Urban Crocs: The case of muggers in Vadodara

Rivers have served as lifelines throughout human history. Over thousands of years, civilisations have flourished and perished along the banks of different rivers across continents. Few terrestrial life forms can survive or thrive without access to clean freshwater. However, in the Anthropocene, humans continue to act oblivious to all the lessons from our history. Today, we find ourselves in this detrimentally extractive state of existence, where rivers are subjected to continuous contamination, irreversible damage, and steady degeneration.

We share this planet with millions of life forms, all of which deserve a chance to survive, grow, and live a peaceful life. As a result of our anthropocentric view of growth and development cultivated over the centuries, however, we have disturbed the order and balance of nature, exacerbating the loss of biodiversity.

On this note, I present an anecdote about the Vishwamitri River. Vishwamitri is a small non-perennial river, about 200 km in length. Located in the westernmost state of India, Gujarat, this rain-fed river originates in the Pavagadh hills and flows west to meet the Gulf of Khambhat. In between, Vishwamitri flows through a densely populated urban centre, the city of Vadodara. And within this city and its surroundings lie urban pockets which are home to more than 300 marsh crocodiles (Crocodylus palustris) or muggers. As a resident of Vadodara for nearly four decades, I present this emblematic account of the existence between humans and muggers based on first-hand observations and experiences.

Transformation of the Banyan City

Vadodara was once the capital of the princely state of Gaekwads, later anglicised as Baroda during the colonial era. Before the Gaekwads, Vadodara was known as Chandravati under the reign of Chanda of the Dodiya Rajput dynasty. Historically, the city was renamed from time to time, with shifts in power and control. After independence from the British in 1947, it came to be known by its current name: Vadodara or the Banyan City.

With rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, the demographics of Vadodara changed faster than ever. As Vadodara continued to grow as an urban centre, the demand for housing and land grew exceedingly. This demand and the institutionalisation of the real estate industry was subsequently translated into a large-scale deforestation drive. The groves of banyan trees (Ficus bengalensis), which once reflected Vadodara’s identity, were lost. Within a few decades, most of the banyan groves and pockets of wilderness disappeared. Similar to the fate of other contemporary cities, the quest for cosmo politanism and a modern identity resulted in a near-complete erasure of Vadodara’s heritage and unique identity.

Vadodara embraced its new identity as an industrial and student city. Alongside industries followed tech parks and the suburbs. It saw a steady rise in the influx of diverse settlers from near and far. Once a beautiful cultural capital and Gaekwad’s legacy, the city became a bustling metropolis, imitating global trends and chasing development.

Changing ecology

The Vishwamitri River changes as it travels from the rural to the suburban and urban landscapes. The parts of Vishwamitri that cut across the city have murky, black, frothy waters polluted with industrial and medical waste and debris. Along with its appearance, the river’s ecology changes unrecognisably. The calm waters of the river become muddy, erratic and problematic. The depths are artificially manipulated as and where needs arise.

Monsoon, historically romanticised and cherished, has become a nightmare for the citizens, to the extent that the municipal corporation has to survey and repair the entire city at the end of every season. A few inches of rain quickly flood most of the city and almost all the suburbs. The river goes from being the harbinger of life to a dreadful force of nature. The same riverside that defines the architecture and approach to all of the city’s historical monuments now falls in the most overlooked flood zones. Citywide evacuations, rescues, and rehabilitation occur invariably, testing the resilience of Vadodara’s residents.

The data maintained by the local Forest Department shows alarming numbers of wildlife rescues, including snakes and marsh crocodiles, from human settlement areas every year. Additionally, more than a hundred volunteers from over half a dozen civil society organisations provide wildlife rescue services round the clock. According to the official data, over a thousand snakes and six dozen different-sized muggers are rescued annually.

The Banyan City now identifies with an abundance of muggers. As the apex predators of freshwater ecosystems, muggers have adapted to urbanisation, predominantly scavenging and feeding on carcasses. Alongside the disappearance of riverine habitat and scrub forests, the natural habitat of scavengers such as golden jackals (Canis aureus) and white-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) also disappeared from the city. Thus, with scavengers becoming locally extinct, the muggers serve an important function by picking dead matter off the river banks.

Cohabitation, conflict and coexistence

Muggers have been cleaning up the river over the last three decades. As a result, the urban popula tion of muggers has been growing steadily. And with cohabitation has come territorial tension between humans and muggers, each reclaiming their habitats and place in the city. While humans dominate the lands, muggers maintain control over the waters. In Vadodara, this interspecies tug-of-war is now commonplace.

Human-crocodile interactions have increased, resulting in frequent encounters and occasional conflicts. In 2021 and 2022, there were 344 mugger rescues, nine non-fatal mugger attacks on people, 15 dead muggers found where cause of death was unknown, and five muggers killed by vehicular traffic. Sometimes, humans suffer, and other times muggers.

We cannot overlook or dismiss the current reality where the existing harmony between Barodians and muggers is occasionally interrupted, leading to a dilemma and uncertainty. There have been records of muggers attacks where people lost their lives. If not fatal, there are several cases where the victims were left with a permanent disability. There have been instances of people seeking revenge by injuring or killing the crocodiles, or destroying their nests and habitats. Such attitudes and incidents pose a perpetual threat to the delicate coexistence of humans and wildlife in dense urban environments, and remains a challenge for urban wildlife conservation.

Despite these challenges, the term Barodians has come to include both humans and muggers cohabiting in the city. Thus Vadodara, once the Banyan City, may now be better described as the ‘Mugger City’.

Further Reading

Vyas, R. 2014. Roads and Railway: Cause for mortality of Muggers (Crocodylus palustris) Gujarat State, India. Russian Journal of herpetology 21(3): 237–240.

Vyas, R. and C. Stevenson. 2017. Review and analysis of human and Mugger Crocodile conflict in Gujarat, India from 1960 to 2013. Journal of threatened taxa 9(12): 11016–11024.

Vyas, R. and A. Vasava. 2019. Mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) mortality due to roads and railways in Gujarat, India. Herpetological conservation and biology 14(3): 615–626.

Vyas, R., Vasava, A. and V. Mistry. 2020. Mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris) interactions with discarded rubbish in Central Gujarat, India. CSG newsletter 39(2): 5–11

This article is from issue

17.4

2023 Dec

Venomous Gods

“We haven’t used the bathroom for three days,” said the man apologetically in Kannada on the phone. No medical problem prevented his family from using the room. They had a different issue—a king cobra had moved in. They were now desperate to regain use of the room.

As in any traditional Malnad house, a concrete lip of single brick thickness demarcated the square bathing area in one corner of the room. The family and neighbours crowded the doorway. As the snake catchers’ eyes adjusted to the dim light, they saw the black snake coiled on the red floor. Golden yellow lines encircled its body at regular intervals like nodes on a bamboo culm. A gunny sack lay nearby.

“The cement is chipped there,” the lady of the household in Agumbe explained. “We were worried the snake may hurt itself crawling over the rough edge.” As the catchers debated the plan of action, the family wanted repeated assurances that no harm would befall the king cobra, a revered being.

“If there’s any chance that it will get injured, please don’t catch it,” said the husband. Not only was the cost of performing a puja of repentance prohibitive, but clobbering it to death would be unthinkable. King cobras, in this part of the world, are worshipped as a god.

The family members had left the bathroom door ajar so the king cobra could find its way out on its own. When it showed no signs of taking the hint, neighbours convinced them to call the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station for help. During those three days, the snake could have reached up over the wall, crawled along the rafters, and entered any other room.

What kind of family stops using the bathroom for days, prevents a wild snake from hurting itself, and sleeps in the same house with it? The creature they fussed over was no piddling little thing. At 10-feet long, it was a member of the world’s largest venomous snake species. King cobras, like the proverbial camel in the Arab’s tent, take full advantage of the benevolent Malnad farmers by holing up in bathrooms, beneath beds, and on roofs. Occasionally, they even attempt to stow away in automobiles.

Not everyone in Agumbe shares the same religious beliefs and they can be hostile to snakes. The majority, however, recognise king cobras for what they are — intelligent giants unwilling to waste their golden venom on inedible morsels like us. King cobras bite so few people, not counting inept rescuers, that one has to dig through the archives to find the last case. The team of snake rescuers at the research station have, over the past decade, made people realise that there’s another reason to leave the snakes alone: they perform a valuable service, readily gobbling up smaller snakes like vipers and cobras that kill thousands of people.

Such an attitude is not common in other parts of Karnataka, or in Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh and Mizoram, and elsewhere in the species’ Asian range, where any king cobra that shows itself to humans is as good as dead. While the relationship between king cobras and the residents of Agumbe is no doubt special, is it possible, or even sensible, for people to share a similar bond with regular cobras which cause mass fatalities?

Across the country, Indians worship cobras. Our temple iconography shows these reptiles as the ornaments of Shiva and Ganesha, the bed of Vishnu, and the umbrella of Buddha. In several parts of the country, the devout sanctify termite hills as the abodes of these sacred snakes. Besides being objects of veneration, cobras serve a useful purpose around houses and farms: eating rodents. But their pest control assistance is overshadowed by their ability to kill. It’s no surprise that many people look for quick ways of despatching them from this world.

Basavanna, a poet-saint from 12th-century Karnataka, captured our conflicted feelings towards snakes thus:

When they see a serpent carved in stone, they pour milk on it,
If a real serpent comes, they say, ‘Kill, kill’.
(The Great Integrators: The Saint Singers of India)

At the other end of the country, the residents of Boro Posla, Musharu, and a few other neighbouring villages in Burdwan District, West Bengal, however, have an entirely different outlook. Cobras have every reason to fear humans, and they are mainly creatures of the twilight hour. But here, they go about their business in broad daylight, foraging around houses and courtyards, while the human residents carry on with their own affairs, paying little attention to the reptiles. The unafraid cobras never spread a hood to display the startling eye-like marking.

The reason for these villagers’ apparent suicidal mindset is the presiding goddess Jhankeswari, after whom cobras get their local name, jhanklai. According to folklore, the deity won’t let the snakes harm her devotees and they don’t molest the reptiles. Everyone in the villages abides by this culture of getting along with one of the most dangerous serpents in the world.

Where even Agumbe’s inhabitants draw the line, these villagers are casual about the cobras. In the face of this sangfroid attitude, the snakes take great liberties, slithering through living rooms past children doing their homework, swallowing toads under beds, gobbling chicken eggs in coops, and sleeping among pots and pans in kitchens. The people neither call snake catchers to remove them nor do they drive the serpents out themselves. In fact, only the priest of the Jhankeswari temple is allowed to handle them. As the women cook and wash dishes, they talk to the jhanklai as if to their confidants. If the reptiles are in their way, they request them to move. If the deaf creatures fail to obey, they bang plates or buckets. More than the noise, the ladies’ sudden actions make the serpents move.

Lest this give the impression that these monocled cobras are harmless, in West Bengal state, nearly 43,000 victims died over 13 years from snakebite. Neither the spectacled nor the monocled cobra has the gravitas or the reputation for self-restraint that king cobras have.

The jhanklai do occasionally bite people. One lunged at a woman walking through her courtyard. But it was a ‘dry’ bite, as the snake didn’t inject any venom. In another case, a mouse fleeing a cobra dove under a gunny sack being used as a doormat. A three-year-old boy entered the room at that moment and the hunting snake bit his foot. He was treated in a hospital and bore the scar of tissue damage. Almost all the bites were feeding responses when hungry snakes mistook a human hand or foot for prey.

Despite the inconvenience of these mishaps, the villagers are convinced none will lose their lives to a cobra bite and continue to grant their jhanklai as much of a right to reside in their households as their families.

To the people of Agumbe and the villages of Burdwan who live with king cobras and cobras, the ecological and utilitarian arguments are irrelevant. They live by the foundational beliefs governing their worldview of mutual respect. Even though the king cobra had caused discomfort and the snake catchers caught it with skill, that family prayed for forgiveness from the inconvenienced divinity. It has to be acknowledged that such reverence is selective. In both places, there is no tolerance for other species such as Russell’s vipers.

Basavanna sang about the hypocrisy of the majority, but he neglected to sing paeans to his fellow countrymen who live by their convictions.

An edited version of this articleappeared in THE HINDU SUNDAY MAGAZINE on 18 March 2017.

This article is from issue

17.4

2023 Dec

Living in harmony with dragons

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“Ndadi manga waing di sa ro losa anaq rua. Pusi sa kenobo ndadi ora, sa kenobo ndadi manusia.”
“On a fateful day, two children were born. One, an Ora (Komodo), and the other, a human.”

– J. A. J. Verheijen

Human-wildlife coexistence entails recognising the importance of sharing our space with wildlife. Achieving a sustainable, lasting coexistence can be challenging, particularly when dealing with formidable predators that may pose risks to human safety. Yet, an extraordinary exception to this is found in Komodo village, located within Komodo National Park. In this community, people live in harmony with awe inspiring Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis)—the world’s largest and iconic lizard found only in Indonesia.

Komodo dragons are remarkable giants, reaching lengths of up to three metres and weighing as much as 100 kilograms. As the apex predator, they are capable of hunting down large prey species like deer, wild pig, horse, and even buffalo, using a stealthy wait-and-ambush tactic. Their bites are venomous and contain infectious bacteria, causing slow and agonising death for their prey. Komodo dragons are well protected in the Komodo National Park, which harbours approximately 70 percent of the global population, according to the IUCN Red List 2019 assessment. Their solitary and cannibalistic nature, coupled with their remarkable sense of smell and the female’s ability to give birth without mating, continues to captivate imaginations worldwide.

For centuries Komodo villagers, locally known as Ata Modo, have shared their lives with the dragons. According to a 2022 national park survey, around 50 percent of the park’s Komodo population, equivalent to 1561 individuals, are concentrated on Komodo Island, where the Ata Modo reside. Encounters with these creatures are routine, when villagers venture into the forest or the dragons wander into the village.

While such encounters are typically harmonious, there have been instances of negative interactions between Ata Modo and Komodo. The national park has recorded five cases of Komodo attacks on villagers since 2000 resulting in severe injuries or even fatalities. In addition, dragons have occasionally been reported to have preyed on villagers’ livestock, primarily goats and chickens.

While interactions between people and the giant lizards in Komodo Village may not always be peaceful, they demonstrate a remarkable coexistence that has long endured. An example of this is the infrequent retaliation or condemnation of the dragons when they attack people or livestock.

This harmonious relationship is a result of several intertwined factors, including local beliefs and culture, economic benefits derived from tourism, and compliance with conservation regulations.

Historical connection

Komodo Village stands as a distinctive community that cherishes and preserves its rich history and traditions. Among the most profound beliefs held by Ata Modo is the notion that Komodo dragons are their own siblings, born from a common mother. This belief has been passed down across generations through oral storytelling, encapsulated in the enduring ‘Story of Sebae’, recounted below.

Long ago, a young couple named Hami and Epa celebrated the birth of twins. The boy was named Ndasa, while his sister, Ora, bore a unique resemblance to a formidable lizard. They lived together in the village until a time when Epa decided that Ora’s appetite for rats and geckos brought shame upon their family and took her to the forest. As years passed, Ndasa grew into a skilled fisherman, married, and started a family of his own. Meanwhile, Ora thrived in her forest, honing her hunting skills on deer, and raising her own offspring.

One fateful day, Ndasa ventured into the forest in search of medicine for his child and got lost. He felt an unseen presence observing him and suddenly saw a massive lizard looming in the distance behind him, prompting both Ndasa and Ora to prepare for confrontation. Fortunately, their mother appeared then. The elderly woman said, “Don’t harm each other because you are twins. I have been caring for Ora in this forest so she neither troubles nor is troubled by humans.” Ndasa, enlightened by this revelation, returned to the village with his mother, vowing and asking others not to disturb Ora, as she was their sister or Sebae.

Dragon tourism

The dynamics of people’s relationship with Komodo have evolved due to the economic benefits of tourism. Since its establishment in 1980, Komodo National Park has become a global tourism destination, going from less than a thousand tourists visiting in 1982 to 300,488 in 2023, with most coming to see the majestic dragons and the breathtaking natural landscape.

