All creatures great and small

IN the wake of the Stockholm conference on the Environment in 1972, seminars on wildlife were organised and one could sense an opposition to non-specialists working or writing on subjects relating to wildlife. Some professional wildlifers looked upon the non-professional as a poacher in their preserve. Gradually, this feeling came to be articulated in these gatherings. M. Krishnan, who was a botanist by training, did not react to this sniping. At a seminar at the Salim Ali Centre of Ornithology and Natural History in 1992, Lavkumar Kachar, responded and said that such territorial imperative was uncalled for and that the cause of conservation in our country needed all the help it could get from various sources. He pointed out that the perceived conflict was imaginary. Non-professional wildlifers such as Shekhar Singh and Bittu Sehgal have contributed significantly to the preservation of our wildlife heritage through their writings. I am not sure if a similar debate is on in other countries or whether it is specifically an Indian phenomenon. But certainly, many of the known names in nature writing in the West, such as Peter Mathieson in the United States and Gilbert White in the United Kingdom are non-professionals but nature writers nonpareil. There should be no confusion between nature writing and scientific writing on wildlife. In fact some of these non- specialists have written works respected for their scientific accuracy. I can think of Divyabhanu Sinh Chawda who researched on the cheetah and E.R.C. Davidar who studied the Nilgiri Tahr.

From the Introduction

* * *

THE chicks in our ground were barely a few days old when a depression in the Gulf of Kutch moved over Ahmedabad bringing torrential rains that poured down incessantly throughout one night. Our thoughts were with the chicks in the open ground. Would the family have been wiped out? What happens to ground nesting birds during such a downpour? At first light I went out and scanned the ground with my binoculars. Incredible as it was, three chicks were busy feeding with their parents keeping watch. The rain had claimed one casualty.

We watched the family in the cricket ground daily. The parents carried out their guard duty with remarkable coordination. While one lapwing stayed close to the chicks the other was at some distance away, as a sentry. If any one went in the direction of the chicks, the parent close to the young ones, would raise a series of single syllable alarm cries, "... teek ... teek" and the chicks would hide and freeze. Should a dog come in that direction, the sentry would take off like a jet fighter, dive bomb and chase the intruder away while the other kept up the alarm call till the coast was clear. Once a common kite swooped down towards a straying chick and the intrepid parent took off after the predator and chased it away after an aerial dog fight. But harmless birds such as doves, mynas and even two Black Ibises were allowed to come close.

When we went back to the ground after a trip out of town, we found the chicks in full plumage but yet to fly. But there were only two of them left. Did the kite get it after all? There was no way of knowing. But we do know that now there are two more of these delightful birds in this world, who will enliven our moonlit nights with their plaintive calls.

On lapwings

* * *

ON either side of the metre-wide canal, the tall grass rose high. Almost silently our dug-out canoe slid forward as a dense fog gave that early morning trip a dream-like quality. A surprised Three-toed Kingfisher shrieked and disappeared into the fog. We touched the foot of a small hillock. Pulling up the dug-out and tying it to a tree, the forest guard led me up. We reached the watch-tower, sat down and waited for the fog to clear.

This was Keibul-Lamjao National Park, about 45 kilometres from Imphal in Manipur. Lamjao, literally "the vast space" forms part of the great Loktak lake and is the last refugee of the Brow- antlered Deer or the Sangai ("the one that looks at you") as the Manipuris call it. One corner of the Loktak lake is covered with a floating bed of reeds and another with aquatic plants. This mat of plants, called phumdi by the villagers is nearly two metres thick, of which only one-fifth is above water. During the dry season the phumdi settles down at the bottom of the lake and rises again with the water level when the rains come. On this 64 square kilometre floating island lives the rare deer, the Sangai.

On the Sangai deer

* * *

THE fight for the cause of animals emerged as a movement only in the 1960s. In 1968, The Animal Protection Institute was formed in the U.S. to channelise efforts against the use of animals in experiments. The effect began to be noticed in the two decades. "The number of monkeys imported into the U.S. declined from 31,000 to 22,500 by 1976. Animal rightists kept up their pressure. The publication in 1975 of Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation raised some basic questions - Do the benefits to mankind justify the torture of animals? Do human beings have the moral right to use other species to find solutions to their health problems? This book inspired Alex Pacheo to found The People for Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) in the U.S.. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals joined hands and brought out The Animal Rights Handbook. New organisations were formed to right the cause of monkeys and apes, like the International Primate Protection League (IPPL), Primarily Primate and the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, a Washington-based organisation.

