as well as the Jammu and Kashmir Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1978.

A.K. Singh, Chief Wildlife Warden of Jammu and Kashmir, puts Hangul’s population at 175 in March 2009 and 218 in March 2011. The department conducts a census every two years with technical support from WII. Findings of a recent census are still under formulation. The 1989 census puts the number of Hangul at 900, indicating its fall towards the verge of extinction in the last 23 years of the armed insurgency and counterterrorism in Kashmir. However, some people like the retired Range Officer Mohammad Ashraf Mir insist that the numbers should be higher as armed poaching came down to zero due to thick concentration of security forces.

The leopard alone had been the killer since 1990, many residents at Harwan and Moolnar villages believe. According to them, the only incident of armed poaching in last several years happened in January 2013 when six poachers were found to have killed a male Hangul. They were accordingly booked and arrested. In the pre-militancy era, organised gangs of local hunters used to fell scores of the deer every year. The male is killed mainly for its 11 to 16 pointed majestic antler that fetches the hunter Rs. 3 lakh to Rs. 5 lakh in international market.

As the census team is said to have spotted antlers at several places — an evidence of the presence of the male — at several places, some like Assistant Project Officer of Wildlife Trust of India, Mansoor Nabi, believe that the numbers may be higher this year. “Not necessarily,” says Mr. Singh though, with a word of caution. “Let us wait for the findings.”

Conservator of Forest Farooq Gilani, formerly Kashmir’s Regional Wildlife Warden, believes that over-grazing of cattle and wild fires in Upper Dachigam and existence of infrastructure of 12 government departments in Lower Dachigam could be a major factor behind the dwindling population of Hangul. Biotic interference, according to him, could be the bigger killer than the poacher and the predator.

Principal investigator and Dr. Nigam’s partner, Dr. Khursheed, who works as the scientist in-charge of the Centre for Mountain Wildlife Science at SKUAST told The Hindu that four of the animals were being captured and fitted with the satellite collars under the Hangul research project. He sounded confident that three more would be seized soon. Black bear and some other animals have been previously tracked through a Global Positioning System and VHF/UHF-fitted ground tracking system.

“Radio collars have been used recently here on black bear and leopard but the satellite telemetry and Global Positioning System on Hangul is in operation for the first time. This will enable us access critical data through a dedicated satellite channel and particular software to observe the animal’s behaviour and activity, including hibernation, mating, conceiving and delivery besides mortality and the ground temperature on a 24x7 basis for two years of the unit’s battery life.”

Germany-based Vectronics Aerospace, which has provided four satellite collars at Rs 2.70 lakh each, has equipped the units with multi-function sensors and implants. These are hooked to the European Iridium satellite which in turn processes and supplies data to the German firm. A particular amount is charged for each downloading of the data, normally with frequency of three hours.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/an-eye-on-the-hangul/article4614448.ece

2013 In The Indian Wild

JAY MAZOOMDAAR | 2013-03-23

A red alert from the ministry, a damning report at Bangkok and our killing fields

THE NATIONAL Tiger Conservation Authority sounded a countrywide red alert against poaching last week. On 7 March, a report released at the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species meet in Bangkok extrapolated figures from global seizures to claim more than 100 cases of tiger poaching every year since 2000.

Most of these pelts and bones originate from India, home to more than half of the world’s wild tigers. Leopards are a bigger victim with an estimated 200 poached annually and a large number falling prey to man-animal conflict. Seizures, carcasses and lynch mobs often make headlines, but rarely present the scale of the slaughter that continues despite international attention and domestic initiatives. Barely 10 weeks into 2013, consider the numbers India’s killing fields have to offer this year:

JAN-FEB Uttarakhand Police recover 22 leopard skins and arrest 14 people in different operations.

JAN-MARCH 13 rhinos poached in Assam. Railway tracks claim six elephants.

6 JANUARY Tiger poached on the outskirts of Pench in Maharashtra.

11, 12 JANUARY Raids in Nepal lead to seizures of seven tiger skins and 53 kg of tiger bones, including 140 canines that amount to 35 tigers. Many believe the consignments were from Uttarakhand.