Komodo village, located in the vicinity of the primary tourist hub, is also a designated cultural tourism destination. Consequently, the traditional livelihoods of Ata Modo have undergone a major transformation, transitioning from agriculture and fishing to tourism-centric activities. Today, they engage in activities such as crafting and selling local souvenirs, serving as tourist guides, and offering homestay services.

The Ata Modo recognise the economic value that the Komodo dragons bring to their community and take immense pride in being known as people who live in harmony with these magnificent lizards.

Conservation compliance

The Ata Modo’s coexistence with Komodo dragons is also built on their deep understanding of the importance of protecting this species and adherence to conservation regulations. Formally safeguarded since the Dutch occupation and now fully protected by Indonesian law, the dragons were the principal reason for Komodo National Park’s establishment in 1980, which affected local communities within its boundary. Ever since, these communities have lived under regulations designed to preserve not only the dragons but also the broader wildlife and ecosystems.

To ensure compliance, the national park conducts regular awareness and tourism-related capacity building programs, such as craft-making and guiding. Routine patrols are employed to deter activities such as poaching and illegal logging within the park. These regulations may at times lead to local discontent, as they can feel marginalised and restricted in activities like fishing or wood collection. Despite occasional tensions, it is worth noting that the Ata Modo never blame Komodo dragons for their situation, as evidenced by a complete absence of reports of retaliation towards these creatures over the past 15 years.

Lessons from Komodo village

Although most Ata Modo naturally fear Komodo dragons due to their size and predatory nature, there has been a noticeable shift in how the villagers interact with the lizards, with more people now observed in close proximity to them. This shift has been influenced by the growth of tourism, attracting visitors who want to observe the dragons up close, coupled with an increasing understanding of their behaviour.

For example, Komodo dragons that frequently encounter humans become habituated and can be approached closely, unlike wild dragons who typically flee or avoid humans. However, caution is needed in close encounters as they are wild animals and may exhibit aggression when disturbed or threatened. Therefore, it is important to interact with these creatures with the utmost respect for their personal space.

Long-term coexistence between humans and wildlife is the result of a complex interplay of multiple factors. Shared history has forged a deep and enduring bond between the Ata Modo and the dragons in Komodo village. In addition, tourism has brought economic benefits to local livelihoods, while their commitment to adhering to conservation regulations ensures positive interactions not only with the Komodo dragons, but also with the broader biodiversity and natural environment within the national park.

While the term “coexistence” might not be a familiar one to the Ata Modo, their way of life perfectly exemplifies what it means to harmoniously share space with wildlife. By observing their interactions with Komodo dragons, we can learn valuable lessons about our capacity to coexist with other species now and in the future.

Acknowledgment
We thank Puspita Insan Kamil and Achmad Ariefiandy for their initial review and constructive feedback, and Charles Josefson for proofreading.

Further Reading
Verheijen, J.A.J. 1987. Pulau Komodo: Tanah, Rakyat,dan Bahasanya. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka

Sunkar, A., D. K. Mirza and S.R. Fitria. 2020. Role of culture in the emotional response towards Komodo dragons in Komodo and Rinca islands of Komodo National Park. BIO Web of Conferences 19: 00021. DOI:10.1051/bioconf/20201900021.

Jessop, T., A. Ariefiandy, M. Azmi, C. Ciofi, J. Imansyah and D. Purwandana. 2021. Varanus komodoensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e. T22884A123633058. www.iucnredlist.org/ species/22884/123633058.

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17.4

2023 Dec

Human-crocodile coexistence in the Solomon Islands

On a late afternoon in 2016, Zevia was collecting shells with her grandmother in the mangroves behind the village when a crocodile suddenly pulled her underwater. Zevia fought the crocodile and somehow escaped, but she died two weeks later from the infected wounds on her legs and back. She was 13 years old.

Kyio, four years old, was bathing in the river when the crocodile bit him and dragged him to the deep. His sister hit the crocodile on the head and pulled the boy back, but it was too late. Saleani, nine years old, was playing with her friends when a crocodile pulled her underwater.

The village searched for two days before they found her body underwater, hidden under a tree. Cathyleen, nine, disappeared when she went to the riverbank early in the morning to defecate. Grinnet, 16, was pulled from her dugout canoe. Peterson, 13, drowned when he was bitten on his leg. Gumu, seven. Junior, nine. Martin, 14. Consi, 12. Don, six. The list is much longer.

Attacks are a growing challenge

In 2018, we conducted a survey throughout the Solomon Islands and recorded 83 fatal crocodile attacks on people, including 31 on children. We found out that every year, on average, five people are killed by saltwater crocodiles. Many other people are seriously injured and traumatised in crocodile attacks. We recorded 225 crocodile attacks over the past 20 years, 37 percent with a deadly outcome. Most crocodile attacks are on fishermen who dive at night on the reefs. But attacks on children typically result in higher fatality rates: in 63 percent of attacks, the victim did not survive the encounter. A major concern is that the number of attacks on people has increased markedly over the past ten years, most likely the result of the recovery of the saltwater crocodile population.

The saltwater crocodile is a large predator, with some individuals measuring up to 6m and weighing more than a tonne. The species inhabits tidal rivers, freshwater lakes and mangrove forests, and occasionally forages on coral reefs. Saltwater crocodiles hunt a wide variety of animals, including people. Prey is typically ambushed in or at the edge of the water. Small animals are swallowed whole, large ones are dragged into deep water, drowned and then torn to pieces.

Commercial hunting and habitat loss has wiped out the species in most parts of its former range. But in areas with large undisturbed wetlands, such as Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, saltwater crocodile populations recovered rapidly when trade in crocodile leather was banned. In these countries the species is a growing source of concern for rural communities.

Sacred reptile

Perhaps because of the ever-present danger saltwater crocodiles pose to people, the species plays a prominent cultural role in the Solomon Islands. Throughout the archipelago, there are customary restrictions on killing and eating crocodiles. In more than half of the 234 villages that we visited during the survey, people said that crocodiles were sacred animals. Some people see crocodiles as their totem animal, tracing their genealogy to a mythical crocodile ancestor. Others tell stories of spirit-crocodiles guarding tribal lands, women giving birth to crocodiles and chiefs talking to the reptiles. In many villages people respectfully talk about the grandmother-crocodile that inhabits the mangroves. In principle, these sacred crocodiles are benevolent creatures that help their human relatives in times of need. But the
ancestors can also be vengeful, and punish people who violate customary rules and taboos. In many cases, a crocodile attack is attributed to sorcery, theft or adultery.

Conservationists tend to dismiss such animistic beliefs as primitive superstition, irrelevant for the modern world, and a constraint for effective saltwater crocodile management. They advocate setting up a crocodile leather industry in the Solomon Islands, following the Australian example where crocodile farming is a profitable industry. Sustainable use will generate monetary incentives for rural communities to tolerate crocodiles in the wild, or so is the hypothesis.

I disagree, and think that efforts to prevent human-crocodile conflicts in the Solomon Islands should be based on local knowledge and experiences. To be clear, I do not claim that people live in harmony with saltwater crocodiles. They don’t. People fear crocodiles. Villagers are shocked and angry when a crocodile takes a life, and rigorously persecute the man-eaters after an attack. In most villages people trap crocodiles once they pose a threat to children and livestock.

Coexistence

Animistic beliefs and traditions are instrumental for coexistence on a more fundamental level. First, totems and taboos often offer practical guidelines to minimise the risk posed by a dangerous predator. The prohibition to enter sacred sites, which are in many cases areas where saltwater crocodile nest, is an obvious example.

Respecting crocodiles is another. Fishers have in-depth knowledge of crocodile ecology and behaviour, and take common sense precautionary measures to prevent attacks, such as avoiding murky water and deep pools where crocodiles hide.

Second, stories of ancestors, spirits and sorcerers give meaning to crocodile attacks. These beliefs rationalise traumatic events, and thereby help people to cope with pain and loss. Third, and perhaps most important, these cultural values enable people to accept risk and uncertainty. People acknowledge the danger posed by crocodiles, and are resigned to the possibility of a deadly encounter.

It is important not to confuse this acquiescence with apathy or ignorance. On the contrary, it is based on stark realism. In most cases there is simply no alternative: people need to fish, bathe and shit, also when and where there are crocodiles. Most of the time things go well. It is in fact surprising how relatively few crocodile attacks occur, given the number of people who go out every night in saltwater crocodile habitat to spearfish, gather shells, wash or relieve themselves. Preventing crocodile attacks on humans, for example, by fencing bathing areas, would require investments that are infeasible and unrealistic. Rural communities in the Solomon Islands have to deal with a range of other problems that are undoubtedly more urgent. The sad reality is that many more children in the Solomon Islands die of diarrhoea, malaria, car accidents, and domestic violence than of crocodile attacks.

Relationships, respect and resignation

Efforts to minimise the risk posed by crocodiles in the Solomon Islands should, in my view, build on and reinforce indigenous knowledge and practices. After all, the folk stories, legends and myths reach far more people than any public awareness campaign ever can. Every child in the Solomon Islands knows very well that crocodiles are dangerous, and that caution is needed in the mangroves.

What makes the preoccupation with crocodile farming and leather trade so damaging, in my view, is that it contradicts the wisdom and worldview of people in the Solomon Islands. The Western notion of human separation from, and dominance over, nature challenges the indigenous view of descent and kinship. The proposition to farm these supposedly soulless animals undermines respect for the living, animated world. The export of leather will not prevent crocodile attacks from happening, and the few dollars for a crocodile skin can never compensate the loss of a loved one. Such logic seems far more irrational than the belief that people and crocodiles are related.

To prevent saltwater crocodile attacks on humans it is much more effective to invest in basic rural development programs, particularly related to healthcare and sanitation. Ensuring that antibiotics and other medical supplies are available at rural health clinics could significantly reduce fatality rates. Perhaps this could have saved Zevia. Likewise, much can be gained if people are no longer obliged to defecate in mangroves, beaches or river banks at night, or to bathe in a murky river. Providing safe access to sanitation and clean water can minimise human-crocodile interactions, and obviously has much broader public health benefits. Perhaps Kyio would not have died.

It seems hard, perhaps impossible, to reconcile the loss of so many children with the aim to conserve saltwater crocodiles in the wild. The best answer is to rely on the cultural values and wisdom of people who live with these dangerous predators. Coexistence is not about posters, fences or money, but about relationships, respect and resignation. Coexistence is, as the anthropologist Val Plumwood wrote after being attacked by a saltwater crocodile herself, about ‘being humble about our relationship with the Earth and about the need to acknowledge our vulnerability’.

Further Reading

Plumwood V. 1995. Human vulnerability and the experience of being prey. Quadrant 39(3): 29–34.

Van der Ploeg J., F. Ratu, J. Viravira, M. Brien, C. Wood, M. Zama, C. Gomese and J.Hurutarau.2019.Human-crocodile conflict in Solomon Islands. Penang: WorldFish.

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17.4

2023 Dec

Culture, pride and coexistence with the Philippine crocodile

Jennifer Montanes-Gonzales lives in the small hamlet of Dunoy, situated along the Catallangan River on the island of Luzon, Philippines. “I often see crocodiles when I go bathing in the river with my children. They are always very excited when they see the crocodiles, and they are not scared of them,” she says.

Her father, Victorino Montanes, migrated here in the 1980s, seeking land to cultivate. In Cagayan Valley, land was getting scarce and expensive to buy. Victorino travelled east until he found uncultivated forestland near a river with abundant clear water. The only other people living here were Agta, the first Indigenous People of the Philippines. The Agta hunt, fish, and collect root crops. They live in small settlements, which they move every few months to another location.

Victorino agreed with them that he could build a house and clear a forest area for corn cultivation. The forest at that time still had abundant game, and the river provi ded fish. The Agta mentioned to Victorino that the river also harboured crocodiles, but that they were harmless if you did not harm them. Victorino was perhaps not so sure about that, but he accepted the crocodiles.

In 1999, a group of Dutch and Filipino scientists visited Victorino as they had heard from fishermen that crocodiles were regularly seen in the municipality of San Mariano, where Dunoy is located. Victorino led them to Dunoy Lake where they observed two adult crocodiles and 12 hatchlings. The researchers celebrated the find that evening together with Victorino and a bottle of gin. They had found a very small, but reproducing wild population of the Philippine crocodile—the rarest crocodile in the world.

A history of deteriorating relations

The Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) is a relatively small freshwater crocodilian (growing to a maximum length of 3m), found only in the Philippines. When the Spanish colonised the Philippines in 1565, they sent home reports with descriptions of the land and its people and wildlife. The Spanish were appalled by the fact that there were crocodiles seemingly everywhere. They were amazed that “the indios” both feared and venerated the crocodiles. The Philippines in fact has two species of crocodiles: the endemic freshwater Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) and the much larger and potentially man-eating saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), which occurs from Australia to India. In most Philippine indigenous languages, there are different names for the two species, and different dangers are attributed to them.

For the Spanish priests though, all crocodiles were monsters that had to be extirpated. There is a mural in the Catholic church of San Mariano where Jesus the Saviour is shown protecting a human community in his hand, while stepping on a crocodile to keep evil under his feet. In 1898, the US took over from the Spanish as colonisers of the Philippines. Like the Spanish, Hollywood would portray crocodiles as evil creatures.

Nowadays in the Philippines, crocodiles are widely regarded as dangerous animals, regardless of the species. They are stereotyped as bloodthirsty monsters and are associated with greed. Corrupt government officials and selfish athletes are called buwaya, the Filipino word for crocodile. These negative attitudes towards crocodiles are seen as a major impediment to in-situ crocodile conservation in the Philippines by the government, and have led to removal of crocodiles from the wild into ex-situ facilities to safeguard crocodiles and protect local communities.

Crocodiles in local culture

These negative attitudes towards crocodiles have not always been there, however, and also do not exist everywhere in the Philippines. Crocodiles continue to play an important role in folk stories, songs, and material culture, such as woven cloth and wood carvings. Throughout the Philippines, indigenous communities had intricate relations with crocodiles. In San Mariano, the Agta have personal bonds with individual crocodiles. Crocodiles and people can be friends and even blood brothers. Spear-fishermen often encounter crocodiles underwater, and do not fear them. They kindly ask the crocodile for permission to pass and to share the fish resources.

According to Nestor Alejo, an Agta elder residing in Dunoy: “What the Agta believe is that the crocodiles are helping us. We see that the crocodiles guard our rivers.” The Kalinga, another indigenous group in San Mariano, pray to crocodiles and provide offerings. They believe that crocodiles are the embodiment of their ancestors, that some people have the power to change into crocodiles and that others are born with a spiritual crocodile twin. There is a strong taboo against killing crocodiles.

Both the Agta and Kalinga do not dispute that crocodiles are potentially dangerous, especially large saltwater crocodiles. But if the crocodile does something to you, then you have probably deserved that because you did something wrong. This strong belief that a crocodile will not harm you if you do not harm the indigenous communities have with crocodiles until this day in the few areas where crocodiles still occur in the Philippines. But what about people like Victorino, who is an Ilocano migrant to San Mariano, and whose parents did not teach him to pay respect to crocodiles?

Victorino was not the only farmer who discovered the potential of San Mariano for land. Since the 1960s, when vast forest areas of San Mariano were opened up by commercial logging operations, immigrant farmers started to come in. They settled along rivers to transport their produce, since roads did not exist, and often observed crocodiles in those rivers.

Boy Robles, one of the first settlers along Dinang Creek—which remains an important breeding area of the Philippine crocodile—recounts: “When I first arrived here, it was all forest. There were no roads, only narrow footpaths. There were lots of wild animals, such as wild chicken, wild pig and wild deer. But nowadays there is no abundant food for crocodiles because there are no wild deer and wild pigs anymore. This is the reason why crocodiles eat our livestock.” In addition to negative perceptions, conflicts over livestock predation is one of the reasons that immigrant farmers kill crocodiles in San Mariano.

