AMARENDRA LAL BOSE - Journalist with difference

After return from deputation to MOEF-Govt. of India and Wildlife Institute of India, from 19 November 1987 I started living with my family in the campus of Crocodile Research Centre at Ramatirtha on the outskirts of Similipal Tiger Reserve. Within two weeks, Mr Amarendra Lal Bose (ALB) came with his family to meet us at Ramatirtha. A short, soft-spoken person wearing spotless white dhoti and kurta, Amarendra Babu talked about a range of subjects relating to wildlife and the founder Field Director of Similipal—Mr Saroj Raj Choudhury. I took the family around the crocodile project, and the family left Ramatirtha in the evening for Baripada to their ancestral home. I learnt from the Range Officer that ALB was the main person who introduced Mr Choudhury and his pet tigress Khairi to the world through a series of popular writings in Calcutta-based newspapers. I collected some of the press clippings. Amarendra Babu’s pen was really mightier than a sword when it concerned the safe future of Similipal.

In 1987 Amarendra Babu’s family had invited us to visit them at Baripada but we couldn’t do that until 1995. After my father’s death at Ramatirtha, we shifted to Baripada in November 1994. From that time onwards I found a real ‘friend’ with whom I could discuss research. ALB used to get information about my activities and reach me for answers to a series of questions. Sometimes I felt Amarendra Babu was the only academically-oriented person with whom I could discuss my research at length. It gave me satisfaction and his reports in media were well researched.

When I completed the first ever draft of Project Elephant document for Orissa and discussed the same at a state level meeting on 10 August 1989 in Bhubaneswar, Amarendra Bbau recognized the conservation material in entire exercise and gave it for national readership through Times of India. Similar releases were about research findings related pugmark tracking, melanistic tiger, elephant movements, designing of the first ecodevelopment scheme, the biosphere reserve planning, the sighting of sub-Himalayan Red-breasted Falconet, etc. In his late sixties ALB was able to move in his bicycle and was competing with young persons for reaching a report first.  

Once Amarendra Babu visited us with his wife and suggested to my wife Puspa for daily chanting of Gayatri Mantra for tiding away the difficult times in life and health. After my wife’s death in June 2003, we shifted to Bhubaneswar bringing an end to direct field studies in Similipal. But from my location in Wildlife Headquarters I was able to know about Amarendra Babu’s assuming position as Honorary Wildlife Warden ofMayurbhanj, and then his selection for the award of State Biju Patnaik Prize for Wildlife Conservation in 2010.

On 15^th July Similipal lost for everone of its old supporters, I lost a family and academic friend, and Odisha lost one of its wildlife award winners. May the soul of Amarendra Babu rest in peace and his family members have the strength to tide over the loss.

Tags:

Amarendra Lal Bose, Similipal, Khairi, Baripada, S R Choudhury, Project Elephant Orissa. 

The Sea Turtle Man Dr Chandra Sekhar Kar

No one in India thought about or fought for the Pacific Ridley as passionately as did Dr Chandrasekhar Kar. The Gahirmatha turtle rookery was discovered for the conservation community by Dr Bustard but Chandrasekhar was the man who stood behind successive Chief Wildlife Wardens and sweated in the office, the secretariat, the High Power Committee and the High Court to gently ensure that Gahirmatha Marine National Park was notified and sustained among all hazards. Turtles are orphaned-- they probably knew it and didn't visit Gahirmatha this year for nesting!
I have lost a close professional friend. The conservation community has lost a person of rare ingredients. May his soul rest in peace!
Turtles will not be orphaned. You, CSK,  have been instrumental in motivating the administration for streamlining several management issues! 

CARE FROM MOTHER TIGER ALONE ISN’T ENOUGH

I didn’t learn it easily that Tiger is safe in nature but safer under human care. We won’t let tiger go extinct!

A little less than forty years back I may have listened to my heart and said that I want only ‘the best’; a species must be conserved ‘only’ in its natural habitat. That was because of the young and immature student of animal sciences in me then.

While working with crocodiles I learnt to recognize their warning when they do not like human presence. One of the lessons I have had from sixteen years’ work later in Similipal is that in a well monitored project a species gives messages to managers when all is not well in nature and there is the need for change in management strategy. One such message is the preponderance of tiger in colour other than the normal yellow body with black stripes.

