Wildlife sanctuaries closed due to fire risk

K. S. SUDHI
Two wildlife sanctuaries — Silent Valley National Park and Wayanad — have been closed to visitors since Friday following high fire risk.

Scanty summer showers and dried vegetation have heightened the fire risk in most of the protected areas of the State. The restriction on tourism activities and curbs on visitors were enforced at the sanctuaries to minimise risk of fire, said V. Gopinath, Chief Wildlife Warden, Kerala.

Though sporadic incidents of fire were reported from some forest areas in the State, the situation was under control, Mr. Gopinath said.

Fire prevention measures carried out annually, including the clearing of fire tracts and posting of fire watchers, whad been completed. However, shortage of manpower was a major problem. The department had 2,000 regular employees to protect the 11,000 sq.km of forest area in the State, said Mr. Gopinath.

221 incidents

Last year, 221 incidents of forest fire were reported in Kerala between January 1, 2012 and May 31, according to the statistics collected by the Forest Survey of India. Idukki accounted for the most number of incidents last year with 56 fire outbreaks followed by Wayanad (17) and Pathanamthitta (16). Large tracts of withered bamboo have dried up in Wayanad after their recent mass flowering. The dried-up bamboo poses high risk to wildlife as well as human habitations. A recent meeting of the State Wildlife Advisory Board had decided to approach the National Board for cutting down the bamboo. The board has estimated that there would be around 25,000 metric tonne bamboo to be harvested from there which could be sold to agencies like Hindustan Newsprint Ltd. As the bamboo groves are located inside the sanctuary, the permission of the national board is required for cutting them down, said Roy P. Thomas, Divisional Forest Officer, Wayanad.

In Silent Valley, large tracts of grass have dried up along the forest route from Mukkali to Sairandhri. Heavy dust covers the area as vehicles pass through the parched tracts. The management of the park had also suggested its closure during the summer months. The park will remain closed for two months, a park official said. As the waterholes inside the protected areas have dried up, animals have started leaving the forest area in search of water and foraying into human habitations. An elephant was spotted on a road near the sanctuary last week, the official said.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/wildlife-sanctuaries-closed-due-to-fire-risk/article4473415.ece

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

Forest officials accused of torturing poachers

NIDHI SURENDRANATH

Two persons accused of poaching were arrested
by forest officers from inside the
Nelliampathy forest range on December 7, 2012.

Forest department officers who claim to have nabbed poachers red-handed have now been directed to appear in a test identification parade before the accused.

The parade was ordered after a proactive police officer met an accused in judicial custody and recorded a statement against the forest officers accusing them of torture.

Officials of the Kollengode forest range insist there were several irregularities in the case.

“The poachers did not complain of torture when they were taken to the Magistrate after the arrest. The allegations were made almost a week after their arrest and confession,” said Range Forest Officer Nibu Kiran. Legal experts also pointed out that it was highly unusual for a police officer to visit an accused in judicial custody at the sub-jail to take down his statement.

According to the investigators, the six poachers were found in the core area of the Nelliampathy forest by a team of eight forest officers early in December 2012. “We had been keeping a vigil after we found cigarette butts and newspapers in the core area a few days earlier,” said Mr. Kiran. Forest officers have recorded the seizure of a dead boar, bear skin, bear meat, animal fat, flashlights and lead pellets from the site.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/forest-officials-accused-of-torturing-poachers/article4473847.ece

Ranger posts to be filled with retired officers

P. OPPILI
In a move that has baffled activists, the Environment and Forest department has given its nod for filling up vacant posts of Rangers in the State by appointing retired range officers instead of direct recruitment of young talent.

According to a government order, the retired rangers could be appointed in Extension, Social Forestry, Plantation, Research, Working Plan wings and for other special duties. The order further said that their work would be assigned by the District Forest Officers / Conservator of Forests concerned. A GO dated December 27, 2012 has cleared such a proposal of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests sent to the government last September.

There are more than 100 vacancies in the department and applications from most of the districts have been received by the Committee members. The Committee is yet to receive application from few more districts. Surprised by the announcement, the Tamil Nadu Green Movement Coordinator K. Mohan Raj said it was shocking that the Tamil Nadu Forest department was offering employment opportunities to retired officers.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/ranger-posts-to-be-filled-with-retired-officers/article4470938.ece

Tribespeople not trespassers: court

Court quashes criminal cases registered against them

• Cases registered against them under provisions of Kerala Forest Act
• ‘Conviction and sentence should be set aside in the interests of justice’

The Kerala High Court has ruled that tribespeople who eke out a living by collecting forest produce cannot be termed “trespassers” upon reserve forests, especially when they do not commit any serious damage to the trees in the forests.