Mabuhay buwaya

Since 2003, the Mabuwaya Foundation (mabuhay = long live, buwaya = crocodile), in collaboration with Isabela State University, has been implementing a research and conservation program for the Philippine crocodile in San Mariano. A key component of this program is a long-term Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) strategy. While recognising the importance and relevance of indigenous belief systems that enabled people to coexist with crocodiles in San Mariano, younger people and immigrant farmers do not necessarily believe in crocodiles as ancestors, twins or forest spirits.

Therefore, the Mabuwaya Foundation tries to instil new forms of respect for crocodiles. These are based on the sense of pride in harbouring have the last individuals of this Philippine endemic species in the local rivers and refer to the general responsibility to take care of the environment and the species within it. The key message of the program is: “The Philippine crocodile, something to be proud of!” The program also promotes conditions that facilitate coexistence with crocodiles: crocodile wetlands and buffer zones are protected and rehabilitated to provide natural prey species and nesting habitat for crocodiles, and farmers are assisted with building pig and chicken pens to avoid livestock predation.

The CEPA program has led to acceptance of the crocodiles by more than 80 percent of a representative group of respondents in San Mariano. Today, there are eight community-managed crocodile sanctuaries. Community members, including children, are involved in crocodile monitoring and releasing headstarted crocodiles back into the wild (this is a conservation technique where young animals are raised ex-situ to increase their chances of survival to adulthood). A Philippine crocodile festival in 2018 in San Mariano, where schools competed to come up with the most spectacular crocodile dance in crocodile costumes, drew 35,000 visitors.

The crocodile population has grown from approximately 20 in 1999 to nearly 100 individuals in 2023 and the distribution of the crocodiles increased from three to eight distinct wetland areas. In 2023, six community-protected nests in four different sites successfully hatched. Livestock predation by crocodiles has greatly diminished as a result of rehabilitated riparian buffer zones and livestock protection measures. The deliberate killing of crocodiles still occasionally occurs but leads to outrage and action by community members and local government officials. Although there are a few visitors every year to see the wild Philippine crocodiles of San Mariano, there is no large-scale ecotourism program here that provides a financial incentive to communities that protect their crocodiles. Pride and respect are the main reasons why farmers like Victorino Montanes now accept the crocodiles in their midst.

Jennifer Montanes-Gonzalez says about the importance of crocodile conservation: “If there were no more crocodiles left, I would be very sad because by protecting the crocodiles we are protecting the rivers.” The current basis of coexistence of people and Philippine crocodiles in San Mariano is perhaps different compared to the indigenous belief systems, but it shares a widespread conviction that crocodiles have a right to live in the same rivers that are used by people and that crocodiles are not dangerous if people respect them. Mabuhay buwaya!

Further Reading

Cureg, M. C., A. M. Bagunu, M. Van Weerd, M. G.Balbas, D. Soler and J. Van Der Ploeg. 2016. A longitudinal evaluation of the communication, education and public awareness (CEPA) campaign for the Philippine crocodile Crocodylus mindorensis in northern Luzon, Philippines. International Zoo Yearbook 50(1): 68–83. doi.org/10.1111/izy.12112.

Van Der Ploeg, J., M. van Weerd and G. A. Persoon. 2011. A cultural history of crocodiles in the Philippines: towards a new peace pact? Environment and history 17(2): 229–264. www.jstor.org/stable/41303508

van Weerd, M. and J. van der Ploeg. 2003. A new future for the Philippine crocodile, Crocodylus mindorensis. Sylvatrop 13(1–2): 31–50.

This article is from issue

17.4

2023 Dec

Hidup Harmonis dengan Komodo

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“Ndadi manga waing di sa ro losa anaq rua. Pusi sa kenobo ndadi ora, sa kenobo ndadi manusia.”

“Pada suatu hari yang bersejarah, dua anak lahir. Satu, seekor Ora (Komodo), dan yang lainnya, seorang manusia.”

– J. A. J. Verheijen

Hidup berdampingan antara manusia dan satwa liar membutuhkan kesadaran akan pentingnya berbagi ruang dengan satwa liar. Mencapai koeksistensi yang langgeng dan berkelanjutan dapat menjadi tantangan, terutama ketika berhadapan dengan predator yang tangguh yang dapat menimbulkan risiko bagi keselamatan manusia. Namun, pengecualian yang luar biasa dapat ditemukan di Desa Komodo, yang terletak di dalam Taman Nasional Komodo. Di desa ini, masyarakat hidup harmonis dengan komodo (Varanus komodoensis) – kadal terbesar di dunia yang hanya dapat ditemukan di Indonesia.

Komodo adalah hewan raksasa yang luar biasa, dengan panjang mencapai tiga meter dan berat mencapai 100 kilogram. Sebagai predator puncak, komodo mampu memburu spesies mangsa besar seperti rusa, babi hutan, kuda, dan bahkan kerbau, menggunakan taktik menunggu dan menyergap secara diam-diam. Gigitannya berbisa dan mengandung bakteri yang berbahaya, menyebabkan kematian yang lambat dan menyakitkan bagi mangsanya. Komodo dilindungi dengan baik di Taman Nasional Komodo, di mana menurut penilaian IUCN Red List 2019, Taman Nasional Komodo menjadi rumah bagi sekitar 70 persen populasi komodo di dunia. Sifatnya yang soliter dan kanibal, ditambah dengan indra penciuman yang luar biasa dan kemampuan betina untuk melahirkan tanpa kawin, terus memikat imajinasi di seluruh dunia.

Selama berabad-abad penduduk desa Komodo, yang secara lokal dikenal sebagai Ata Modo, telah berbagi kehidupan dengan komodo. Menurut survei yang dilakukan taman nasional pada tahun 2022, sekitar 50 persen populasi Komodo ada di taman nasional, atau setara dengan 1.561 ekor, terkonsentrasi di Pulau Komodo, tempat tinggal Ata Modo. Perjumpaan dengan komodo adalah hal yang biasa terjadi, ketika penduduk desa menjelajah ke hutan atau komodo berkeliaran di sekitar desa. Meskipun pertemuan semacam itu biasanya berlangsung aman, ada beberapa kasus interaksi negatif antara Ata Modo dan Komodo. Taman nasional telah mencatat lima kasus serangan Komodo terhadap penduduk desa sejak tahun 2000, yang mengakibatkan luka parah atau bahkan kematian. Selain itu, komodo juga dilaporkan memangsa ternak warga, terutama kambing dan ayam.

Meskipun interaksi antara manusia dan komodo di Desa Komodo tidak selalu berjalan damai, mereka menunjukkan koeksistensi luar biasa yang telah berlangsung lama. Contohnya adalah jarang terjadi pembalasan atau penghukuman terhadap komodo ketika mereka menyerang manusia atau ternak. Hubungan harmonis ini merupakan hasil dari beberapa faktor yang saling terkait, termasuk kepercayaan dan budaya setempat, manfaat ekonomi yang diperoleh dari pariwisata, dan kepatuhan terhadap peraturan konservasi.

Hubungan Sejarah

Desa Komodo berdiri sebagai komunitas khas yang menghargai dan melestarikan sejarah dan tradisinya yang kaya. Salah satu kepercayaan yang paling mendalam yang dipegang oleh Ata Modo adalah anggapan bahwa komodo adalah saudara kandung mereka sendiri, lahir dari ibu yang sama. Kepercayaan ini telah diwariskan dari generasi ke generasi melalui cerita lisan, yang terangkum dalam ‘Cerita Sebae’, sebagai berikut: 

Dahulu kala, pasangan muda bernama Hami dan Epa bersukacita atas kelahiran anak kembar. Anak laki-laki diberi nama Ndasa, sementara saudara perempuannya, Ora, memiliki kemiripan dengan biawak betina. Mereka tinggal bersama di desa, sampai suatu ketika nafsu makan Ora terhadap tikus dan tokek membuat keluarga mereka malu dan Epa membawanya ke hutan. Setelah bertahun-tahun berlalu, Ndasa tumbuh menjadi nelayan yang terampil, menikah, dan memulai sebuah keluarga sendiri. Sementara itu, Ora tumbuh besar di hutan, mengasah keterampilan berburu rusa, dan membesarkan anak yang ia lahirkan sendiri. 

Pada suatu hari, Ndasa pergi ke hutan mencari obat untuk anaknya dan tersesat. Dia merasakan ada sesuatu yang mengamatinya dan tiba-tiba melihat kadal besar menjulang di belakangnya, hal tersebut membuat Ndasa dan Ora sama-sama bersiap untuk saling menyerang. Beruntung, ibu mereka yaitu Epa segera muncul. Wanita tua itu berkata, “Jangan saling menyakiti karena kalian adalah saudara kembar. Aku telah merawat Ora di hutan ini, sehingga ia tidak mengganggu atau diganggu oleh manusia.” Ndasa yang memahami kondisi tersebut kemudian kembali ke desa bersama ibunya, ia bersumpah dan meminta orang lain di desa untuk tidak mengganggu Ora karena dia adalah saudara perempuan mereka atau Sebae.

Pariwisata komodo

Dinamika hubungan masyarakat dengan Komodo telah berkembang karena manfaat ekonomi dari pariwisata. Sejak didirikan pada tahun 1980, Taman Nasional Komodo telah menjadi tujuan wisata global, dari kurang dari seribu wisatawan yang berkunjung pada tahun 1982 menjadi 300. 488 pengunjung pada tahun 2023, dengan sebagian besar datang untuk melihat komodo dan lanskap alam yang menakjubkan.

Desa Komodo yang terletak di dekat pusat wisata juga merupakan tujuan wisata budaya. Akibatnya, mata pencaharian tradisional Ata Modo telah mengalami transformasi besar, beralih dari pertanian dan perikanan ke kegiatan yang berpusat pada pariwisata. Saat ini, mereka terlibat dalam kegiatan pariwisata seperti membuat dan menjual cinderamata lokal, menjadi pemandu wisata, dan menawarkan layanan homestay.

Masyarakat Ata Modo menyadari nilai ekonomi yang ada pada Komodo dan mereka sangat bangga dikenal sebagai masyarakat yang hidup harmonis dengan kadal yang luar biasa ini.

Kepatuhan terhadap konservasi

Koeksistensi masyarakat Ata Modo dengan Komodo juga dibangun atas dasar pemahaman mereka yang mendalam akan pentingnya melindungi spesies ini dan kepatuhan mereka terhadap peraturan konservasi. Komodo yang secara resmi dilindungi sejak masa penjajahan Belanda dan kini sepenuhnya dilindungi oleh hukum Indonesia merupakan alasan utama pendirian Taman Nasional Komodo pada tahun 1980 yang berdampak pada masyarakat lokal di dalam kawasan. Sejak saat itu, masyarakat setempat hidup di bawah peraturan yang dirancang untuk melestarikan tidak hanya komodo, tetapi juga satwa liar dan ekosistem yang lebih luas.

Untuk memastikan kepatuhan, taman nasional ini mengadakan program peningkatan kesadaran dan kapasitas terkait pariwisata secara rutin, seperti pembuatan kerajinan tangan dan pemanduan. Patroli rutin dilakukan untuk

mencegah kegiatan seperti perburuan dan penebangan liar di dalam taman nasional. Peraturan-peraturan ini terkadang menimbulkan ketidakpuasan masyarakat setempat karena mereka merasa terpinggirkan dan dibatasi dalam kegiatan seperti memancing atau mengambil kayu. Meskipun terkadang terjadi ketegangan, perlu dicatat bahwa Ata Modo tidak pernah menyalahkan komodo atas situasi mereka, sebagaimana dibuktikan dengan tidak adanya laporan tentang pembalasan terhadap satwa ini selama 15 tahun terakhir.

Pembelajaran dari Desa Komodo

Meskipun sebagian besar masyarakat Ata Modo secara alami takut terhadap komodo karena ukuran dan sifat predatornya, namun telah terjadi pergeseran dalam interaksi antara manusia dan komodo yaitu semakin banyak orang yang mengamati komodo dari dekat. Pergeseran ini dipengaruhi oleh pertumbuhan pariwisata yang menarik perhatian pengunjung untuk mengamati komodo dari dekat, ditambah dengan meningkatnya pemahaman tentang perilaku mereka.

Sebagai contoh, komodo yang sering bertemu dengan manusia menjadi terbiasa dan dapat diamati dari dekat, tidak seperti komodo liar yang biasanya melarikan diri atau menghindari manusia. Namun, diperlukan kehati-hatian dan tetap menjaga jarak karena mereka adalah hewan liar dan dapat menunjukkan sifat agresif ketika merasa terganggu atau terancam. Oleh karena itu, penting untuk menjaga jarak aman dalam berinteraksi dengan komodo. 

Hidup berdampingan dalam jangka panjang antara manusia dan satwa liar adalah hasil dari berbagai faktor yang kompleks. Latar belakang sejarah yang sama telah membentuk ikatan yang mendalam dan abadi antara Ata Modo dan komodo di Desa Komodo. Selain itu, pariwisata telah membawa manfaat ekonomi bagi mata pencaharian masyarakat setempat. Didukung juga oleh komitmen masyarakat untuk mematuhi peraturan konservasi dengan memastikan interaksi positif tidak hanya dengan komodo, tetapi juga dengan keanekaragaman hayati dan lingkungan alam yang lebih luas di dalam taman nasional.

Meskipun istilah “koeksistensi” mungkin tidak terlalu familier di telinga masyarakat Ata Modo, cara hidup mereka telah menggambarkan apa yang dimaksud dengan hidup berdampingan secara harmonis dengan satwa liar. Dengan mengamati interaksi mereka dengan komodo, kita dapat belajar pelajaran berharga tentang kemampuan kita untuk hidup berdampingan dengan spesies lain di masa kini dan masa depan.

Ucapan terima kasih

Kami berterima kasih kepada Puspita Insan Kamil dan Achmad Ariefiandy atas tinjauan awal dan umpan balik konstruktif yang diberikan, serta Charles Josefson yang telah menyunting naskah ini.

Referensi Lebih Lanjut

Verheijen, J.A.J. 1987. Pulau Komodo: Tanah, Rakyat,dan Bahasanya. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka.

Sunkar, A., D. K. Mirza and S.R. Fitria. 2020. Role of culture in the emotional response towards Komodo dragons in Komodo and Rinca islands of Komodo National Park. BIO Web of Conferences 19: 00021. DOI:10.1051/bioconf/20201900021.

Jessop, T., A. Ariefiandy, M. Azmi, C. Ciofi, J. Imansyah and D. Purwandana. 2021. Varanus komodoensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2021: e. T22884A123633058. www.iucnredlist.org/ species/22884/123633058.

Kontributor

Maria Rosdalima Panggur telah bekerja sebagai ranger di Taman Nasional Komodo selama sembilan tahun, berfokus pada konservasi Komodo dan habitatnya. Saat ini sedang mengikuti program The Conservation Science programme di University of Queensland.

Ayu Wijayanti adalah seorang antropolog yang fokus pada pemberdayaan dan konservasi. Dia pernah bekerja di Komodo Survival Program selama empat tahun. Saat ini ia sedang melanjutkan studi magister antropologi di Universitas Gadjah Mada. 

Ardiantiono telah mempelajari interaksi manusia-satwa liar selama satu decade. Saat ini dia sedang mengejar gelar doktor di The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent.

Labonie Roy adalah seniman independen yang memiliki spesialisasi dalam nature communication melalui ilustrasi, desain, dan cerita. Ia menyukai serangga, kopi, dan memimpikan buku anak-anak.

This article is from issue

17.4

2023 Dec

Horseshoe crabs: Ancient marvels facing modern threats

The horseshoe crab has been around for more than 450 million years. It has survived three mass extinctions, including the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago, when more than 70 percent of all life forms, including dinosaurs, were wiped off the planet. Apart from being one of the oldest, the horseshoe crab is also among the most resilient of animals. Yet, despite being around for so long, not a lot is known about these living fossils.