Animal rights activists point out that most of the animals killed and tortured in the name of science suffer that fate for non- medical reasons. Rhesus monkeys are used in experiments relating to biological and chemical warfare and drug addiction. Beginning from 1957, monkeys have been used in nuclear bomb testing. These animals were placed at varying distances from the explosion site to find out the effect of radiation on them. Since 1984, some scientists in the U.S. have been trying to infect chimpanzees with AIDS, but have failed. Monkeys are used to test the toxicity of furniture polish and cosmetics. They argue that the U.K. which banned the practice to surgeons operating on dogs in 1900, has lagged behind in surgical techniques.

On Animal Rights

* * *

INTERESTINGLY, a systematic record of its blossoming since 1858 has been compiled; the credit for this goes to one Cockburn of Kotagiri, who built up a record of 100 years of the blossoming of the kurinji. His grandfather, one of the earliest White settlers in the Nilgiris, was so struck by the phenomenon that he had also left records about it.

It was Robert Wight and Colonel Beddoms who initially studied this plant and catalogued over 20 species.

Gamble in his Flora Of The Madras Presidency identified about 46 species. Fyson in his Flora Of The Nilgiris and Pulney Hill Tops illustrated and described some more species of the Strobilanthes. The Anglade Institute at Kodaikanal, run by Catholic monks, also kept a faithful record of the kurinji in the Palni hills. In the 1930s, they made a survey and identified more varieties of the Strobilanthes.

But today, the plant faces the dreadful prospect of getting wiped off the face of the mountains. As forests are cleared for tea plantations, roads laid and exotics like wattle and eucalyptus planted, the kurinji surrenders its traditional ground. So far, it has been spared only because it has been surviving on the slopes of mountains too steep or unsuitable for tea plantations. The hills around Mattupatty, Gundumalai and Kundala, all around Munnar, are kurinji area. In the Nilgiris, these shrubs can be seen in the grasslands near the Mukurthi and the Manohoor hills. But here, vast tracts of kurinji land have been taken over by leather and other industries, and wattle and eucalyptus have been planted all over the slopes ....

If we can save the kurinji, we will be saviaving a distinctive habitat that is home to some very precious wildlife like the Nilgiri tahr and the Nilgiri pine martin. Many plants that are listed in the Red Data Book of endangered flora are still found in the nooks and crannies of this area.

There is another reason why this grassland-rainforest ecosystem should be saved. It is here that many rivers of South India originate and it is the natural water tank of the plains below. The preservation of the kurinji ecosystem will take care of the entire environment.

On the Kurinji flower

* * *

THE tropical rain forest thrives where there is adequate rainfall, around 150 centimetres annually, the soil is well drained and the temperature not very low. It is characterised by tall trees forming a continuous canopy. Beneath this there is a second layer and, at times, even a third. Vegetation grows unhindered and attains the maximum growth under such conditions. Another feature of the forest is its evergreen nature. Unlike in a deciduous forest, there is no seasonal leaf fall which would be a drain on nutrients. Trees in rain forests shed their leaves at a low and steady rate round the year, which cause continuous decay and absorption. What distinguishes the tropical rain forest most is the variety of plants and animals that thrive in it. It may have up to 226 species of flora on a plot of 1.6 hectares. A botanist, after identifying a plant, will have to wander about quite a bit to come across a second specimen of that species.

Originating millions of years ago, these forests have evolved through geological epochs which is one of the reasons for the density of species. The varieties of birds and insects act as pollinators and help in the evolution of new species by natural hybridisation. Thus the rain forest is one of earth's biggest gene pools. The wild ancestors of many of today's food crops, such as rice and barley, can still be found in the rain forests. In fact, there was a suggestion from some botanists a few years ago that some of these be preserved in capsules so that something will remain even after a nuclear holocaust. It is in these forests that the evolutionary history of plants and animals is recorded and it was in one such forest that Darwin got the clues to his theory on the origin of human beings.

The sholas of southern India are part of the Indo-Malayan forest chain and differ in some respects from other rain forests. They occur amid stretches of grassland in isolated patches. They form a characteristic landscape in the mountain chain of the Anaimalai, Palni and Nilgiri ranges.

On Rain Forests

The Dance Of The Sarus, Essays Of A Wandering Naturalist, S. Theodore Baskaran.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Features
Previous : Kanyasulkam
Next     : Man hunt