12 JANUARY A problem tigress shot dead near Navegaon in Maharashtra.

13 JANUARY A leopard trapped for the third time in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony.

17 JANUARY A tiger carcass found in the buffer of Pench in Madhya Pradesh.

21 JANUARY A leopard trapped at a village near Palamu, Jharkhand.

24 JANUARY Leopard caught in a cable wire trap near Shiroda in Goa.

27 JANUARY Man arrested for electrocuting a leopard near Panna in MP.

28 JANUARY A sloth bear killed on NH-6 near Navegaon. The same day, a leopard was found dead in Gujarat’s Junagadh.

29 JANUARY Two arrested with wild boar meat from Panna. The same day, a leopard trapped near Siliguri, West Bengal.

2 FEBRUARY Two poachers held with leopard and deer hides in Similipal, Odisha.

4 FEBRUARY Two held with a leopard pelt, two bear gall bladders and a leopard cat pelt near Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand.

7 FEBRUARY Tiger found poisoned in Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand.

9 FEBRUARY Villagers hang leopard from a tree in Dibrugarh, Assam.

11 FEBRUARY An elephant carcass, probably poached, found in Saranda, Jharkhand.

13 FEBRUARY 15 freshwater turtles recovered from a smuggler in Chandigarh.

15 FEBRUARY Leopard poisoned near Haldwani in Uttarakhand. A dead lioness dumped inside a walled well in Gujarat’s Amreli district.

20 FEBRUARY Four persons, including family members of forest guards, arrested for killing four leopards inside Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park.

21 FEBRUARY Three men held with five tiger pelts and a porcupine from Chinhat, Uttar Pradesh. Another held in Mumbai with a leopard skin.

23 FEBRUARY About 30 kg of pangolin scales seized from three men in Uttarakhand.

25 FEBRUARY A leopard trapped in Karnataka’s Hassan district.

26 FEBRUARY Ailing leopard cub dies near Nagpur as a range officer let his family pose with the animal for hours before allowing any medical help. A leopard found dead inside Kanha Tiger Reserve.

27 FEBRUARY Villagers lynch a leopard in Poonch, Jammu & Kashmir.

3 MARCH Two poachers arrested while cooking a leopard cub they hunted near Kumbhalgarh sanctuary in Rajasthan.

4 MARCH Four held for poaching a tiger in Melghat.

6 MARCH Female leopard, fifth since 2011, was knocked dead on NH-6 near Nagzira sanctuary. A leopard was captured in a village near Nagarahole Tiger Reserve.

9 MARCH Man held at Mumbai airport with 97 turtles.

11 MARCH Tiger found dead with signs of bleeding from the nose and the rectum in Sunderbans.

Yet, this is only the tip of the iceberg, because for every killing on this laundry list, at least five went unnoticed. For all the alerts and reports, there is little investment in building a workforce trained to investigate, prosecute and, most importantly, gather field intelligence. If laws and guns alone could save the wild, this count would have been different after four decades of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and a ban on hunting.

jaymazoomdaar@gmail.com

(Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 10 Issue 12, Dated 23 March 2013)
Source: http://tehelka.com/2013-in-the-indian-wild/

Over 8,000 captive baby tortoises die

P. OPPILI

Reptiles were seized at airport on Tuesday, housed at private vet clinic

• 9,000 baby red-eared slider tortoises were seized by Chennai airport officials on Tuesday
• The passenger who was carrying them had got them in China, and flown in to Chennai from Kuala Lumpur
• They had been stacked one on top of the other, in three cartons
• Of the 9,000, less than 800 are currently alive
• Each baby tortoise was about three inches in size
• The tortoises get their name from the distinctive red patch of skin around their ears
• They are semi-aquatic reptiles, and very popular as pets
• They can live for up to 30 years

Two days after the seizure of 9,000 baby tortoises by customs officials at the airport, shocked animal welfare activists have found that fewer than 800 have survived.

Airport officials had seized the tortoises from a passenger who had come in from Kuala Lumpur, and was attempting to exit through the green channel. Activists said the red-eared slider tortoises, which were just a few days old, were stacked one on top of another and packed into three cartons, with no provisions for aeration or food.

The tortoises had been bought by a city resident, who deals in the wholesale trade of pets.

The tortoises were handed over to State wildlife authorities, who later housed them a private veterinary clinic in Guindy. Even at the time of their being handed over, 1,500 died, and the wildlife authorities only received 7,500 live tortoises.

Activists said they were surprised by the authorities’ move to house the surviving tortoises at the private clinic, instead of taking them government’s quarantine centre in Medavakkam, as per government norms.

At the private clinic, the tortoises were kept in tubs, with each tub containing more than 300 tortoises, they said.