Contrary to its name, the horseshoe crab is not a true crab nor a crustacean; it is, in fact, closely related to spiders and scorpions. With ten eyes situated all along its protective shell, five pairs of legs hidden underneath the carapace, and a protruding spike for a tail, it is a creature that is a perfect ensemble of prehistory. Horseshoe crabs play a crucial role in the coastal food web. Shorebirds, most of which are migratory, depend on their eggs as a food source, as do several species of fish and invertebrates. The horseshoe crab’s blue-coloured blood is an important component of medical research and the health industry, yet its own survival faces an uncertain future. 

Horseshoe crabs visit the intertidal mudflats only for the purpose of breeding, spending their first year of life along coastal habitats and shallow waters, before moving deeper into the ocean. Feasting on clams, worms and algae, horseshoe crabs will only begin breeding after they reach adulthood at about 10 years of age. For the next decade, they will return back to the beach every summer, to reproduce. Being largely understudied animals, their return to the beach is the only part of their lifecycle that we have information about. 

An eye for survival

The horseshoe crab is nocturnal and possesses some unique adaptations. Cruising along the shallow coastal seabed, it uses moonlight to its favour—to both forage and spawn its next generation. It has a pair of large compound eyes seated laterally, each with 1000 photoreceptors, as its primary visuals. Five more super-eyes, located on top of the shell, detect the ultraviolet spectrum, allowing the animal to navigate its surroundings on dark nights. Two more eyes on the underside, close to the mouth, help maintain a stable orientation against the flowing current. Lastly, an eye situated on the tail helps keep track of the day and night cycle.

The animal not only brings variety into visual engineering, but also possesses a well-defined circadian clock in its brain. The eyes of the horseshoe crab are the reason we have been able to extensively study our own vision.

Double-edged sword

Nevertheless, it was not just the vision of the crab that humans eyed. The baby-blue-coloured blood of horseshoe crabs has been harvested since the early 1600s—the colonial times in modern USA—initially to be used as “cancerine fertilisers” and later as a test for bacterial contamination in drugs. An important discovery was made in the 1950s, when Frederick Bang found that horseshoe crab blood contained a chemical called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL). 

This compound came to be widely used in the pharmaceutical industry to test for the presence of any bacterial contaminants, because it helped identify endotoxins even at concentrations as low as one part per trillion. The moment LAL comes in contact with any contaminant, the solution turns into a ‘gel’, immobilising the bacteria within the gel. The LAL test is instantaneous and simple, and creates a sample that remains stable for weeks, even at room temperature, and it replaced unethical testing on rabbits and mice. The test went on to become an important step in the approval of any drug, surgical implant and prosthetic device hoping to get the Food and Drug Administration’s approval. The horseshoe crab’s blood has helped deliver insulin as well as COVID-19 vaccines. 

On account of the presence of this important chemical compound, horseshoe crab blood became one of the most expensive liquids on earth. According to Business Insider, the price of the blood is valued at $60,000 per gallon, and the demand is growing. However, this has led to the overexploitation of the species. About 30 percent of all horseshoe crabs collected for drawing blood die in the laboratory, and those that are released have been reported to show diminished chances of survival in the wild.

For the horseshoe crab, this unique chemical defence evolved to help it survive its bacteria-rich habitats. The moment the crab’s blood cells detect invaders, they release LAL, thus creating a gel-like physical barrier that immobilises the bacteria. But, what was supposed to protect the animal is now the reason for its demise. In the 1970s, the high demand for LAL led to the start of a severe decline in the horseshoe crab population globally. Despite existing regulations, horseshoe crabs are poached in the thousands to meet the demands of the growing pharmaceutical industry.

Emerging threats in India

Apart from the demand from pharmaceutical companies, horseshoe crabs are also increasingly threatened by pollution and habitat destruction. Delaware Bay in the US, which has the largest population of horseshoe crabs, saw a decline from about 1.24 million Atlantic horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) in 1990 to about 334,000 by the early 2000s. 

Among the four species of horseshoe crabs, two are found in India—the mangrove horseshoe crab (Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) and the Indo-Pacific horseshoe crab (Tachypleus gigas). A recent study (see Further Reading section) revealed a 64.7 percent decline in the population of mangrove horseshoe crabs and a 72.2 percent decline in the population of Indo-Pacific horseshoe crabs between 2000 and 2010. The fourth and largest species, the Japanese horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus), too is in a similar situation.

In India, there are additional threats facing the two species of horseshoe crabs. According to Prof. B.C. Chowdhury, a member of the IUCN-SSC Marine Turtle Specialist Group and advisor to the Wildlife Trust of India’s (WTI) marine projects, the primary reason for the decline of horseshoe crabs in the country is the destructive fishing practices prevalent along the eastern coast, which is home to the horseshoe crabs. Although not targeted, horseshoe crabs form a substantial part of the bycatch along the intertidal flats. Plucking them out of the nets is not easy and causes severe skeletal damage to the animals. Those that are plucked out whole are left scattered on the beach to perish. Moreover, since these are hard-shelled animals, fishermen also blame them for reduced fishing productivity due to the damage caused to their nets by the shells.

Bichitrapur beach located in a mangrove forest reserve in the Balasore district of Odisha used to be an important feeding and spawning ground for the Indo-Pacific horseshoe crab, but sightings have drastically reduced over the years. Dr. Biswajeet Panda, who is conducting a study on horseshoe crabs along the beaches of Balasore, suggests that poaching might be a major threat to the population. This despite both species in India being protected under Schedule II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, where illegal collection/hunting can attract a jail term of three years, a fine of up to INR 100,000 or both.

Satyajit Maity, a local fisherman from Dhublagadi village, remembers growing up seeing and playing with horseshoe crabs, saying they have now “vanished” from the coasts of Bichitrapur. Although the exact nature of trade is not known—with traders from places farther away contacting local fishermen to collect the animals and the specifics are kept under wraps—he confirms that it does exist and could be one of the reasons for the decline in numbers. According to Maity, a good-sized adult can sell anywhere between INR 800–1,000 (US$ 9.61–12.01). 

There is also increased pressure from other anthropogenic activities. Increased construction along the beaches like Digha and Sagar Islands in the Indian state of West Bengal has led to a change in the texture and composition of the sand and sediment. This has also led to a shift in the congregation sites of the crabs over the past decade. According to Dr. Panda, more than 400 horseshoe crabs (across both species) were sampled in surveys that date back to the late 1980s. However, during a recent survey, they found less than 10. This tragically illustrates the severity of the decline.

Physiochemical changes in the habitat due to coastal erosion, industrial effluents and increased human activity have led to the loss of long-time spawning grounds for the species. Dr. Punyashloke Bhadury from IISER-Kolkata says that the population of the Indo-Pacific horseshoe crab is severely threatened by changing river systems. Faulty barrage management, like the one in Mahanadi River, has led to less clay sediment flowing into the river mouths compared to what it was a decade ago. The river courses have changed, the water volume has decreased and thus, the nutrient cycle that the crabs depend upon is affected. In addition, increasing amounts of wastewater being dumped into the sea without adequate treatment has led to an increase in nitrogen levels, thereby changing the physiochemical composition of the feeding grounds for the worse. 

The aftermath of Cyclone Amphan

In May 2020, Cyclone Amphan caused colossal damage to the coastal habitat along the Bay of Bengal in India. Sagar Islands, a prime breeding ground for these crabs, was one of the most severely affected areas. Huge patches of mangrove and the adjacent mudflats were damaged. The high winds also brought in debris that changed the sediment composition of the banks. 

Dr. Bhadury and his team, supported by WTI, led a cleaning drive while simultaneously assessing the sediment texture of the mudflats. With the help of local volunteers from the fishing community, some of these habitats were restored, debris and marine macroplastics were removed, and several horseshoe crabs were rescued and rehabilitated. More than 35 crabs, including gravid females, were rescued alive from ghost nets and released as part of the drive. 

Dr. Bhadury’s project has helped generate baseline information on horseshoe crabs and their habitats, while paving the way for the first coordinated rescue and release initiative for the species in this landscape. He now calls for urgent collaborative efforts involving state Forest Departments and governments, and NGOs to map the breeding sites and record the status of habitats of horseshoe crabs across their range. According to him, future conservation plans for this species need to ensure the long-term improvement of their habitats by conducting science-based mangrove plantations and sustainable management of debris, with a special focus on the involvement of fishermen communities.

Straddling both water and land, horseshoe crabs are a symbol of adaptability and resourcefulness in several cultures across the globe. It would be a shame if this prehistoric creature that survived mass extinctions is lost to anthropogenic exploitation. The horseshoe crab is a stark reminder of why we should revisit our existing relationship with nature, and rethink our overuse of its precious resources.

Further reading:

Wang, C-C, K. Y. Kwan, P. K.S. Shin, S. G. Cheung, S. Itaya, Y. Iwasaki, L. Cai et al. 2020. Future of Asian horseshoe crab conservation under explicit baseline gaps: A global perspective. Global ecology and conservation 24: e01373. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01373

Eisner, C. 2023. Vaccines are still tested with horseshoe crab blood. The industry is finally changing. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2023/09/23/1200620535/vaccines-are-still-tested-with-horseshoe-crab-blood-the-industry-is-finally-chan. Accessed on 27 December, 2023. 

Chesler, C. 2016. Medical labs may be killing horseshoe crabs. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/medical-labs-may-be-killing-horseshoe-crabs/. Accessed on 27 December, 2023. 

What will it take to save the vaquita?

For half a decade now, biologists have been predicting and fearing the extinction of the critically endangered vaquita (Phocoena sinus)—the smallest of the world’s seven porpoise species. The vaquita lives in the northern upper end of the Gulf of Mexico between Baja California and the Mexican mainland. In August 2023, the International Whaling Commission, in a first-of-its-kind declaration in its 70-year history, issued an “extinction alert” for the vaquita. What occasioned this alert was a new report that estimated only 8–13 individuals of the species remaining in their natural habitat. Moreover, breeding in captivity has so far not succeeded.

While this population estimate underscores the dire situation the species is in, it nevertheless gives hope for the vaquita’s survival. In 1997, the population comprised around 570 individuals. In 2018, it was estimated that fewer than 20 individuals remained, with an annual rate of decline close to 50 percent. Two years later, the estimated population size was down to eight individuals, though healthy calves were sighted. The current estimate also includes the healthy calves. Moreover, a recent analysis suggests that, despite its small size, the population is not prone to inbreeding depression—which is caused by a lack of genetic variation in the population, and which can lead to reduced survivability and fertility of the offspring.

Thus, given the tenacity of this species at the brink of extinction, it is imperative to redouble our conservation efforts. Unfortunately, policy formulation, let alone implementation, is far from straightforward, requiring consideration not only within the Mexican context but also globally, particularly in relation to the medicinal beliefs and food preferences among the wealthier classes of China.

The vaquita is close to extinction because of gillnet fishing of another critically endangered species; the fish totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), which shares its marine habitat. Between November and May each year huge gillnets—each sometimes over 600 metres long—are dropped into the water to trap the totoaba. The vaquita and many other marine mammals, including whales and dolphins, probably as many as 300,000 of them, are also trapped in these nets as bycatch each year, only to be later discarded. Totoaba fishing has been illegal in Mexico since 1975 and gillnets have been banned since 1998.

In 2017, the Mexican government enacted a small “No Tolerance Zone” that excluded all fishing activities in part of the upper Gulf of Mexico to create a refuge that comprises the most important habitat for the species. However, in order to appease local fishermen whose livelihoods were supposedly threatened, the government of President López Obrador rescinded the policy in 2021. Meanwhile, conservation NGOs, most notably the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, have had violent encounters with these fishermen and those behind them.

Beginning in the 1920s, the totoaba was originally fished for its meat. However, that market was soon superseded by the Chinese appetite for its swim bladders, which are considered as status symbols and consumed in multiple ways. The bladders are believed to have medicinal value, including increasing longevity and vigour, despite a lack of credible scientific evidence. Highly prized, these swim bladders can fetch up to US$ 80,000 per kilogram in China.

Local conservationists in Baja California do not blame the fishermen who carry out the illegal gillnet fishing, but rather the organised cartels originating in China, that control the lucrative trade. Gillnets are expensive equipment and fishing with them is also an expensive enterprise; without funding from these cartels, local fishermen cannot afford to engage in this activity. Obtaining gillnets from the cartels engenders debt that the fishermen are then forced to pay off by extracting totoaba swim bladders. For the vaquita—and the totoaba—to survive, this dynamic must be disrupted.

Three recent developments provide some guarded reasons for optimism. The first and most controversial of them is the permission granted in 2022 by the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to Earth Ocean Farms, a Baja-based aquaculture company to legally trade in captive-bred totoaba. The hope is that the captive harvest will drive down prices and decrease the incentive for illegal fishing. Meanwhile, recently developed technology will make the products traceable and allow for accurate monitoring of the legal trade. However, critics maintain that this technology is far from perfect. The legal trade may as well spawn an even larger market in China and increase the scope of illegal fishing.

Second, there is some indication that the Mexican authorities are finally cracking down on illegal gillnet fishing in the upper Gulf. In 2018, several Chinese nationals involved in the illegal totoaba trade were arrested in Mexico. Since 2020, using information collected by NGOs such as Earth League International, authorities have also arrested several Mexican cartel members. Many, if not most, of the biggest totoaba traffickers are now in jail. Despite the decision to allow fishing again in the former No Tolerance Zone, Mexican authorities, in August 2022, deployed 193 concrete blocks with three-metre metal hooks to entangle gillnets in the upper Gulf. If these efforts continue, there is hope that the reign of the illegal totoaba cartels will be over and both the vaquita and the totoaba can avoid extinction in the immediate future.

Third, there has also been some cooperation from Chinese authorities. In December 2018, Chinese customs authorities confiscated 444 kilograms of totoaba swim bladders illegally smuggled from Mexico and worth an estimated US$ 26 million. The illegal totoaba market in Mexico immediately collapsed. Though the market subsequently recovered, continued cooperation from China along with the other two measures may well save the vaquita from extinction. Or so we hope. 

Further Reading:

Robinson, J. A., Kyriazis, C. C., Nigenda-Morales, S. F., Beichman, A. C., Rojas-Bracho, L., Robertson, K. M., Fontaine et al. 2022. The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression. Science 376: 635–639.

Rojas-Bracho, L., B. Taylor, C. Booth, L. Thomas, A. Jaramillo-Legorreta, E. Nieto-García, G. C. Hinojosa et al. 2022. More vaquita porpoises survive than expected. Endangered species research 48: 225–234.

Taylor, B. and L. Rojas-Bracho. 2023. Vaquitas continue to surprise the world with their tenacity. IUCN–SSC Cetacean Specialist Group. https://iucn-csg.org/vaquitas-continue-to-surprise-the-world-with-their-tenacity/. Accessed on 9 September, 2023.

Everyday observations: finding the extraordinary in the ordinary

When out watching bugs in a group, as I was doing, one often doesn’t have the luxury of observing intricacies. The likelihood of others badgering you to move so they can have a closer look or take a photograph is high. The possibility of the group discovering another interesting bug and abandoning the bug under the limelight also exists. A jewel bug, which had enamoured onlookers, was thus abandoned when someone in the group exclaimed, “Look, a common emigrant!” I clicked a quick photograph of the flashy beetle navigating the leaf contours of a blue porterweed before moving ahead to catch a glimpse of the flitting butterfly.

Dragonflies and damselflies abounded near the wetlands I tramped along. When I stumbled upon an exuviae straight out of a science fiction movie, it didn’t take long to guess its owner: a young dragonfly had just completed the aquatic stage of its life. Ready to take wing, it had climbed up the stalk of a plant, shed its larval case, and joined its squadron. A slow process that can take hours, the emergence from the casing, which tears from the back, is amazing to witness.  

Remarkably, some spittle bugs had chosen the same spot to undergo their transformation into froghoppers. In their nymphal form, these bugs feed on plant sap, releasing air from their abdomen into the watery urine they excrete to create bubbles. Enclosed in this bubbly foam resembling saliva, which earns them their name, the bugs stay hidden from predatory insects and birds until they are ready to leap away as froghoppers.       