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned about tiger in different colours. It took nearly six years to go through the happenings and literature for making some guiding inferences about the occurrence and significance of colour variations. It all started in 1993 from Similipal with Salku of village Podagad who in defense of his father and himself killed a tiger that was discovered to be melanistic. The research that flagged off from Podagad culminated for that time in Florida, USA in 1999.  Dr Josip Marcan read about my colour-study and provided photographs of tiger in different colours. These photographs were God-sent for me as they fitted well to fill up some of the gaps hypothesized in the colour distribution curve from my study.

From those days, with gaps though, an academic link has developed with Dr Marcan. I get the opportunity of studying more tiger photographs sent to me. Out of around 4500 captive tigers in the USA, the Marcan Tiger Preserve owns one of the attractive collections that educates and offer more direct interactions of the public to gain support for Tiger conservation.

A few weeks back Dr Marcan wanted my reflections about captive breeding of tiger. My reply is essentially the same after my lessons from the wild. A lot of work has been done in India and worldwide to keep Tiger safe in nature. Yet, the lesson is, tiger needs a simultaneous safer life and abode under human care. Safaris in India and Preserves overseas are supporting answers to large ‘Tiger Reserves’ and prevent Panthera tigris becoming extinct. The approach offers scope to recognize and care for each tiger individually. No mathematical tiger!.

Back in 2006 and 2008 in my lectures to audience in Nandankanan Biological Park on tiger conservation and future of tiger, I was emphatic, not because I was speaking at NKBP but because of my rugged lessons that NKBP will prove to be an important place for a more secured future for tiger. Tiger in captivity will serve more direct and intense purposes of education, research, species conservation and visitor-satisfaction of sighting the tiger.

People all over the world want tiger to survive so that they are able to see the graceful king of the forests. The destination in the minds of people who love and care for wild animals is to see a Tiger.

But Tiger is an elusive animal. It has survived the wrath of total onslaught by humans for its quality of being elusive. Only occasionally the ‘Tiger obliges a glimpse of him’ in the forest. That is the common experience of old and serious tiger-spotters. People who have lived with families for generations in the forests that ‘abounded’ with tiger complement the statement of spotters by saying, ‘before we see the tiger once he must have seen us a hundred times and gone on its own way; we are not scared of the Tiger’!

Tiger have survived where wilderness continues to exist. As a result of conservation strategies some of the best remaining forests are termed Tiger Reserves. Yet, sighting a tiger on its own is becoming a rarer event day by day, or night by night.

Tiger in the wild continue to be a part of increasing biodiversity crisis due to expanding human population, fragmentation of forests, qualitative degradation of the integrity of wild habitats, and splitting up of tiger populations into smaller groups thwarting their genetic health and prevention of extinction. Tiger habitats need to be maintained inviolate. That is becoming difficult in spite of awareness and concern.

Tiger Reserves meant for conserving the tiger and its ecological associates in natural habitats may be the best places for tiger to live, but they cannot satiate the inner urge of a common man, a child, a young student for ‘sighting a tiger’, and to offer scope for study by serious students of morphology, biology and behavior. If all these are allowed to all the people of the globe the original home of tiger cannot remain inviolate and life of tiger in nature will become shorter still. 

A better and contemporary option is integrating management in the wild as well as in safaris, preserves and captivity. Semi-captive and captive populations are insurance to survival of tiger as a species.

Planned management for captive breeding can ensure an additional and better chance for Tiger to survive beyond the twenty first century. In environmentally enriched captive breeding programme…..

• Tiger is safer as a species (Panthera tigris). 
• Tiger is maintained in its morphological diversity.
• Offers the scope for viewing and ‘feeling’ Tigers for education and research purposes.
• Educate ‘tiger-oriented’ enthusiasts and tourists and help for relieving pressure on wild populations, wherever they may be.

Therefore, every decision for sending a critically endangered species to wild from the safety and future under human care need to be well justified. 

SAND MINING AND AQUATIC FAUNA IN SUSTAINABLE RIVER ECOSYSTEM

I have been hearing protests of some kind or the other about stone mining and sand mining from river beds. The first time I ever experienced such protest was in Katerniyaghat Gharial Sanctuary of Uttaranchal in 1979-80. In 1990s and the first decade of 2000s I heard it from Chambal, and now I hear it from the Mahanadi. Individuals or organizations who have objected to such mining apparently have objected to the unplanned method or noisy interventions in the tranquility of river ecosystems.