They pointed out that this was not the first time such a huge number of red-eared slider tortoises have been brought to Chennai.

A similar consignment arrived here about a year ago, and then too, the tortoises had been taken to the same private clinic in Guindy instead of to the quarantine centre.

Allowing the import of exotic animals to be reared as pets will lead to problems for endemic or native species. Moreover, pet owners become afraid once the tortoises grow older, an activist said.

When they find it difficult to find a suitable home for their pets, many owners end up abandoning them on the roads, he added.

Noted conservationist Shekar Dattatri said: “This seizure has revealed the extent of the illegal trade in this and other non-native species that are smuggled into the country. Many people buy these turtles to keep them as pets, or because they believe that keeping one brings good luck. What they probably do not realise is that for every turtle that survives the journey to India, hundreds die in the tightly-packed containers in which they are smuggled. I appeal to people not to buy exotic species like these turtles, as it encourages a very cruel trade.”

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/over-8000-captive-baby-tortoises-die/article4559180.ece

Governments boost support for sharks, elephants

BANGKOK: A major meeting on the plight of endangered species wrapped up on Thursday with a victory for shark conservationists and increased pressure on countries to curb rampant illegal trade in ivory.

The illegal ivory trade was at the top of the agenda with
eight nations accused of failing to do enough to
tackle the problem.

In what was hailed as a "historic day" for the world's oldest predator, protection for the oceanic whitetip shark, the porbeagle, three types of hammerhead and the manta ray won final approval by the 178-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

On the final day of more than a week of talks in the Thai capital Bangkok, Japan along with China and other nations that support shark fishing lost an 11th-hour bid to overturn the landmark deal.

"Shark populations are in freefall, but have been thrown a lifeline today - CITES has finally listened to the scientists," said Glenn Sant of wildlife trade protection group Traffic.

Rather than a complete ban, countries will be required to regulate trade by issuing export permits to ensure the sustainability of sharks in the wild, otherwise they could face sanctions by members of CITES, a global treaty that protects some 35,000 species.

The United States hailed the agreement as a "historic moment in shark and ray conservation".

In total, more than 300 threatened species won increased protection at the meeting, including dozens of types of turtles and timber.

The illegal ivory trade was at the top of the agenda with eight nations accused of failing to do enough to tackle the problem.

Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as well as transit countries Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, and top markets China and Thailand were identified as making insufficient efforts to curb the trade.

But they avoided sanctions after submitting -- or pledging to submit -- draft action plans that must be finalised by May, with the possibility that sanctions would be revisited if they do not make progress by July 2014.

Under the convention, member states can halt trading with offender countries in the 35,000 species covered by the convention.

CITES General Secretary John Scanlon said such measures were a "last resort" and should only be imposed "where there's a clear failure to comply and no intention to comply".

"We have not got to that point in my view. At this point we actually have states that are engaged," he said.

Wildlife group WWF welcomed the increased pressure on the eight countries.

"After years of inaction, governments today put those countries failing to regulate the ivory trade on watch, a move that will help stem the unfettered slaughter of thousands of African elephants," said WWF's Carlos Drews.

The eight nations defended themselves in the face of the accusations, which led media to dub them the "Gang of Eight".

"We are not denying that we have an active seaport and an active airport, and that we have challenges," said Kenyan delegate Patrick Omondi.

"We should not be lumped together as a Gang of Eight. Transit and source countries have unique challenges," he said. "We feel the focus should be on the demand side."

Illicit trade in ivory has doubled since 2007 and more than tripled over the past 15 years, according to wildlife groups, which estimate that only about 420,000 to 650,000 elephants remain in Africa.

Conservationists fear that 2012 was an even deadlier year than 2011, when an estimated 25,000 African elephants were killed.

In an effort to better track the illicit commerce, CITES members adopted new measures under which countries making large seizures of illegal ivory will be required to conduct DNA tests to determine their origin.

Scanlon rejected suggestions that the action had fallen short of expectations.

"We've seen an unprecedented level of international cooperation," he said, comparing the fight against ivory trade to the battle against trafficking in drugs, arms and people.

"Wildlife crime is in the same league as these sorts of crimes. You've got serious transnational organised criminals involved in this -- they are hard to crack. We haven't cracked them in any area," he said.

Rhinos were also a hot topic at the meeting, with Vietnam and Mozambique urged to do more to fight the illegal trade, which saw some 668 rhinos slaughtered in 2012.