Land crabs such as this begin to appear during the monsoon along roadside streams. Many get crushed by vehicles as they cross the tarmac.  

The common tiger (Danaus genutia) seen here feeding on the nectar of a silver cock’s comb,  is one of the most common butterflies found in India. It closely resembles North American monarch butterflies, which are famous for the thousand-mile migration they undertake. Unpleasant to smell and taste, the butterfly, also known as the striped tiger, uses its prominent markings and striking colouration to advertise its unpalatability to predators. 

Moths, attracted by sources of light, have an uncanny knack for popping up in the most unexpected of places. I found this Olepa ricini on my bathroom door one evening, nonchalantly invading my privacy. Or was I invading its space? 

Despite hosting a wide variety of organisms, the intertidal zone seldom receives its due as a habitat thriving with all manner of life forms. Pictured here is a longtail butterfly ray, captured and discarded on a beach by fishermen. Found along the sandy bottom of inshore waters, these rays are threatened by overfishing and often caught as bycatch in trawl nets.   

A surprise is always lying in wait on the forest floor. The concentric circles around this fortress-like nest reveals the identity of its owners—a colony of harvester ants. The nest serves as a godown for storing the seeds they harvest from different types of grasses. After the seeds are consumed, the coats are discarded and can be seen around the nest.

I almost walked through the web of this dazzling signature spider (Argiope anasuja), which had cast its silky home in the middle of a country path. A zigzag pattern (not visible in this photo) resembling letters in the centre of its web earns this arachnid its moniker—the writing spider. Building its nest close to the ground enables the spider to trap foraging bees and wasps. Sunlight reflecting off the intertwined hair on the spider’s grouped limbs fool the nectar gatherers into believing that the four-legged, brightly coloured creature is a flower. As in the case of most spiders, the female signature spider is much larger than the male, who can usually be found on a smaller web nearby.  

Found in freshwater bodies such as rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and marshes, the Indian flapshell turtle (Lissemys punctata) is widely distributed across India. Named so due to a flap which covers its limbs when it retracts into its shell, these reptiles are encountered in irrigation canals and temple ponds as well. Their relative abundance has made them an easy target for poachers who trap them to feed the increasing international demand for turtle.

The Painted Forest: Exploring human-nature interrelationships in Gond painting

South of the Narmada River in eastern Madhya Pradesh, India, the Gond hill-village of Patangarh is the birthplace of a rich painting tradition. Adapted from the decorative mural techniques of the village, Gond painting depicts community folklore, creation tales, the verdant landscape, urban and pastoral lifeways, and more.

Though only four decades old, Gond art is widely appreciated as an intricate and evocative painting style. At its heart, Gond painting is about spirits and creatures deep in the forest that people have coexisted with for centuries. While Gond art has grown to encompass subjects extending far beyond field and forest, interdependence remains a lasting theme.

A Gond woman in the Supkhar forest

Gond painting as we know it today was first imagined and practiced by an artist named Jangarh Singh Shyam. In the early 1980s, he transposed the bitti chitra and digna practices of the village (wall and floor art, respectively) onto paper.

The act of creating a digna mimics the Gond story of creation: the great god Bada Dev spread mud on water to create the living earth, with trees, animals, and human beings. Dignas are painted by village women in the aangans (courtyards) of their homes, using a paste of lime and chalk. Bitti chitra is painted on the facades of houses, depicting Gond fables, deities, and legends. They are filled with colours made from mud or crushed flowers, changing with the weather and wind.

Bitti chitra on Jangarh Singh Shyam’s home in Patangarh

The original traditions of Gond painting, digna and bitti chitra, were materially and metaphorically connected with the earth. Jangarh Singh Shyam, who started painting on canvas, didn’t veer far from its roots. His works drew on Gond folklore and the symbolism of the forest. In Origins of Art: The Gond Village of Patangarh, Jangarh Singh’s nephew and regarded artist, Bhajju Shyam, writes:

“The tree has become one of the main symbols in Gond art. This is powerful art, because it combines the rendering of a tree with stories, concepts, and metaphors. Painting tree stories actually began with Jangarh chacha . Give him any size of wall and he’d cover it with trees! […] We all began by observing him and helping him with his work, so trees became a big theme for us as well.”

Jangarh Singh Shyam passed away under tragic circumstances in Japan in 2001, leaving a legacy of artists. Today, Patangarh is home to a number of painting families who were inspired by him. The village itself is painted, and scenes of coexistence—trees heavy with beehives, children chasing cattle, women collecting mahua flowers—find their way onto canvases, walls, and floors. 

I met with Jangarh Singh Shyam’s grandson, Mithilesh Shyam. He and his wife, Roshni Shyam, are both artists. They invited me to Patangarh in May 2022, where they shared work from a collection on human-nature interrelationships. I was struck by the vivid colours and whimsical forms, by the seamlessness between human and non-human elements. Roshni and Mithilesh had worked together on each of these paintings. Their commentary gave insight into underlying messages and themes:

“Hariyali”

In the monsoon of late August, we celebrate a festival called Hariyali [“greenery”]. Villagers wake early, gather their kulhad, tagiya, hashiya , and carry bamboo to the fields. We plant bamboo and pray to the earth, our mother goddess, heralding the start of the sowing cycle. Perhaps this is how humans first started planting trees. 

The seeds of the first crop are sacrificed to family gods and goddesses—every community has its own. Since we are from the Shyam family, we pray to Sat Dev, the seven-headed god.

In my painting, you see a saj tree giving its leaves to a person and blessing his home with wealth and prosperity. We will eat in these leaves. Together, we will drink mahua and celebrate, singing karma dadariya and dancing to the beat of the madar .

“A plea for trees”

I speak for trees because they can’t communicate in human languages. In this machine-filled world, humans can travel between countries and invent anything they dream up, but they remain dependent on trees. Trees, whose roots, leaves, and branches have so many worlds in them, are the keepers of the earth. When we clear the forest, we experience droughts and floods. Clouds and rivers weep and the soil can’t hold their tears, so we drown. We must save the forest. This is what I urge through my painting.”

I was moved by their conviction. The paintings are suffused with tenderness, revealing the ecocentrism of the Gonds. The graceful, flowing compositions and anthropomorphic figures convey exchanges between humans and the forest, making interlinkages apparent.

As we spoke, their daughter, Damini, stood on her toes and listened intently. When Roshni and Mithilesh had finished, she asked if she could add something. 

“The eyes are always filled in last,” she grinned, pointing at her own. Why, I asked. Against a striking backdrop of birds and trees, Damini answered, “Then the painting comes alive.”

Roshni and Mithilesh’s daughter, Damini Shyam, in Patangarh

Temporary Vertigo

When an endangered animal looks at you, it is only fair and just that you, as a human, become overwhelmed by temporary vertigo. But because the world is rarely fair nor just, this likely won’t happen. The trick of tourism, the spell of the conservation industry, is the manufacture of that feeling—powerful in its falseness—that you are watching real animals that aren’t really watching you. Uncomplicated and undisturbed, protected in your car, you are the leisurely sovereign. You may well be spotted by the animals being observed, but you feel safe knowing that you will not be truly seen by them.

I recently experienced this deception first-hand. In April 2023, I flew to South Africa to conduct archival research at Amazwi, the national English literary museum in Makhanda/Grahamstown. I am a literary scholar who focuses on how writers write about animals. I’m currently working on a new book project about literature and conservation. Titled The Conservation Plot, the book examines how postcolonial authors, from the decolonising 1960s to globalised 2010s, have used literature to tell stories about wildlife conservation, using different modes and styles to reveal the cracks in the “fortress conservation” model that has grown to dominate the practices and ideologies of wildlife protection.


National parks play a big role in this story. Beacons of benevolence, symbols of state power, the national park—whether Yosemite or the Peak District—stands as many things at once: a place in which nature can ostensibly be itself, yes, but also a new enclosure, a sacred haven for the steady flourishing of indigenous species and the extermination of so-called aliens, a venue for ecotourism and profit-seeking, and a policed and bordered site of uniformed suspicion and informal authoritarianism.

Most troubling for me is that national parks often present a version of nature without history, a deeply naturalised nature that’s suspended in a perpetual present and also, somehow, a window onto the deep past. The “wilderness” is a myth. There is no pristine, untouched nature. And national parks are the products of violent land grabs, of displacement and culling, of vast years’ long efforts to rearrange landscapes and move mountains. Yet the conjuring trick of the national park is that it hides the scars. Carefully managed, the national park manages to carefully erase the palimpsests of social history. It presents, packages and stages nature.

All of these thoughts were rattling around my head when, during my stay in Makhanda, I drove along the highways and dirt roads to visit Addo Elephant National Park, a vast conservation area in the Eastern Cape province. Just bigger than the size of Greater London, the park houses hundreds of elephants, as well as lions, buffaloes, rhino and leopards. It is surrounded, on all sides, by private game reserves—Shamwari, Schotia, Amakhala—that house their own populations of the so-called Big Five species.

Addo opened its gates in 1931, in the middle of a decade-long period in which the unified South African government devoted previously unprecedented resources to wildlife protection. Kruger, the gigantic park in the far north, opened five years before; Mountain Zebra, a smaller site, followed six years later. Addo is the product of what the historian of conservation William M. Adams calls the dawn of the “age of preservation”, that extended moment in colonial history when trophy hunters shapeshifted into wildlife advocates.

A sign in the woods

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Throughout the 19th century, the settlers in the Eastern Cape substantially rearranged human–nature relations: expanding agriculture, cutting back forests, increasing wildlife hunting and trading. The destruction was so wide-ranging that, come the end of the imperial century, reports emerged that only two groups of elephants remained south of the Limpopo river: the Addo and the Tsitsikamma, with the former having just 11 or 16 members left—the exact number depending on which sources you read.

One way of telling the story of Addo, then, is to tell it simply: that the park is a tender-hearted safeguard for an embattled herd, and a towering success story at that. Sixteen elephants have become 600. This is the official narrative, the tourist board fiction.

But plotting Addo’s story like this glosses over a long and violent history of conflict between farmers, zoologists, bureaucrats and elephants. As Jules Skotnes-Brown has shown (see Further Reading section), during the two decades before the park’s opening, the Addo elephants were perceived as a pest. Constantly overstepping social boundaries, they roamed and trampled on settlers’ ever-expanding farmland. The farmers demanded their extermination, and the newly formed South African state obliged. A trusted hunter was hired, shooting towers erected, a timeline to extinction mapped out.

But after months of slaughter, with just 10 or so elephants left to kill, scientists and campaigners began arguing that the Addo herd was a unique “dying race” in need of special protections. The hunt was soon called off, and in the name of zoological race science and anxieties over species degeneration, the official tactics switched from state-sponsored extinction to species preservation.

None of this is legible to the visitor who, always looking out from behind their steering wheel, is permanently too close and too far away from the outside. Crawling along the narrow, bumpy trails in your car, studiously surveying the road to avoid crushing the scurrying flightless dung beetles below, you are beholden to a perspective ontologically inseparable from the automobile itself.

Sure, this is nothing like driving at speed, where the “hurrying eye” immediately forgets the “vanishing landscape” behind it, as Theodor Adorno once wrote about America’s “impressively smooth and broad” roads. But what’s shared here, what you constantly battle against as a visitor, is the obvious fiction Adorno grasped: that the land around you “bears no traces of the human hand … as if no one had passed their hands over the landscape’s hair”.

What you can easily miss out on in Addo is that this land has been shaped and reshaped by real people. What you struggle to see, despite the park’s promise of all-seeingness, is that the elephants’ home was never a fenced-in area surrounded by irrigated grids of land. It was an entire province in which they once moved freely, for better and for worse. You cannot see that the bushveld that you drive through testifies to the history of what Marx called primitive accumulation, the expropriation of land and enclosure of the commons through “blood and fire”. This land was once a Xhosa stronghold violently won by the British, who then slowly carved it up into profitable farms. Black tenants, then proletarianised into dependency, are now banished completely. Only workers and tourists remain.

And the elephants themselves are the children of a near-century of domestication, a process of active familiarisation to human visitors: their waterholes strategically dug and (I presume) occasionally refilled, their placid behaviour of undeniable economic interest to the continuation of tourism. Addo is clearly not a zoo. But in a way, it is

So I am writing this reflection in order to submit myself to the sheer, unbalancing force of nature’s vertigo, a vertigo that is not natural at all but historical. In Addo, what appears to be completely natural is remarkably constructed. This is not “bad”. It just is. And it is the conservation plot of the national park that obscures this in order to pre-package satisfaction.

Ultimately, I write to recover the feeling of being seen by the elephants that I saw on that day. Those 30 or 40 elephants, the descendants of eliminated ancestors — their gaze is no less real just because they live in a fiction. They did not, could not, know of my shame. But what I wanted to tell them in my glance was that I was determined not to exploit or reproduce my sovereignty. I would write critically. I wanted the elephants to know that they did not have to put on a show, that I would not mistake the manufactured for the authentic, that I would tread as lightly as I could.

But the national park produces visitors in its own image. You can try to be as respectful as you want, but there is nothing you can be on a game drive except a tourist trapped in a dusty rental car, click-clacking a camera. Self-will alone cannot emancipate you from what is structurally necessitated. There are uneasy resonances between my apologies here and those of the imperial hunter.

Surely it would take an entire change in the mode of production, the abolition of the conservation industry as we know it, to generate alternative, less extractive subjectivities. Until that day, I will write to restore history to nature and open myself to the other’s gaze. Before my trip to Addo, I had never been seen by an elephant before. Now I have.

A herd of elephants in a field

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Further Reading:

Skotnes-Brown, J. 2021. Domestication, degeneration, and the establishment of the Addo Elephant National Park in South Africa, 1910s–1930s. The historical journal 64(2): 357–383. doi:10.1017/s0018246x19000761

Pre-seeding social learning               

This is the story of my colleague Dipti and I, of what we learnt about ourselves and our landscape while conducting research in Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh, India. I am a wildlife ecologist from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, and I belong to a family of farmers who still practice agriculture for their livelihood. On the other hand, Dipti is a social scientist from the urban environment of Delhi. 

The focus of our current research is human–sarus crane interactions in Uttar Pradesh, where the cranes share space with farmers. It is a predominantly agricultural landscape, where the major crops sown are wheat, mustard and potatoes along with some seasonal vegetables. The main conservation issues are water pollution and electrocution as per the community views  and Our fieldwork primarily consisted of participant observation and interviews, through which we are documenting people’s ecological knowledge of the Sarus crane. 

One fine day in February, while walking amidst agriculture fields, Dipti and I observed a bright yellow crop stretched out across the landscape in full bloom. I turned to Dipti, and with an air of confidence and pride, quizzed her about the crop we saw in front of us. 

“Dipti! Do you know which crop this is?”

“Yes, It’s mustard.”

“Great. What are its uses?”

“We use mustard seeds and oil for cooking,” Dipti responded.

“Okay, do you know which part of it is used for extracting oil?”

Dipti thought hard and replied, “Maybe from the flower!”

I was quite surprised by her answer and started laughing! I made fun of her, how she could possibly imagine oil being extracted from the flower rather than the seed. Eventually, I explained to her that the oil is extracted from the seeds and detailed the entire process of oil production. She was not convinced, “But the seed is so small, how can the oil be made from it?”

Funnily, as difficult as it was for Dipti to imagine oil being produced from these tiny seeds, it was also difficult, and hilarious, for me to imagine oil being extracted from flowers! I couldn’t understand how someone could not know a fact as basic as this, something so obvious for anyone who has grown up in an agricultural landscape. I was rather pleased with myself and painted Dipti as ignorant. 

Walking ahead, we both noticed that the yellow flowers had two different shades: lemon yellow and golden yellow. We were confused. Why was this? Based on my scientific knowledge and childhood experience, I guessed that the darker flowers were ready for ripening, while the other wasn’t yet mature. Or perhaps because of pollinators’ activities—the light colour of the flower might mean that the nectar is gone, while the darker ones still have nectar for insects and birds.