Without knowing, who will value these, at this stage I wish to put down some of my observations and thought in this connection. I am doing it mainly because I got the opportunity in the past (1975-1991, in particular) to see and study the aquatic fauna particularly in the rivers Mahanadi and Chambal. The stretch of Mahanadi I studied was (apart from that is upstream of Hirakud into Chhatisgarh) from Hirakud to the coast through Satkoshia Gorge sanctuary of 22 km long and through tributaries like the Luna. My main focus was the Satkoshia Gorge. The stretch of Chambal was within National Chambal Sanctuary (470 km long) from Ranapratap Sagar to Pachhnada (close to the confluence of Chambal-Yamuna and Ganges).. 

In my opinion,

(1) There is a lot of siltation and the river beds have got filled up.

(2) The situation has worsened because of water being taken out of the main river without any or much addition from tributaries.

(3) As a result of (1) and (2) flushing of river bed is not as complete as may have been in the past. I do not have hard data for this. But it is a logical conclusion which the Irrigation department could perhaps substantiate.

(4) For longer life of river as a living-ecosystem, we need water throughout its course, at least in the form of deep pools connected with water flow.

(5) I do not intend to infringe into the economics or other public view of sand mining. As an ecologist and conservationist, I wish my rivers survive as live ecosystems for indicator species like gharial, mugger, turtles and dolphin in Chambal, and any numbers out of these species in my Mahanadi. As a lay man I would say silent dredging and planned sand mining would restore the river bed to a better vibrancy.

TOURIST CARRYING CAPACITY IN SANCTUARIES ON LAND vs. RIVER

Very close to the debate of ‘ecotourism’ in wildlife sanctuaries, it is the mist around ‘Eco-Tourist Carrying Capacity’. The parameters to be considered are different for estimation of the ‘tourist carrying capacity’ for sanctuaries on land vs. sanctuaries on river. Wildlife practitioners need to realize that ‘guidelines’ are very broad-based and cannot address individual cases. If the manager tries to lift the guideline/method from a Tiger Reserve for use in river habitat meant for offering a ‘sanctuary’ for basking crocodiles and turtles, there is bound to be problem.

                                                                                   

For estimation of tourist carrying capacity one guideline from Project Tiger headquarters has been in circulation in different contexts since early 2000s. I have not come across any other written down document in this regard. For more than one reasons I was, however, not comfortable with the method either during my tenure in Similipal Tiger Reserve, or on other occasions when there was a discussion on maintaining healthy trend of tourist inflow. At Similipal, my judgment and intuition kept me stuck for suggesting some of the traditional and workable methods that revolved round aspects like (a) the profile of vehicle used by the visitor, (b) diurnal-timings for tourist-visit, (c) the tourism route, (d) the tourism season, and (e) the numbers of vehicles that may enter on any particular day. The numbers are liable to change on dates like X-mass and New Year. While implementing all these considerations in the field, it involved very rigorous VHF-based tourism monitoring at the personal level by a set of committed higher-level officials from 6AM to 6PM. This was on normal days, when there were no cases like vehicle breakdown or someone from the group missing in the hills.  On unusual days, the staffs keep moving around the reserve the entire night and the supporting wireless stations remain alert all along.  Although the staffs were under pressure due to tourism, regulatory approaches worked well, but we couldn’t write down a fixed code of conduct on ‘tourist carrying capacity’.   In sanctuary management every day was a learning experience. In tourism management the realization was more so.

The extent of disturbance due to tourism is many-fold and highly damaging in river sanctuary than in a land sanctuary. The outline shape of a land sanctuary is tried to be kept extended to all sides; i.e., in order to make the habitat more sustainable the land sanctuaries are usually not strip-like. Here the wildlife remains distributed over the spread-out habitat. While traveling by jeep the impact of tourism cut through the habitat along certain ‘tourism’ routes. Unless one gets down to leave merry-making ‘tourist-foot-prints’, and unless the vehicle is very noisy, in a forest like Similipal, if the jeep makes a journey of 100km with animal visibility over a width of 20meters, then the immediate crude impact is over about 2sq.km.

On the other hand, the shape of a river sanctuary is strip-like. Its water width is further reduced because of sand deposits. The animals protected in a river sanctuary are crocodiles, gharial, turtle, dolphin, otter and other wetland fauna. The reptiles have to come out for basking at water-edge. During the winter season basking is for very long periods during the entire day. In summer, crocodiles come out for night time thermal regulation.