But a US-led push for a ban on international trade in polar bears was rejected amid fears it would distract from the bigger threat of global warming.

The proposal had divided conservationists, who agree that the main risk to the world's largest carnivorous land animal comes from habitat loss but differ over whether international trade also puts the bears at risk of extinction.

The next CITES meeting will be held in South Africa in 2016.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Governments-boost-support-for-sharks-elephants/articleshow/18972688.cms

Why thriving wildlife trade should not surprise anyone

Jay Mazoomdaar | Mar 11, 2013
The customary headlines that follow every CITES meeting were reeled out last week after a string of media releases from Bangkok on 7 March. There is global anguish over the shocking numbers — seizures amounting to 1425 dead tigers from 12 tiger range countries between 2000 and 2012, or, more than two killing a week.

The Indian media highlighted the five illegal trading hotspots in Delhi, Kolkata (Sunderbans), Ramnagar (Corbett), Balaghat (Kanha-Pench) and Sathyamangalam (the Western Ghats) which retained its notoriety even after the killing of brigand Veerappan and disbanding of his ivory hunting gang nearly a decade ago.

Since 2000, more than two tigers have been poached every week.
Pic courtesy: CITES/WWF

A spurt in tiger poaching that claimed at least 34 big cats in the first five months of 2012 continues across the country. Since mid-November, three tigers have died of electrocution in live-wire traps set by poachers in and around Bandhavgarh’s Khitoli range. Since mid-January, suspected poisoning has killed four tigers in Karnataka’s Nagarhole. Last week, a one-year-old tigress was rescued from a metal jaw-trap in Dudhwa, Uttar Pradesh, with a damaged paw.

Since 2000, more than two tigers have been poached every week. Pic courtesy: CITES/WWF
While tiger mortality usually makes big news, leopards are being taken out at such regularity that making even a guesstimate has become a challenge. Since 2010, six dozen tigers and nearly 500 leopards have fallen to poachers. That is just the official count.

Compared to big cat pelts and bones, rhino horns command a much higher price. After a lull during 1999-2006, the lucrative trade made a strong comeback in Assam. In 2012, more than 22 rhinos were poached. This year’s toll has already reached 10, prompting a shoot-at-sight order against poachers.

Annually, up to 30,000 star tortoises worth several crores of rupees are harvested in our country. An estimated 50-70 per cent of India’s otter population has been hunted for their pelts. The paintbrush industry’s demand for 8-12 quintals of hair has killed more than a million mongooses – only 10-20g hair is obtained from each — since the 1990s.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to protect wild animals with physical vigil unless we convert open forests into fenced-in zoos. Even then, a large number of wildlife will continue to roam outside. The most effective deterrence to poaching is the fear of getting caught, prosecuted and punished. But after four decades of the Wildlife (Protection) Act and a ban on hunting, how are the syndicates still so active?

There are at least three reasons. We are yet to build the capacity to adequately combat poaching; the administration is mostly in denial; and the powers that be have strong incentive to back wildlife trade.

On paper, we have created the Special Tiger Protection Force in a number of reserves. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has even introduced a high-tech thermal imagery system for round-the-clock surveillance last year and proposed to procure drones to watch over remote forest terrain.

But far from compensating for quality human resource, any sophisticated initiative depends on it for success. Yet, there is no initiative to build a motivated, trained and agile workforce and adequately incentivise it for consistent field results.

Every forest administration needs eyes and ears on the ground. Since the average bureaucrat is not a natural sleuth or an earthy man-manager, field officers should be handpicked for wildlife divisions. Every division also needs a dedicated legal cell with trained staff to ensure that cases do not fall through when rare arrests are made. But even six years after the creation of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, intelligence gathering and prosecution remains inadequate.

Unsurprisingly, the culture of denial is so deeply embedded in forest bureaucracy that most officers refuse to accept that poachers continue to be a threat in their territory. It is standard practice to play the jurisdiction card and disown animals that step out of park limits. Since officers in charge of less-protected areas neither have the resources to fight poachers nor are expected to, nobody is held accountable for poaching of, say, tigers in the Ramnagar forests adjacent to Corbett or rhinos across the road from Kaziranga.