Dipti plucked a few flowers and started observing their morphology, without much success. After a half an hour, we asked a farmer who was walking towards us. He said he was a local, and he was curious about where we had come from and why.

We explained our research to him and asked if sarus cranes were seen living in mustard fields. They did not, he explained, because the seeds are bitter in taste, which the birds did not like and moreover, they could not hold the tiny seeds with their beak.

We also took the opportunity to ask about the varying shades of the mustard flower, to which he responded that different varieties of mustard crops have different shades of yellow. Pointing towards the light-yellow crop said, “This one is yellow mustard and the golden yellow one is black mustard. The lemon-yellow flower has a small seed compared to the golden yellow flower. And even the seed colour is different—yellow mustard seeds are lighter in shade whereas the golden mustard seeds are darker (black).” He also added that black mustard is better than yellow mustard and is usually sown for self-subsistence, whereas the other one is grown for commercial purposes.

On returning home to Lucknow, we shared our findings with my mother. She was surprised about our lack of knowledge and explained that yellow mustard has small seeds and produces more oil but is less tasty, whereas the black mustard seed produces less oil but tastes far better. She further elaborated:

 “दोनों सरसों का पेड़ अलग अलग होता है अगर थोड़ा ध्यान से देखे! पीली वाली सरसो का पौधा थोड़ा छोटा  लगभग  तीन फिट का  होता है लेकिन काली वाली पांच से  सात फिट तक पहुंच जाती होंगीI  पीली की पत्ती छोटी और नुकीली होती है वही काली वाली चौड़ी होती है दोनों की छीमी( pods) भी अलग होती है पीली वाली छोटी और मोटी होती है लेकिन काली की लम्बी और पतली, लोग अक्सर सोचते है काली सरसों में तेल ज्यादा निकलेगा लेकिन पीली में ज्यादा निकलता है चाहे वो छोटी ही क्यों न हो”

“Both the mustard crops look different if seen with concentration. Yellow mustard crop is smaller, about 3 ft, while the black mustard is 5–7 ft. The leaves of yellow mustard are small, pin-shaped and narrow, while the leaves of the black one are broad and large. Even the pods are different, yellow mustard has small and thick pods, while black mustard pods are longer and thinner.”

I felt ashamed by my lack of knowledge about crops, despite being from an agricultural family. And while I had poked fun at Dipti, there was much that I didn’t know either. Observing the landscape around us and asking questions had been a rewarding process. 

That day served as an eye-opener for us. We understood the importance of shared learning. Outside of books and our own limited observations, nature education requires the integration of the traditional knowledge of local communities, who interact with natural resources and wildlife on a daily basis. Finally, we learnt that when nature education includes local knowledge, it only gets contextually richer, with different lived experiences and diverse interactions.

Giant clams, climate change, and the traditions of a Pacific Island nation

Climate change is a major threat to the health of our oceans and the species within them. These species are not only important members of the ecosystem, but also contribute to coastal communities by providing a traditional food source. Therefore, food provisioning is one of the most compelling ways in which we can understand how oceans contribute to human well-being.

“Unfortunately, one of the most sizable blind spots in our understanding of coral reefs is whether and how these reefs shape human health. In theory, coral reefs should operate as biodiverse, living refrigerators for coastal communities, sourcing replenishable, nutritious food,” says Dr. Douglas McCauley. Sharing successful stories of resilience can influence local managers to act promptly.

In terms of nutrition, the developing world draws the most significant benefits from oceans through small-scale fisheries. This is especially true with respect to poor communities. For example, access to seafood means the difference between having seafood and rice for dinner, or simply rice. Unfortunately, in many developing countries, local fisheries are in sharp decline due to weak governance, poor knowledge of stock status, illegal fishing, population pressures, and climate change. Thus, assessing fisheries’ strengths and vulnerabilities to climate change remains a priority, especially in places where fishery data is limited.

Marine fisheries in Kiribati

The Pacific Planetary Health Initiative embarked on a project that unites their network of coral reef ecologists, public health researchers, social scientists, and local Fisheries Officers. Recently, they published a study in Frontiers in Public Health examining how improving the conservation of a giant clam fishery can benefit human nutrition and health across Kiribati, a small Pacific Island nation. The project utilised the Climate-Resilient Fisheries Planning Tool to integrate scientific research, case studies, and expert knowledge, which was developed by a Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) group working on Climate-Resilient Fisheries.

Resilience is the capacity to prepare for, resist, cope with, recover from, or adapt to a given shock. Resilience is important in the context of fisheries in Kiribati because they are being called upon to provide an increasing amount of the I-Kiribati food for a rising population. Giant clams are particularly important on remote outer islands, where they are used in traditional dances and are served as a delicacy on special occasions or at feasts. Clams contribute substantially to nutrition as molluscs are rich in micronutrients (i.e., omega-3 and vitamin B12). Additionally, because clams are often dried, salted, and stored, they play a key role in food security, providing calories and nutrients at critical times when a household is otherwise unable to obtain seafood.

Marine fisheries are among the first food systems to experience the effects of climate change, as waters warm and oceans acidify. Conserving the diversity and beauty of species in endangered marine ecosystems like coral reefs is a cause that resonates with many people. Others, however, only gain interest when it can be proven that the oceans benefit the people and communities they represent.

Lessons to learn

Our study highlights that Kiribati relies on traditional practices and a strong resilience mindset to climate change, characterised by the capacity to learn. Together, these allow the local Island Council government to adapt and respond rapidly with policies and practices meant to mitigate the effects of climate change. These traditional practices include daily bag and possession limits as well as size restrictions for harvested clams, both common Western fisheries management techniques. Additionally, community-based fisheries management, such as demarcating fisher-driven no-take marine protected areas has improved the local giant clam fishery in Kiribati and supported the persistence of traditional clam fisheries on remote islands. In turn, these practices have ensured a steady supply of healthy seafood. Emphasising effective, dynamic, connected, and just governance in future conservation measures is key to the success of adaptive management.

The study’s findings advance policy-orientated changes in fisheries governance and coastal management that can improve food security and climate resilience in other fisheries. Specifically, traditional fishing practices and good governance include elements of adaptive capacity and climate resilience. Including and elevating this local knowledge through participatory research offers a promising approach to design more effective and equitable policies. As fishery stakeholders continue to develop national climate-resilience plans across both developing and developed nations, local knowledge must be engaged to meet the needs of the communities most impacted.

Further Reading

Eurich, J. G., A. Tekiau, K. L. Seto, E. Aram, T. Beiateuea, C. D. Golden, B. Rabwere and D. J. McCauley. 2023. Resilience of a giant clam subsistence fishery in Kiribati to climate change. Pacific Conservation Biology: PC22050. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC22050

The Banjar River by Night

The forest meant different things to me as a visitor and as a resident, in a jeep or on foot. I spent my last summer working at Earth Focus Kanha, an environmental non-profit that works on education, conservation, and livelihoods development in fourteen villages around Kanha National Park. The organization works with Baiga and Gond forest dwellers who live in these villages, and who were evicted from the park to create a tiger reserve. I had visited the park a few months earlier, with my mother, on a short safari trip. On the third day of our trip, we had the rare sighting of a tiger on foot during a guided evening walk on the Bamhni Nature Trail. This was the same tiger we had seen on our safari earlier that morning. 

Fig.1. Ma on the Bamhni Nature Trail
Fig. 2. A ghost tree (Sterculia urens) reflected in the Banjar River

5:30 p.m., Bamhni Nature Trail. The river bleeds through the landscape. It’s early May, the water is low, and there is silence on the rocks. As light spills onto the canopies, a gaur (Indian bison) becomes visible on a distant boulder. The horned bovine is three-thousand pounds of muscle and a hump, and he is staring at us. The evening shifts, leaving us in shadow.

Karan, my mother, and I sit under a ghost tree by the riverbank. Karan is a naturalist who leads forest walks along the Bamhni Nature Trail in the buffer zone of Kanha National Park. Nestled in the monsoon forests of Central India, the park is home to tigers, elephants, leopards, bison, deer, and a host of wild bird, insect, and plant species. Ma and I are here for four days on a long-anticipated mother-daughter bonding trip. We’re staying at a tented camp near the park. We went for a safari this morning.

Despite the staggering diversity of creatures Kanha is home to, like the twelve-horned barasingha or swamp deer, the red-billed green munia bird, and the rust-colored dhole or Indian wild dog, tigers remain its main attraction. Specifically, the Royal Bengal tiger, a striking and aptly named subspecies of tiger that is found in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, and Nepal. Madhya Pradesh, the Central Indian state that Kanha is located in, is home to 526 tigers spread across six reserves: Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Satpura, Panna, and Sanjay Dubri.

Tigers fall under the category of charismatic megafauna – “large, popular endangered animals” that captivate public attention. Because of the hype that surrounds them, tracking tigers becomes the unwritten goal of most safaris. Field guides and naturalists accompanying tourists on safari jeeps exchange notes and latest sightings as they cross one other. They listen for alarm calls and track pugmarks in the mud. And at the end of the day, when tourists return to their lodges to mingle over dinner, they ask one another, “So, did you see a tiger?”

Fig. 3. Tourists straining for a glimpse of a tiger in Kanha National Park

5:00 a.m., Kanha National Park. We leave the camp early. Dawn is breaking, and I can hear the early calls of the copper-winged coucal. The air is brisk. I huddle in Ma’s shawl at the back of the jeep as the woods blur into green on either side. We arrive at the park gate. The officials check our IDs and entry slips. Then we are inside.

By 8 a.m. it is torrid. The sun is scorching white, so I wrap the shawl around my head for shade. So far, we’ve spotted elephants, langurs, wild boars, jackals, barasingha, barn swallows, and a crested serpent eagle. The safari has brought us into the heart of the forest. We are on a trail that runs parallel to the Banjar River, straitened by unruly grasses and invasive wild mint. 

Suddenly, the field guide asks the driver to brake. He points to the left, holding a finger to his lips so we know to remain silent. 

There is a rustle in the undergrowth, followed by a low growl. A tigress strides onto the trail. Her matted fur is emblazoned with billowing, black stripes in an unrepeatable pattern. The guide whispers to us that her name is Chhoti Mada. 

Two elephants, bestrode by mahouts, emerge behind her from the copse. Chhoti Mada glares at the jeeps before returning to the thicket. 

When she is gone, the guide surmises that the mahouts had pushed her onto the trail. There are “VIPs” in the jeeps ahead who haven’t had a sighting yet, hence the spectacle. Goaded by the mahouts, Chhoti Mada was probably forced to exit the bush and make an appearance.

Chhoti Mada is also a mother. She left her cub inside, the guide tells us, so he remained hidden while she was gone.

Fig. 4. Mahouts and elephants emerging from the bush
Fig. 5. Chhoti Mada returning to the thicket

Tigresses give birth to litters of one to seven cubs, which they raise with little to no help from the male. Cubs cannot hunt until they are 18 months old, and their mothers guard and nurture them until they are ready to disperse and claim their own territories after two to three years. Approximately half of all wild tiger cubs do not survive beyond two years, so tigresses are fiercely protective of their cubs. They will risk being fatally injured to keep them safe.

6:10 p.m., Bamhni Nature Trail. 

“We should leave,” Karan says. He is perched on a boulder and looks uneasy. Ma agrees. “It’s getting late, Yaash,” she says. “Let’s go.”

“Can we please stay for ten more minutes?” I ask. “It’s so peaceful here.” 

Karan shrugs. They relent.

Fig. 6. Karan on the rocks by the riverbank
Fig. 7. A still Banjar River

In end-of-the-century London, Samuel Butler cocmplained that “there is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” The photographer is now charging real beasts, beleaguered and too rare to kill. Guns have metamorphosed into cameras in this earnest comedy, the ecology safari, because nature has ceased to be what it always had been – what people needed protection from. Now nature – tamed, endangered, mortal – needs to be protected from people. When we are afraid, we shoot. But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.

Susan Sontag, On Photography

7:00 p.m., Bamhni Nature Trail.

Halfway home on the walk with Ma and Karan, alarm calls sweep the forest. We are halfway home. We would’ve been three-fourths of the way home had we left ten minutes earlier. This is Chhoti Mada’s territory.

In the falling dark, I reach for Ma’s hand. Karan instructs us to shelter under a sprawling saj tree. My fingers grow numb. 

Ma thrusts me behind her. She assumes a defensive posture. Minutes pass.

It’s one thing to spot a tiger from the safety of a safari jeep, and entirely another to hear a swish in the grass. To catch a flash of orange.

Fig. 8. A crescent moon and the silhouetted forest

While working at Earth Focus Kanha in June and July of last year, I lived in Manji Tola, a village located near the Mukki Gate of Kanha National Park. I lived in the team residence with other employees, most of whom were native to Kanha and identified as either Baiga or Gond. 

The residence was constructed from shipping containers and painted a deep green to blend in with the surrounding sal forest. I wasn’t allowed to step out alone after dark and would be chastised for going on long walks in the forest. My colleague Bhola told me that a few months ago, he’d seen a tiger – Pattewallah (“the one with the collar”) – roaming the periphery of the campus. This was his territory. I’d seen and even photographed Pattewallah, a handsome and formidable tiger, on one of the three safaris I’d been on with Ma the previous month. But here, without the safety of a jeep, I was prey.

Fig. 9. Pattewallah hiding behind a tree

From stories other colleagues told me, and from the fear I felt when my torch ran out of batteries or a black scorpion scuttled into my room, I began to grasp the fraught relationship forest dwelling communities have with the wild. The jungle is veined with serpentine roads and unpaved trails, which we, like most people living in Kanha, traveled on foot or via motorcycle. A motorcycle is a speeding hunk of metal exposed on all sides, supporting up to four people (who, in Kanha, likely aren’t wearing helmets). It’s little protection during a chance tiger ambush.

Fig. 10. My colleagues Prashant sir and Ruchi didi on motorbike
Fig. 11. Ramkishor sir and Shikha on motorbike

Professor Ruth DeFries, an environmental geographer who is researching approaches to conservation in the Central Indian Highlands, tells me: “We think wildlife should just be conserved, but the reality is different for those who live here. Crops are eaten by chital , people are afraid to go into the forest because of tigers and leopards… you realize that it’s not so rosy, that living with wildlife is really quite difficult.” In her research, philanthropy, and advocacy, DeFries argues for “people-oriented approaches to conservation” in Central India.

Bollywood is also beginning to grasp these tensions, and the 2021 film Sherni (“tigress”), starring actress Vidya Balan as a divisional forest officer, turns the spotlight on issues of human-wildlife conflict, indigenous forest rights, poaching, and the deep sexism and petty bureaucracy of the Indian Forest Department. The film also discusses approaches to conservation. The screengrabs below are from the film juxtapose two perspectives on conservation: the image on the left explains a top-down “fortress conservation” approach that prioritizes wildlife protection, while the one on the right describes a rights-based approach (like the kind DeFries advocates) that involves local communities and honors their rights.

Fig. 12. Scene from Sherni explaining fortress conservation
Fig. 13. Scene from Sherni explaining rights-based conservation

9:00 p.m., Camp. We’re back in our tent. Ma showers and changes into her nightclothes. She’s asleep with minutes. Meanwhile, I remove the memory chip from my Nikon Z50 and insert it into my laptop. While clicking through the day, I come upon photographs of Chhoti Mada and the mahouts. My stomach grows cold. I crawl into Ma’s bed and switch off the lamp.

Further Reading

  1. Elwin, V. Leaves From the Jungle: Life in a Gond Village. 2d ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1958. 
  2. Mathur, N. Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene. The University of Chicago Press, 2021. 
  3. Guha, R. Savaging the Civilized: Verrier Elwin, His Tribals, and India. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Small eggs may play a big role in hawksbill sea turtle nests

Sea turtles spend months as an embryo followed by days as a hatchling digging out of the nest and then minutes in a frenzied crawl across the beach. Despite this short period of time spent on land during a lifespan of decades, it is an important environment for sea turtles. Beach conditions influence embryo development and determine the percentage of eggs which produce hatchlings that can successfully escape the nest to enter the sea. 