Reduced width of water width means increased disturbance to crocodiles and turtles by navigating boats. While sailing along the river course the tourists tend to disturb the entire visible width of the river habitat and the entire animal population that come out for basking at water edge. Therefore, one cannot think of allowing a fleet of tourist boats one after the other, whatever may be the time gap. Instead, I would suggest the followings:

1. A tourist is not a researcher, but he would like to see gharial and turtle, and also undertake a boat journey. An ‘ecotourist’ may, however, take pride in walking on the banks for observing basking gharials and turtles. Considering these aspects, first of all select a stretch of navigable river the two ends of which can be approached by road. This stretch of river intended for opening to tourists shouldn’t have nesting sites or crocodile/gharial nursery sites. It should have sites used by basking/feeding animals.

2. The tourists are to be taken from camp to the boat-start point in the upstream. From our survey experiences, two boats in the morning and two in the afternoon would constitute a manageable number. It is recommended that the two boats move at a time, allowing no time gap for repeating disturbance to the basking animals. The boats will not be engine-propelled. These should row downstream, keeping to the middle of water course. At the end of the trip the tourists will be brought back to camp by road. There should be no boat-based tourism in the rains or during rising river. Therefore, the boat can return to the starting point either during the mid-day or early evening using a low-noise 10-15HP outboard engine. 

Today’s page is a continuation to what I said in my blog on 24 Feb 2011 about ecotourism without conflict in wildlife conservation. 

I had the opportunity of working in two river sanctuaries--, the Satkoshia Gorge Sanctuary (SKGS) trans-Mahanadi in Odisha during 1975-1981 and the 1990s; and in the National Chambal Gharial Sanctuary (NCS) during 1978, 1982-1985. NCS is along the interstate border of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Both the river sanctuaries are essentially sanctuaries for gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) but a variety of other wetland fauna abound in these two sanctuaries.

SKGS has river Mahanadi flowing in the west-east direction. The river cuts the forest into northern and southern portions. After about 30 years’ identity as a gharial/crocodile sanctuary its new identity is as a Tiger Reserve. Tourists coming to SKGS have the range of attractions in the forests as well as along the river. River part of tourism is more sensitive from conservation view point when compared to the forest part. It is because the river is narrow, just 100metres (300 ft) to 230metres (700 ft) wide.

NCS is strictly a river sanctuary. It is over 470km long river Chambal. It does not have any comparable forest on its banks, and as such the sanctuary limits are within a km of water edge to accommodate protection measures to gharial entering tributaries and nallahs during the high flood.

Tourism growth and behaviour are such that very soon most recommendations made in good sense may tend to fall short of ‘conservation ethics’. First, it is because all our visitors are not strict ‘ecotourists’. Second, tourism brings with it several other developments of the society which again may not be conservation-friendly.  Moreover, ‘carrying capacity’ is a concept to be thought about when we intend for ‘sustainable versus full harvest/utilization of resource for a purpose’. In wildlife sanctuaries ‘full utilization of infrastructure or resource for tourism’ is a remote mandate, unthinkable. Hence, in stead of ‘carrying capacity’ it is recommended to have a set of guidelines for regulating tourism without much disturbing the wildlife. That will perhaps be sustainable for both wildlife conservation and tourism industry.

'WILDLIFE EXPERIENCES' MEANING FOR NON-WILDLIFE EMPLOYERS

12 October, Friday

Today morning I saw a mail from Raza, who feels depressed with his recent experience at the interview held for selection for a job. The personal traits reflected of Raza in his writings on wildlife convince me that he must be a good and methodical student of engineering too. In spite of doing well in the written examination, Raza didn't get the first job he applied for. The reason for his ‘rejection was his passion towards wildlife and forest conservation’. The people interviewing him for HR were ‘candid enough to let him know that his passion for wildlife and forest conservation, his booklet on Cheetah and other writings from him just didn't work for the employers as they believed that these attributes would eventually pull the employee away from their company once they hired him and they--- (the internationally known computer-related business consultancy services provider)--- couldn't take that risk’. The mail and the feelings contained in it were a bit shock for me, but I don’t see it is the end. I sent sharp a consolation and encouraging letter to Raza hoping that he will be back to his normal.