Justice B. Kemal Pasha made the observation while quashing criminal cases registered against some tribespeople living in Kuttampuzha, near Thodupuzha, for trespassing upon the reserve forest and clearing reeds.

The judge said ever since the enactment of the Forest Dwellers Act, tribespeople residing in forests and eking out a living by collecting forest produce could not be described as trespassers on the forest, especially when they did not commit any serious damage to any trees in the forest.

The court observed that when a beneficial legislation was enacted, such benefits could be extended to these tribespeople people in the interests of justice.

The cases were registered against the tribespeople under the provisions of the Kerala Forest Act on the basis of a complaint by the Kuttampuzha Forest Range Officer. The Range Officer alleged that they had trespassed upon the reserve forest, clearing reeds and undergrowth and tried to take possession of the forest land.

The Thodupuzha Sessions Court found the petitioners guilty of the offences and sentenced them to two years simple imprisonment. Counsel for the petitioners pointed out that there was no allegation that they had committed any other offences. As per the new enactment, the stringent provision had been watered down as far as the tribespeople were concerned.

The court said considering the benefits given to the tribals under the Act, the conviction and sentence should be set aside in the interests of justice.

The government submitted that the tribals had no authority to collect reeds or trespass into the reserve forest. It was a fact that the forest dwellers and their ancestors had been occupying the reserve forest.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/tribespeople-not-trespassers-court/article4464709.ece

Man killed by wild elephants

A 60-year-old man was killed by wild elephants near Hosur on Tuesday night.

The deceased was indentified as C. Thirumiah (60). He was guarding the harvested ragi at Beerjepalli village. He was rushed to the Government Taluk Hospital in Hosur and succumbed to injuries on Wednesday morning.

District Forest Officer A.K. Ulaganathan said that an immediate relief of Rs. 25,000 was handed over to the spouse T. Salamma.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/man-killed-by-wild-elephants/article4464622.ece

Do not hinder movement of elephants, people told

People residing in forest areas in Attur forest range have been asked not to disrupt or divert the movement of the elephant herd that entered the district on Wednesday.

After holding a consultative meeting with forest and revenue officials, Collector K. Maharabushanam said that efforts have been taken for safe passage of the elephants and make them enter deep forest without entering the residential areas. However, people should not burst crackers, light bonfires or throw stones at the herd.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/do-not-hinder-movement-of-elephants-people-told/article4464648.ece

When the tiger shows us the passageways

While experts dither over corridor viability, big cats from Rajasthan offer some lessons
Jay Mazoomdaar
IT WAS Jaipur, late 2007. A few months before the PMO cleared the plan to fly in tigers to Sariska from Ranthambhore, an IAS officer was holding forth on the subject at a private function. “Let’s build a corridor for tigers; 100-metre wide. How much land (do) we require? It’s not even 200 km between the two forests,” he said, clearly exasperated by the delay. Just 140 km, a colleague assured him, and generously proposed that the width of the passage be doubled: “We will put trees and all. It will be fenced and safe.” The enthusiasm was infectious till a senior forest officer jumped in to play spoilsport.

As forests get fragmented due to rapid incursion of roads, railways, mines, cropland or settlements, maintaining connectivity and therefore healthy gene flow among small wild populations is becoming more challenging than ever. More so, because the popular perception of a wildlife corridor, particularly to those in the corridors of power, is indistinguishable from say, freight corridors.

The term corridor gives an impression of linearity. But animals seldom move like crows fly. The shortest course we chart out for tigers at official meetings and even in research papers may not suit them at all. The route may not have enough water sources or vegetation cover in which they can sneak around. Or it may be just too crowded.

For many years now, experts and officials have been wondering how to make the 2-4 km stretch between Ranthambhore National Park (RNP) and Keladevi Wildlife Sanctuary (KWLS) — both part of the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve (RTR) but separated by the Banas river — a safe animal corridor so that tigers from the park can populate the sanctuary.

The ravine wilderness that connects RNP and KWLS is being flattened for agriculture by local villagers who have established several hamlets to manage their new cropland. Though ecologically vibrant, ravines are classified as wasteland, reclamation of which is officially encouraged. Illegal sand mining on several stretches along the Banas further chokes this passageway. Unsurprisingly, of the 50-odd Ranthambhore tigers, only one is settled in KWLS, crowded by dozens of villages and their livestock.