Temperature, moisture, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels within the nest are all important, but temperature has received the most research attention. This is for two reasons: first, extended periods of time at high temperatures can kill developing turtle embryos; second, the nest temperature at critical stages of development determines the sex of the hatchling, with higher temperatures resulting in a female-biased sex ratio. 

The impact of temperature on sea turtle embryos is moderated by the amount of moisture in the sand and these conditions will certainly be impacted by climate change. It is therefore understandable that researchers and conservationists are focused on studying the potential impacts of climate change on hatchling production and sex ratios and how sea turtles may survive a rapidly warming world with fewer, yet more intense periods of rainfall.

When examining data about nesting sea turtles and their eggs, researchers Asghar Mobaraki, Andrea Phillott and colleagues found interesting relationships between environmental conditions and eggs laid across various locations globally. They noticed that a larger than expected number of small eggs—known as ‘yolkless eggs’—are laid by hawksbill turtles in the northern Persian Gulf. Yolkless eggs are not “true” eggs as they contain albumen (egg white) but no yolk or embryo and cannot produce a hatchling. 

Previous studies suggest that yolkless eggs are more commonly laid by leatherback turtles worldwide than other sea turtle species, and that yolkless eggs are often among the last eggs laid in a clutch. Their specific purpose (if any) is still unknown: are yolkless eggs produced by accident or do the eggs have a specific function, such as moderating nest temperature, acting as a moisture reservoir, creating spaces between eggs, or being ‘sacrificial’ eggs at the top of the nest for predators to consume?

The researchers compared the body size of nesting hawksbill turtles and the number of normal and yolkless eggs laid in each clutch at different locations around the world. They found that hawksbill turtles nesting in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea are smaller in size than other populations and lay fewer normal eggs. Both locations are semi-enclosed seas and experience extreme marine environments, with high temperatures and salinities. 

Such conditions reduce the amount and quality of food available to animals such as hawksbill turtles, which appear to stay within the Persian Gulf or Red Sea during both the breeding and non-breeding periods of their life instead of migrating moderate to long distances as other turtles do. Hence, the smaller size of hawksbill turtles in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea is probably due to less and/or low-quality food, and the smaller body size will only allow turtles to lay fewer normal eggs per clutch than turtles in better quality habitat.

Few yolkless eggs are laid by hawksbill turtles in other locations worldwide, including Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Seychelles, Oman, and Yemen, and so there was very little data available for the researchers to compare. However, the authors found that hawksbill turtles in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea appear to lay more yolkless eggs than other populations and propose that this could be a specific adaptation to the extreme conditions on nesting beaches in these locations. 

As previously suggested, yolkless eggs could play a role in moderating nest temperature or moisture and increase the likelihood that normal eggs in the nest will successfully produce a hatchling. This is an exciting finding for researchers and conservationists who are considering how sea turtles could survive the current period of climate change because it suggests that some sea turtle populations may already have adaptations that enable them to survive in challenging environmental conditions which are expected to be more widespread in the future.

Further Reading:

Mobaraki, A., A.D. Phillott, M. Erfani, M. Ghasemi and H. Jafari. 2022. Inferred impacts of extreme environments on hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) body size and reproductive output. Chelonian conservation and biology 21 (2): 187–198.

Author: Andrea Phillott

Photograph: Asghar Mobaraki is a wildlife conservationist with the Department of Environment in Iran. His focus in on research and conservation of reptiles, specifically sea turtles.

The interplay of politics and conservation: An episode from Kashmir

As a researcher, one gets to travel to various places, soak in the beauty of different ecosystems, observe diverse cultures, and learn about the complexities that shape power dynamics within a context. Travelling to Tral, a sub-district located in the Pulwama district of Kashmir, I experienced all the above aspects in spades. Looking at the gushing water streams flowing parallel to the coniferous forests (mostly consisting of pine and deodar trees), the lush green meadows, and the snow-capped Himalayas encompassing the region, all at once made me want to linger in the moment.

However, the eerie normalcy around the presence of armed forces throughout most of my journey from Srinagar brought me back to the reality of being in one of the most conflict-ridden areas in the world. There has been much written about the history of violence in the region, but listening to a villager narrating their lived reality evokes something visceral. 

Such a conversation was not long before being invited by one of the residents of Firastan* village for a sumptuous wazwan meal. The meal allowed for some space and time to discuss and analyse the reasons for a Gram Sabha—the assembly of all the people of a village, who elect the general body of the Gram Panchayat or the village council, which forms the basic governing institution in India—that was to be held earlier in the day but failed to take place. 

The abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India took away the special status of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)—which granted autonomy over the internal administration of the state—but it also meant that all the rights and laws that are applicable to every citizen in the country would extend to the now union territory.

According to the 2011 Census, Scheduled tribes form 11.91 percent of the total population of J&K. Post the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act (2019), one of the most significant laws concerning the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers, widely known as the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, came into effect in the area. However, for more than a year the law existed only on paper and there were no efforts made to implement it on ground. 

Local politics shape community forest rights

The purpose of my travel to Kashmir was to understand how the process pertaining to the recognition of Community Forest Rights (CFR) under FRA unfolds on the ground. That afternoon in Firastan village, a Gram sabha was scheduled to pass a resolution declaring approximately 400 sq. kilometres of their forest as a community forest resource under the FRA.

On arriving at the village, I observed a small gathering of 10–15 men, including the Sarpanch (village head; also the chairperson of Forest Rights Committee)—from a population of over 1000 people. This meant that the resolution could not be passed because at least two-thirds of the entire population needs to be present to fulfil the quorum.

Why did this happen? This can only be answered by understanding the formation of the Forest Rights Committee (FRC). The Gram Sabha elects from among its members, a committee of not less than ten but not exceeding fifteen persons as members of the committee. Several residents of Firastan mentioned that they do not recall any such Gram Sabha being held. 

It was speculated that the Sarpanch called a meeting one day without informing the entire village and decided upon the committee members, who happened to be supporters of his candidature during the Panchayat elections. In the context of Firastan, overriding such a crucial process seems plausible as most of the people are unaware of the FRA and there is a lack of political goodwill in mobilising people on part of the Forest Department, which is the nodal agency for the implementation of Forest Rights Act (2006) in J&K.

Dr. Shaikh Ghulam Rasool, a climate justice activist and founder of the J&K Right to Information (RTI) movement, stated that the 10–15 people who were present for the meeting have dominated the decision-making process in the past as well. Later, it was found that the Sarpanch had initiated the Individual Forest Rights claims of a few individuals, but they were rejected at the sub-divisional level committee; the reason for this being that the application forms were filled incorrectly. However, the Sarpanch did not want the villagers to become increasingly aware about the Community Forest Rights process. 

The officials were not even present at the venue to verify the CFR claims and the evidence presented by the Gram Sabha despite them being integral to the process where they need to provide their signatures on the resolution with the date, designation, and comments. Recognising Community Forest Rights under FRA would also imply the possibility of greater autonomy for the Gram Sabha towards utilisation of funds under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act (CAF), 2016.

In the past few years, there have been reports of fencing of the forests in J&K initiated by the Forest Department. On enquiring about it, I found that no one was completely sure about its purpose. Some people felt that the fencing was for commercial purposes and would ultimately alter and restrict the routes of Gujjars, Bakarwals, and Chopans—the pastoralist communities in Kashmir. Others believed that the fencing was undertaken to protect forests against the timber mafia and to facilitate the process of replantation by warding off livestock grazing. The reasons for fencing might be varied, but the uncertainty in the minds of local communities conveys a grim reality on the ground.

Negotiating the status quo

Conservation is complex, but it can only transpire when we integrate it with the livelihoods of local communities who are directly dependent on the forests for subsistence and ensure that their well-being is secured. Conversations with local activists revealed that at present, there is a sense of fear amongst the people who express dissent, since those voices are curtailed through stringent laws.

Against this backdrop, the FRA—a law that recognises community-led approach towards conservation—becomes the sole instrument that can secure the well-being of people as well as the region’s biodiversity. However, the status quo that is so deeply entrenched with corruption, fear among local people, and the skewed power dynamics in favour of the authorities, provide a glimpse into understanding the reasons for the current state of affairs.

As I made my return from Firastan, there was a brief stop somewhere in Tral where the conversations revolved around the date of the next Gram Sabha. Meanwhile, Subha Gujjar, a young person from Firastan whose primary livelihood is driving, talked about taking responsibility for educating people about the importance of FRA and ensuring a bigger turnout with at least 600 villagers present to pass the resolution.

I wondered what that meeting would look like and how it would go. However, the thought was suddenly eclipsed by the realisation that my time in Tral had ended and I would not attend that Gram Sabha in person. But the more important question was if Firastan would ultimately receive their Community Forest Rights title or not.

Drawing on the experience of recognition of Community Forest Rights titles in other parts of India, it will ultimately depend on a combination of factors, such as how aware the local communities are about the law, in addition to the bureaucratic bottlenecks that usually exist in the implementation of FRA. However, the Act only became operational in J&K in 2020, thus the trajectory of its impact will only unfold with time. 

*A pseudonym is used for the village name

Further Reading

Parvaiz, A. 2020. Tribal population of Jammu and Kashmir cries foul about non-implementation of Forest Rights Act. https://india.mongabay.com/2020/01/tribal-population-of-jammu-and-kashmir-cries-foul-about-the-non-implementation-of-the-forest-rights-act/

The Scheduled Tribes And Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition Of Forest Rights) Act. 2006. https://tribal.nic.in/downloads/FRA/FRAActnRulesBook.pdf

Training Manual on Delineation And Mapping Of Community Rights And Community Forest Resources. 2016. https://tribal.nic.in/downloads/FRA/Manual%20II.pdf

Trekking tigers: Wildlife corridors provide hope for wild tiger populations

Imagine. Imagine the journey of a wild tiger, its lustrous orange fur eluding exposure in the grasses, branches, and ridges it traverses. Daintily yet steadily stalking its prey, gracefully yet ferociously securing its next meal, all the while trusting its natural impulse to trek forward. But what is this drive to continue trekking? Is it the faint whiff of a potential mate nearby, the fervid desire to protect an established territory or perhaps the familiar rumble of hunger? In any case, the freedom of vast, minimally disturbed habitat has become increasingly difficult to obtain with the expansive degradation and fragmentation of land. As a result, its journey is sporadically diverted if not halted by whizzing vehicles on unfamiliar roads and the crashing of trees alongside whirring machinery. Onward it travels, though, progressively evading this onslaught of disruption by discovering sheltered routes and corridors to reach its destination eventually.

Our tiger, one of only approximately 4,500 wild tigers in the world, shares a similar journey to its peers. Over the past few decades, increasing human populations and dramatic land-use changes have contributed to massive amounts of deforestation and habitat fragmentation in critical tiger habitats, leaving small, isolated populations at high risks of inbreeding and local extinction. These are global issues that not only imperil the future viability of entire populations of this culturally significant species but also disrupt whole ecosystems when the land can no longer support them. This pattern of habitat loss has enormous global implications as well, as continued deforestation further exacerbates the negative effects of climate change and increases human-wildlife interactions and conflict. 

While humans are the greatest threat to tigers, we also provide the greatest hope for their survival. One tiger conservation strategy is the creation and maintenance of wildlife corridors, which are strips of natural habitat that connect populations separated by anthropogenic pressures. Corridors play essential roles in providing landscape connectivity critical to increasing gene flow between separated populations, decreasing overall extinction risk in species threatened by deforestation and fragmentation, and maintaining biodiversity levels critical for continued ecosystem health. While there are concerns that corridors can increase the risk of introduced pathogens and predators, increase fire risk, and exacerbate edge effects, the benefits seem to outweigh the drawbacks. 

For corridors to have positive impacts, they require continued support through community-based initiatives, conservation non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and international support. Understanding these benefits, the ways in which they are maintained, and how to properly communicate them to others are critical components to initiating effective impact. Functional tiger corridors can be found scattered throughout their current range in places such as the Terai Arc Landscape of India and Nepal, the island of Sumatra, the Dawna-Tenasserim Landscape of Thailand and Myanmar, the Sikhote-Alin Mountains in Russia, and the Far-Eastern Himalayan Landscape of Myanmar, India, and China. 

Photo: Sandakan, Malaysia Forest. Photo taken by Jake Clary

Fractured landscapes

Tiger landscapes are extremely fragmented due to increased urbanisation, road infrastructure development, and agricultural expansion. These threats are detrimental and ongoing. For example, future large-scale road systems such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Sumatra’s Trans-Sumatran Highway as well as many other small-scale road developments will continue to cut through tigers’ remaining range, exacerbating habitat fragmentation, poaching access, prey depletion, and direct mortality through vehicle collisions. Some tiger habitats have suffered from these growing threats more than others, including Rajaji National Park in the far-western Terai Arc Landscape and Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in India, Khao Yai National Park in eastern Thailand, and Way Kambas National Park in southwestern Sumatra. Tigers are assumed to have been extirpated from Khao Yai, just as they have previously been in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Tiger individuals in Rajaji, Ranthambore, and Way Kambas have been separated from adjacent populations for so long that they are suffering from the negative impacts of inbreeding and are no longer able to successfully survive and reproduce as a population over time. These small populations require the assistance of genetic rescue through translocations of genetically differentiated populations to become once again genetically viable.

Isolation

Tiger populations that have been isolated from other populations for long periods of time have been shown to demonstrate many unique negative effects. High levels of inbreeding are common for small, isolated populations like those aforementioned as well as the tiger population in Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in India. These populations accumulate harmful alleles, or variations of a gene, that have been inherited by descent from related parents, which reduces population fitness. One extremely unique physiological response to isolation can be found in the tiger population of Similipal Tiger Reserve in eastern India, where over one-third of all tigers are pseudomelanistic—a variant of pigmentation expressed in these tigers as wide and fused black stripes that alter their primary colour from lusty orange to black. This trait is a result of the high relatedness between individuals in this population. Another interesting effect of isolation has been the alteration of sex ratios from female-biased to male-biased in Dudhwa and Katarniaghat tiger populations, two other Indian tiger groups. This shift to male-biased adult sex ratios results in increased intra-species conflict between multiple males as well as between dominant males and cubs sired by subordinate males. This increased competition for females due to isolation further threatens the success of these tiger populations over time. 

Fostering recovery

While tiger populations have previously suffered many declines and continue to be challenged by fragmentation and human development, recovery of their landscapes and populations is possible. For example, joint efforts between Russia and China to ban logging, improve anti-poaching efforts, and decrease human densities within the Lesser Khinghan Mountains, the Laoyeling landscape, and the Wandashan Mountains has significantly increased tiger populations and has encouraged greater levels of resettling across these landscapes. In Rajaji National Park in India, tiger populations tripled over 13 years with tigers occupying almost 90 percent of available habitat after a program voluntarily relocating pastoralist communities took place, replacing these previously livestock-rich areas with protected areas connecting Rajaji National Park with Corbett National Park. In Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand, intense wildlife management and protection efforts over five years has allowed this landscape to hold the largest breeding population and density of tigers in Southeast Asia and to become a source site for replenishing tiger populations across the entire Western Forest Complex.

Reconnecting landscapes

Conservation initiatives have recently been crucial to many successful landscape reconnections. The Khata Corridor connecting Bardia to Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India, for example, was meticulously developed from a contiguous series of 74 community forests. Conservation organisations like World Wide Fund for Nature Nepal initiated early restoration efforts in this landscape alongside local communities in 2001, in the hopes that income-generating sustainable livelihoods would garner additional support and stewardship. This plan succeeded, and many local communities have since been working to protect this corridor system for both their own livelihoods and the continued survival of native wildlife populations. 

Another significant landscape reconnection is the RIMBA initiative, which currently provides the sole linkage between many east-central tiger habitats and west-central protected areas in Sumatra. This region’s surrounding non-protected landscapes possess some of the highest deforestation rates in the world, which has contributed to significant difficulty in maintaining the corridor’s functionality. However, organisations such as the Wildlife Conservation Society, Fauna & Flora International and World Wide Fund for Nature Indonesia are devoted to upholding effective management in this region by continuing to work with local communities and improving monitoring technology. 