When a suspicious carcass is found, the management tries to get away by attributing the death to anything — from food poisoning to snake bite – anything short of a suicide. Last year, an internal note of the Environment ministry pointed out that “many cases are straightaway declared as occurring due to natural causes or accidents without a detailed investigation to establish the same,” adding that “every case of tiger and leopard death would be henceforth treated as a case of poaching, unless otherwise proved beyond reasonable doubt”.

But a multi-billion dollar industry cannot bet its fortune on administrative laxity alone. So Veerappan funded political parties in two states for over a decade. Sansar Chand’s famous diary apparently had details of collusion with a number of Delhi’s political big guns. Insurgents protect trees for cover in their forest hideouts but have no qualms clearing Indravati of tigers or Manas of rhinos to fund arms deals.

During the 1980s and 1990s, when a number of prime north-east forests became inaccessible to the administration, more than 550 rhinos were poached. As the law and order condition improved in the late 90s, a shoot-at-sight regime forced an eight-year lull, particularly in Kaziranga, till the 2006 Assembly elections unleashed a cycle of “political reward killing”.

Poachers were back to claim 20 rhinos by 2007. Then again, after the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, around two dozen animals were killed till 2010. In 2011, only one rhino was poached till the Assembly elections in May. Nearly three dozen have been killed since till the Kaziranga administration finally retaliated last Wednesday gunning down two armed poachers.

While shoot-at-sight orders are necessary in places like Kaziranga to match the fire power of former militants joining the trade, this approach suits few other forests in India. Unlike Kaziranga, most of our forests house villages and opening fire at the sight of people in such areas is a recipe for disaster. Building an anti-poaching network based on field intelligence demands a lot of hard work. But there is no alternative if we are serious about protecting our wild.

Source: http://www.firstpost.com/living/why-thriving-wildlife-trade-should-not-surprise-anyone-654771.html

Marine pollution, poaching threaten dolphins

SANTOSH PATNAIK

PITIABLE:The carcass of a bottlenose dolphin being
shifted after it was swept ashore at Visakhapatnam.
- Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Sighting a dolphin on the shores between Visakhapatnam and Kakinada may become a thing of the past with such a death reported at a regular interval.

North Andhra coast is a habitat for mostly bottlenose dolphins. Spinner, humpback and common dolphins are also found in limited numbers.

Dolphins provide relaxing moments for the mariners and tourists going on a boat ride being organised by AP Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC). There is also a proposal to promote dolphin tourism in a big way by deploying more vessels to enthral animal lovers.

Due to their dwindling number, dolphins are categorised in Appendix I of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Poaching, indiscriminate dumping of industrial effluents and spurt in commercial fishing have led to falling number of dolphins in North Andhra coast, a study revealed.

Being sports aquatic animals, dolphins are most loved creatures for people of all age groups.

They are not harmful and friendly to human beings and are good at imitating and mimicking them. For feeding they move from one place to another and are normally seen in near shore water.

“For past two decades or so, due to increased activity, their population has been under threat. During our study, we found dolphins, mostly bottlenose dolphins are dying because of killing by fishermen for its tasty meat, pollution caused by industrial effluents and increased fishing activity,” Dr. D.E. Babu, zoology professor of Andhra University, told The Hindu .

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/marine-pollution-poaching-threaten-dolphins/article4473774.ece

Singapore seizes biggest ivory haul in a decade

AFP

Singapore authorities said they had intercepted
1.8 tonnes of ivory from Africa worth 2 million USD in
the city-state's largest such haul in over a decade.
(AFP Photo)

SINGAPORE: Singapore authorities said on Wednesday they had intercepted 1.8 tonnes of ivory from Africa worth $2 million in the city-state's largest such haul in over a decade.

The seizure was made following a tip-off, said Gerald Neo, executive manager of the quarantine and inspection department of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).

"AVA and Singapore Customs conducted a joint inspection on a shipment that was declared as 'waste paper' on 23 January. We found 1,099 pieces of raw ivory tusks," Neo said.

The tusks -- valued at Sg$2.5 million ($2 million) -- were in transit from Africa, a joint statement by the AVA and Singapore Customs said. The destination of the shipment was not mentioned.

International trade in ivory has been banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 1989. Singapore is a signatory to the convention.

The statement said the AVA was "working with local and international agencies to investigate this case".

It was the biggest haul since June 2002 when authorities seized around six tonnes of ivory tusks and cut ivory pieces.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/Singapore-seizes-biggest-ivory-haul-in-a-decade/articleshow/18258601.cms