But while the close proximity of RNP and KWLS makes restoring connectivity look feasible, any prospect of reviving the Ranthambhore-Kuno corridor has long been written off. Tigers from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh mated frequently till the trans-Chambal link snapped three decades ago. While Kuno remained connected to other MP forests, Ranthambhore became an island, hemming in its then population of 14 tigers.

The numbers have multiplied almost four-fold in RNP since. But the only way the Ranthambhore tigers can escape disastrous consequences of inbreeding is through revival of the gene flow from MP. But nobody gave the lost corridor a chance. Once the resident tigers of Kuno were poached, it was readied for lions from Gujarat. When Narendra Modi refused to oblige, the focus shifted to reintroducing cheetahs from Africa.

BETWEEN RTR and Kuno, the Chambal river forms the boundary between Rajasthan and MP. In this stretch, five Rajasthan rivers — Mez, Chakan, Kharad, Kundli and Banas — join the Chambal from the north. Another six tributaries — Kalisindh, Parbati, Seep, Param, Doni and Kuno — reach from the south.

Dispersing tigers prefer to keep to watercourses. Each of these meandering rivers connects RNP to neighbouring forests. Along the Chambal axis, Chakan, Kharad and Kundli lead to Sawai Mansingh sanctuary while Mez offers passage to Ramgarh Bishdhari forests. Kalisindh is the access to Darrah sanctuary while Parbati reaches the forests of Baran district. Kuno and Param rivers pass through the Kuno sanctuary while Doni and Seep flow in the larger Kuno landscape.

In the recent past, Ranthambhore tigers have travelled far and wide — Kota, Bharatpur and Mathura — as the rivers flow. There was no reason why they, if their nerve held, would not reach Kuno in MP. In fact, quite a few floaters — the last one in 2010 — ventured south inside MP across the Chambal, but eventually moved back to Rajasthan.

So, many considered it a fluke when a Ranthambhore male (T38) walked out of RNP’s Sultanpur area in late 2010 and reached Kuno in January 2011. The itinerary is sketchy but T38 walked southeast to cross the Banas and spent two weeks in a patch of ravine forest before crossing the Chambal at its confluence with Param and then followed the river upstream to reach the heart of Kuno. It was a leisurely journey, with many stopovers and kills.

Yet, T38 was merely considered lucky, till a sub-adult tiger decided to match his skills last month. One of the three cubs of T26, the young male left RNP’s Khandar area on 23 January. It reached the Banas the next day and apparently sensing mining activities to its right, turned left along the river, crossed a couple of roads, and climbed atop the hills of KWLS using the only available pass by 26 January. Unimpressed by the mess inside Keladevi, it charted its course down to the Chambal river and across to MP in the next five days.

Here, its intuition took over again and it chose to follow the Kuno river southward. Parallel to the Chambal runs a 12- feet deep irrigation canal that briefly goes inside a tunnel while passing over the Kuno. The tiger reached the other side of the canal walking under this tunnel on 5 February and, as if to reward himself, made its first kill in MP soon after. Then it slowed down in the comfort zone of reserve forests south of Kuno sanctuary that offer ample feral cattle. The tiger has made three more kills since and is not showing any urgency to head southwards along the river. It has already walked at least 80 km, more than the linear distance between RNP and Kuno, without being spotted even once, and is a day’s walk away from joining predecessor T38 inside the sanctuary.

Unlike T38 in 2011, T26 junior is being tracked daily by the forest departments of the two states with the help of TigerWatch, a Ranthambhore NGO, and village wildlife watchers appointed for the task. Tired of waiting for lions, and now cheetahs, the guards at Kuno sound both excited and nervous to be hosting tigers again. Veterans, who still remember Kuno’s last tigers, are wary of poachers even as they pray that the next Ranthambhore crossover is a female.

The remarkable journeys of the Ranthambhore duo have three lessons for us. The wild does not need handholding and knows what it is up to. The river courses, and the surrounding ravines, must be secured and monitored for tiger migration. Every tiger in transit needs rigorous tracking to avoid poaching or conflict.

Meanwhile, with RNP finally having surplus tigers and habitats not improving in KWLS, dispersal of cats outside the reserve will continue. As a bunch of cubs get ready to break free in the coming months, Kuno is likely to welcome a few more tigers, hopefully females this time, from Ranthambhore.

Once the settlers start breeding in Kuno, young tigers will eventually venture further south inside MP to find partners or perhaps individuals from MP’s northernmost tiger pockets will come checking at Kuno. With time, the reverse wild traffic will hit Ranthambhore, carrying fresh genes to Rajasthan in many decades.