Let me go back by a decade. From Similipal we used to conduct Nature Camps for various target groups of students, teachers and NGO-personalities. We also conducted Orientation Programmes for local drivers who drove tourists to the Tiger Reserve. I was at the centre of at least two down-to-earth training programmes for Tourist Guides.  The objectives were to generate supporters for wildlife conservation in every sphere of social profile surrounding the Tiger Reserve. For graduate and post-graduate students I always give a very rosy picture about usefulness of wildlife experiences, and  say that ‘wildlife-related experiences’ or ‘wildlife-related interests’ may not give them a full-fledged job in the wildlife sector but it could help them to get to their other chosen field. For the last 10-11years I have often narrated a story to many students.

It is about a bright student of Physics from Maharaja Purna Chandra College. The college is situated in Baripada, the District Headquarters of Mayurbhanj. One of the cherished attractions of the district is forests of Similipal. Young Partha was very enthusiastic about wildlife and forest conservation, and used to come to see me in my office when he was preparing for various competitive examinations. It was perhaps the year 1992. He was selected by us for an 8-days long forest stay as one of the 25 non-official members for tiger census. He was allotted one of the two Census Units at Bhanjabasa.

For many reasons Bhanjabasa was our southern-most census unit in Similipal. It is a Forester (Section) Headquarter and reachable by van or jeep. I had my first King Cobra experience of Similipal there. The area extending up to Putulidiha, Ghaghra and Nekdanacha etc. always gave good tiger experiences. It has enriched my own research on tiger and also the understanding about the pressure mounted by people from periphery down the Similipal hills. Later, all these helped me to write the Biosphere Management Plan.

After leaving the census groups at Bhanjabasa, I came to Upper Barha Kamuda from where I was coordinating the census units in southern and south-central part of Similipal. One day I marked Partha had brought a voluminous book which he was reading as a preparation for Bank Probationary Officer. He used to read it in the night and in early morning before setting out to the field. He was good in field work--- full of questions and full of interpretations.

Field work and the analyses for Tiger census were over. Months passed by. In the meantime Partha got through the written examination for Probationary Officer in State Bank of India, and was called for an interview. Before leaving for the interview he came to me. I answered some more of his questions and encouraged him, as usual. To my disappointment, on return from the interview Partha was depressed, as is Raza today. He told me that at the interview the discussions dominated around tiger census, Similipal and wildlife conservation. But ultimately he was told that he will not fit for a banking job. Better he tries and joins the Indian Forest Service. I too felt sorry for him and about my own confidence about the chosen field.

After a few days, Partha came to me with a packet of sweets to celebrate. Reason---, he has been finally selected for the job of PO in SBI. He joined the training, then the regular job. For some time he remained in regular touch with me over the phone. He got married. His efficiency took him to serve in one of the Branches of his Bank in the USA. Now he is back in Orissa, and I locate him through a group that is active about wildlife matters in Orissa.

MORALE of the two stories: all employers may not be equally nature-oriented. Some may be more instrument-oriented.

WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT, DETRIBALISATION AND URBANISATION

An emerging trend in areas meant for wildlife conservation is the demand for urban amenities for ‘developing the life of people’. Any decision in this direction requires careful deliberations and planning about (a) where and how to preserve anthropological heritage and traits, (b) where to provide urban amenities inside the forests, and (c) where to take the people out of the forests closer to developed urban set up. While attitudinal evolution of human society is inevitable, conservation of biodiversity in any form is also a survival necessity. From early 1970s one of the ‘recommended approaches’ in wildlife conservation is to relocate human population from designated areas which offer better chances for survival of wildlife. Implementation of the idea of relocation or its results has not been encouraging. Where implemented, it has been only in part, and only the brighter side or only its opposite is presented to the world. Often there is unhappiness on either side----, the relocated family feels neglected, and the Protected Area Manager is unable to make use of the area deemed to have been vacated for him. Similipal in the district of Mayurbhanj in Odisha, India is an example of activities under Tiger Conservation, Crocodile Conservation, Elephant Conservation, Eco-development, Biosphere Reserve Management and the programme for development of primitive tribal families namely, Khadia and Mankedia. With experience and lessons drawn from Similipal forests, it is urged that (1) only the primitive Khadia tribals may be able to prolong a sustainable living without going away from the forests. (2) For all other ‘tribal people’ education should be so much interwoven into their desire for change and urbanization that they grow fast with it away from pressure of complying to measures for nature conservation. (3) Those willing for relocation should be done fast with distinct pre-relocation and post-relocation packages. Post-relocation requires long term care and development. (4) Back in forest the Policy should be clear to handle ‘motivators’ and other people encroaching into sanctions that may accrue only for ‘primitive tribals’.