If only we take cue from the tiger instead of deciding for it.

Source: http://tehelka.com/when-the-tiger-shows-us-the-passageways/

How can we help to bridge critical gap in tiger conservation

By Dharmendra Khandal Feb 27 2013

Photo: Dharmendra Khandal

Famous tiger conservationists Belinda Wright wrote on a social networking site that “Unfortunately, there was news of two dead tigers, and a third caught in a poacher’s trap. One of the tigers was electrocuted in a live-wire trap set by poachers for wild meat in Katni District, adjoining Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. Shockingly, this was the third tiger to die in an electrocution trap set by poachers in the Bandhavgarh area since 18 November 2011, a period of only 15 weeks. Another tiger was found dead near Nagarhole NP. And a third young tiger was found in a metal jaw trap in Dudhwa Tiger Reserve. This one survived, although it is uncertain whether it can be returned to the wild.”

It is indeed a sad situation in which our national animal is being killed so heartlessly. Can we think of a solution and long-term vision for its survival? To understand the circumstances better, we have to differentiate these killing cases into three categories — first type is the crime, which is executed by hard core poachers, who are part of an organised poaching syndicate wanting to supply animal parts for money. The second type of killings is due to accident, because community living along the park were targeting deer or wild pig for the bush meat and the same trap killed a tiger or leopard. The third type is deliberate, revenge killing of tigers and leopards by the community to protect their livestock, which is a big crisis.

To control all these worrisome situations in right time and beforehand can be are really challenging. We have to admit that government agencies are still not equipped and trained to control these organised crimes. Some NGO’s performance fair better than the government agencies in the field of anti-poaching such as WPSI and WTI. While some local NGOs such as Tiger Watch are working effectively in and around single parks, in this case the Ranthambhore tiger reserve. But NGOs cannot work on a large-scale single-handedly without government support. The forest department is not putting enough resources for intelligence gathering. Also, if they execute the poaching raids well, they are hardly able to convert them into correct court cases. They mostly lose the court cases and the same poachers become more immune and trained towards the system loopholes. The success rate of conviction is just 3 per cent in India, and if we removed Sariska poaching cases from them; the conviction is less than 0.3 per cent of total wildlife crime cases. Hence, the same people always come back into the poaching business.

The other killing is because of meat or revenge killing and this can be control only with the help of local community’s support. Only the local resident of adjoining villages can provide information for this and they can be employed for the same, this way they would be involved and part of the monitoring team. In Ranthambhore, almost 20 villagers have been employed by the partnership of forest department and an NGO for this work. It is working well in the region in managing anti-poaching, but also managing the stray tigers when they move outside the protected areas into villages or farms. They are also working as a buffer link between the forest department and local village community whenever big cats kill their livestock. They help the department to estimate the cost of the animal and inform whether compensation was provided in time, among other things. Such projects can bridge the critical gap in conservation and the villagers can become partners in conserving our last wilderness.

(The writer is a conservation biologist at Tiger Watch, Ranthambore)

Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com/leisure-writing/how-can-we-help-bridge-critical-gap-tiger-conservation-526&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Major forest fire on Lower Palani hills

Hundreds of different types of trees destroyed
A forest fire that raged on Tuesday night destroyed hundreds of different types of trees, mostly rare and endangered species and medicinal plants, in the reserve forests on the Lower Palani Hills, damaging bio-diversity and wiping out the livelihood of many tribal communities.

The fire destroyed trees at the ninth hairpin bend on the Palani-Kodaikanal ghat road near Saverikadu. It quickly spread to other parts of the forests reducing trees, plants and herbs spread over many acres to ash. Smoke and flames filled the hill tracks. Wildlife perished, according to Santhanam Krishnan, a farmer, who brought vegetables to Palani market from Vada Kavunji in Kodaikanal in a van. Many other heavy vehicle drivers and tourist cab operators from Kodaikanal also struggled to cross this stretch. They returned to Saverikadu as dense smoke affected visibility.

Forest officials drew the ire of tribal people and corporation bus drivers waiting at the affected site. When one of the drivers informed Palani forest officials about the fire, they reportedly said that the area under fire was not under their control and asked him to contact the Kodaikanal forest office. In turn, Kodaikanal officials advised him to convey the message to the Udumalpet forest office, who said that the area was under the control of a sanctuary. No forest officials came to the spot, said Kannan of Kombaikadu, a nearby village.

The blaze reportedly subsided on its own.