Reconnecting landscapes can be very challenging due to factors such as ineffective leadership, poor communication and action planning between governments and local communities, and lack of accountability. However, the growing field of connectivity conservation is working toward counteracting these challenges to implement successful projects devoted to protecting and establishing ecological connectivity, and the most successful connectivity conservation plans are enhanced by leadership continuity, stakeholder steadfastness, legislative mandates, goal specificity, adequate funding, and public outreach. Coalitions of scientists, conservationists, and concerned citizens can contribute to this cause and support tiger connectivity conservation by (1) donating to initiatives committed to tiger corridor development and maintenance, reforestation efforts, and tiger protection; (2) supporting local and national legislation devoted to habitat protection; (3) leading or assisting focal media campaigns to garner support for connectivity action; and (4) incorporating connectivity into plans for network expansion.

Imagine once again. Imagine the journey of the world’s wild tigers. Consider how your actions impact them and what steps you could take to safeguard their treks starting today.

Further Reading

Carter, N., A. Killion, T. Easter, J. Brandt, and A. Ford. 2020. Road development in Asia: Assessing the range-wide risks to tigers. Science advances 6(18): eaaz9619. 

Harihar, A., B. Pandav, M. Ghosh-Harihar, and J. Goodrich. 2020. Demographic and ecological correlates of a recovering tiger (Panthera tigris) population: Lessons learnt from 13 years of monitoring. Biological conservation 252(1): 108848.

Keeley, A., P. Beier, T. Creech, K. Jones, R. Jongman, G. Stonecipher, and G. Tabor. 2019. Thirty years of connectivity conservation planning: An assessment of factors influencing plan implementation. Environmental research letters 14(10): 103001.

Photos: Wikimedia Commons

Appreciating the small things in the big picture

At first glance you’d think we were auditioning as extras for a zombie film, the way we were shuffling around, hunched over, staring at our feet. I will even admit to the occasional groan, as my back arched uncomfortably and the hot sun beat down on my neck. But we were not looking for succulent brains, rather for tiny succulent plants, almost invisible against the stony ground.

I was studying the diet of the Cape grey mongoose at a conservancy in southern Namibia, when a team of botanists from the National Botanical Research Unit of the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism arrived. Dr. Sonja Loots and her team were in the area to look for and count lithops, or living stones as they are sometimes known. True to their name, these small succulent plants look remarkably like stones, and finding them against the quartz-strewn outcrops they inhabit is a challenge. I had spent the last two months staring across the arid and seemingly barren landscape looking for isolated mongoose scats, so when they asked for help, I was more than happy to have a change of focus!

This region of southern Namibia is subject to extreme fluctuations in temperatures as well as low, unpredictable rainfall. Yet, its location at the intersection of three biomes — the Succulent Karoo, Nama Karoo, and Namib Desert —means that the area is incredibly biodiverse and home to many unique succulents.

These fleshy plants are well adapted to the arid landscape, with extensive shallow root systems that can quickly absorb the infrequent rain, and waxy leaves that can resist desiccation in the dry desert air. Many species are highly restricted in geographic range, with populations often found exclusively in areas measuring just metres across.

This was our first stumbling block. The core area of this conservancy is 50,000 hectares! Despite identifying several potential quartz grounds, it took over a day before we found a hill, or koppie, with a good density of the target species. On our second afternoon of preliminary searches, I found a delicate little plant, like a patch of feathers coming up out of the ground. Even my definitely-not-a-plant-expert eyes could tell it was not the lithops they were looking for, but equally it wasn’t anything we had previously seen. I called Sonja over, who after looking at it wondrously, said it was one of the rarer species of Avonia, and despite being barely 6 cm in diameter, this individual could be up to 85 years old and, thus, would be considered a collector’s item.

A growing threat in a vulnerable habitat

This was why we were out here in the hot desert sun. Elephant and rhino poaching get all the media attention, but succulent poaching in Southern Africa is a huge and growing problem. The popularity of these plants with collectors combined with the difficulty of propagating them outside of their preferred habitats, means that the poaching and illegal trade of the larger specimens and rarer species from the wild is big business. The scale of the problem is growing. In 2019, 15,000 specimens of a single Conophytum species were confiscated from poachers in South Africa. A large haul can have a street value of thousands of dollars. The plants themselves often do not survive translocation, and even if recovered, it is almost impossible to replant them without knowing exactly where they came from. For species restricted to such small areas, poachers can easily wipe out a population in just one day.

One of the major issues for these plants in Namibia is that very little is known about where they are found. This survey effort was part of a big push to get location data so that more areas can be protected. Only five percent of Nama Karoo in Namibia is in state protected reserves, with another 17 percent under some form of conservation management, making it the least protected biome in the country.

As we painstakingly searched each ‘pie slice’ of the circular survey area, we counted dozens of Conophytum and Avonia species, often clustered together in the less densely vegetated areas or sometimes snuggled against a larger piece of quartz. This area is currently under the conser- vancy’s protection, in addition to being difficult to access, which means that these populations are likely safe for now.

Historically, the greatest threat in this region has been overgrazing, with high stocking densities leading to land degradation and scrub encroachment. Up on the quartz koppies, where other vegetation is sparse, these succulents have escaped the worst of the damage. I pause to consider the life of my tiny plant — 85 years of drought and intermittent desert rain, growing slowly in this one spot in the middle of nowhere, surviving while all around it sheep and goats overgraze the arid grasslands until little more than dust remains.

Between the bare rocky ground and lack of charisma- tic megafauna that attract tourists and make other African biomes so famous, you’d be forgiven for thin- king the Nama Karoo was an empty, desolate place. However, that wasn’t always the case. In the past, this area was home to some of the largest springbok herds ever known, as they migrated from the summer rainfall regions of southwest Namibia to the winter rainfall regions on the South African coast. This phenomenon, known as the ‘trekbokken’, saw millions of springbok in enormous migratory herds that took days to pass by. Now those herds are small and scattered, and the land is divided up by fences enclosing farms with sheep, goats, and cattle. After years of drought in the area, many of those farms have since been abandoned, leaving behind an ecological vacuum.

New ways of seeing

There are large animals, such as oryx and brown hyenas, in the conservancy, but they are shy, and sigh- tings are few and far between. The largest species I had seen was the klipspringer, a small antelope. To be more precise, I saw the backsides of a group of klipspringers as they ran away from me! I had also spotted my study species, the Cape grey mongoose — which is very common and found almost everywhere in Southern Africa — only once.

Lacking the budget for a car, my mongoose project had been confined to a 10 km radius around the farmhouse. If I was really honest, things had started to feel ‘samey’ after two months. I walked the same transects each week, saw the same rubble-strewn mountains, the same common birds, rodents, and invertebrates. I do love these small things but, lacking the ‘wow factor’, perhaps it was the sort of dutiful love that you tend to take for granted. Sifting through endless grasshopper and beetle legs and drifts of four-striped mouse fur in mongoose scats, I felt like I wasn’t finding anything worthwhile, and began to question the value of my work.

However, the time I spent looking for lithops with Dr. Sonja and her team completely changed my perspective. Crouched down, staring at the quartz microcosm far below eye-level, I was suddenly struck by the sheer amount of life in the landscape. I saw at least three species of mantis stalking through the stunted grasses, grasshoppers of all shapes and sizes pinging between the stones, and toktokkies (various species of flightless beetles) tottering across the sand.

The creatures I saw living in this miniature ecoscape were the same things I had been routinely finding in my mongoose scats. They are present in suchnumbers thanks to the resilience of the tiny, specialist plants that underpin this habitat. They have managed to survive despite the numerous threats, thus preserving the diver- sity of this unique ecosystem. It will take time, but with the surrounding vegetation protected and allowed to recover, the invertebrates will creep back, followed by the birds and the small mammals, the larger herbivores, and the carnivores, until this whole corner of the Nama Karoo thrums with life again.

As the final afternoon drew to a close, we finished off the survey and I stopped to take in the subtle beauty of the terrain, which was glowing in the afternoon sun. It looks different to me now — a living landscape, where before it was just rocks. The following day, I resumed inspecting scat contents under the microscope with renewed enthusiasm, joyfully taking the remains of exoskeleton and fur as more evidence that life has clung on here against the odds. My project may be small, but it is still part of the vast and varied conservation effort to protect this unique habitat. I hope in the future that there will be more mongooses here, eating ever more abundant invertebrates and rodents of innumerable diversity. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better or more valuable for conservation.

Further Reading

Fine Maron, D. 2022. These tiny succulents are under siege from international crime rings. National Geographic. www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/tiny-succulents-are-under-siege-from-international-crime-rings. Accessed on October 29, 2022.

Loots, S. 2019. Habitat characteristics, genetic diversity, and conservation concerns for the genus Lithops in Namibia. Doctoral thesis no. 2019:28, Faculty of landscape architecture, horticulture and crop production science. https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/16156/7/loots_s_190521.pdf. Accessed on October 29, 2022.

Lovegrove, B. G. and W. R. Siegfried. 1993. The living deserts of southern Africa. South Africa: Penguin Random House.

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

Sleuths on a dog hunt

Asiatic wild dogs (dholes) are group-living carnivores found in the forests of South and Southeast Asia. They are generally shy, elusive, and very sensitive to human disturbance. But in the Valparai plateau of India’s Western Ghats, they live alongside people in human-modified habitats such as tea and coffee plantations. How do dholes live in such areas? Are they not scared of humans? Have they changed their behaviours and habits to adapt? In a quest to answer these and many other questions, I travelled to Valparai earlier this year to understand the secret lives of dholes in this unique landscape.

Within a week of my arrival in Valparai, I had seen a lot of wild animals including Nilgiri langurs, lion-tailed macaques, gaurs and even elephants living alongside people in tea and coffee plantations. I found myself constantly amazed at the incredible adaptability of these large animals that were living in ‘human spaces’. I started interacting and engaging with the local residents who lived or worked within tea and coffee estates, almost incessantly enquiring about their last dhole sighting or their knowledge about the dholes’ movements and whereabouts.

The contrasting accounts left me rather surprised. One person reported seeing dholes 13-14 times in a year, while their neighbour had never seen a dhole in the 10 years they had lived in that area. People’s accounts of dhole sightings and their enthusiasm in sharing information about the species was heartening. Most were amazed at how well co-ordinated a dhole pack was and how well they communicated with each other to bring down large prey such as sambar deer.

Often overshadowed by other charismatic species they co-occur with, dholes have largely been overlooked in terms of research and conservation. This was also evident in my conversations with the people of Valparai. At the end of each conversation, they would almost invariably ask me if I also wanted information about leopards or elephants. When I told them that I was only looking for information on dholes, I would get puzzled looks; they would even ask, “Why do you want information on dholes when there are so many leopards and elephants here?” Some would admit that they have only ever had researchers ask them about leopards and elephants, but this is the first time someone is asking them about wild dogs.

Dholes are listed as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN and their populations have experienced significant declines across their range. Their largest population occurs in India, and so far, most research on dholes here has focused on populations inside protected areas.

Based on the information I gathered from the local residents, I started looking for signs of dhole movement (scat and tracks) in areas where they frequented. Initially my instincts told me to look for signs in locations closer to forest fragments because there was no way that dholes would venture too close to places where humans lived or worked. Subsequently, I started combing the plantations — tea bushes, swampy areas with small streams adjacent to forest fragments and grounds that had been cleared for annual football tournaments.

I found dhole scats in all these locations, as well as along the roads of tea estates that were heavily used by plantation workers. Despite having heard of high dhole activity in these areas, I was still very surprised at what I was seeing. Apart from dhole scats, I also found signs of leopards, sloth bears, elephants, and gaurs on these same paths. The people in Valparai were sharing space with big carnivores and mega-herbivores on a daily basis.

It had been almost three weeks since I had arrived in Valparai. I had seen a lot of dhole signs all over the landscape, but the dholes themselves continued to elude me. I connected with local naturalists who took me to more locations where they had frequent dhole sightings. Again, I found an abundance of indirect signs but no dholes.

One morning in the last week of January, we were in the eastern part of the plateau where the dholes had killed a sambar around two weeks earlier. As I meticulously inspected the skull of the sambar, I felt a bit restive, wondering if I would see any dholes in Valparai at all. At that very moment, my field associate received a phone call about a sighting of a pack feeding on an ungulate inside a dam around 20km away. It would take us 40 minutes to get there, and the dholes would have probably finished their meal and moved on by then. But that was a risk we were willing to take; we were desperate.

As expected, yet to our disappointment, we missed seeing the dholes by the time we reached. Upon inspecting the kill site, we found the damp soil covered in fresh tracks of several dholes and a sambar. We suspected that there had been a chase before the hunt in that location. As we followed the tracks, our suspicions were confirmed when we found the extremely well-camouflaged carcass of the sambar that the dholes had been feeding on. Luckily, there was some meat still left on the carcass, which meant that the pack would likely come back to finish it off.

Dholes are diurnal animals, with peak activity at crepuscular hours (i.e., dawn and dusk). It was presently getting hot with the sun looming high, roasting up the open, dry reservoir bed. We decided to return to the site at around 4pm. Later that day, stationed on an elevated path that overlooked the dam, we eagerly waited. An hour passed and the sun started to set. The air around us cooled down but there was no sign of the pack. Minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and my field associate excitedly pointed at the path below. A single dhole went trotting towards the sambar kill. Within seconds, seven more dholes followed. We watched in fascination for 20 minutes, as they tore into every last bit of meat from the carcass. Once they finished their meal, they headed back to the tea bushes where they had emerged from. And with that, I had seen my first ever dhole pack in Valparai.

A mere five minutes after the dholes had disappeared, a tea estate worker walked down the same path, completely unaware that they were treading the same path that a pack of carnivores did, just moments ago. Agroforests like coffee and tea plantations have been predicted to play an important role in maintaining connectivity between source populations of dholes in the protected areas of the Western Ghats. In Valparai, these habitats are doing more than just maintaining connectivity; they are providing space for dholes to live, hunt, rest and reproduce. The sighting left me feeling excited about finding out the myriad ways in which wild dogs are adapting and cohabiting the landscape with the wonderful people of Valparai.

This project is part of Wildlife Conservation Society-India and The Dhole Project’s efforts to conserve dhole populations in India.

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

Addressing agricultural labour issues is key to biodiversity-smart farming

Once an integral part of her daily routine, it now has been weeks since she last wielded her hoe. “Things have changed since I hired a tractor and a neighbour sprays my fields with herbicides,” says Precious Banda, a farmer in Zambia. “Farming used to break my back, taking hundreds of hours, but life is easy now,” she adds. But she has also noticed changes around her farm. Most concerning for her: it has become difficult to find wild caterpillars and Bondwe (Amaranth leaves), which used to make her a delightful dish. Precious Banda’s story illustrates the situation of millions of farmers in the Global South.

Agricultural development is a top priority in much of the Global South. In Africa, for example, governments have ambitious goals for agricultural growth as part of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), with the aim to reduce poverty and hunger, which particularly affects farmers. But while agricultural development is necessary for improving livelihoods, it often clashes with biodiversity, which is rapidly declining worldwide. The Living Planet Index, representing over 20,000 populations of 4,392 species, shows an average decline in population size of 68 percent between 1970 and 2016. Scientists talk about a sixth mass extinction.

Losing the world’s remaining biodiversity could have dramatic effects on food security as it undermines ecosystem services such as pollination, soil formation, nutrient cycling, climate regulation, maintenance of water supplies, and pest and disease control. Biodiversity loss can also undermine farmers’ access to wild meat, honey, vegetables, fruits, tubers and nuts. In the case of Precious Banda, it is the loss of wild caterpillars and Bondwe that make her dishes less nutritious.

Agriculture affects biodiversity through both land expansion and intensification

Agriculture affects biodiversity via two pathways: agricultural land expansion and intensification. In Africa, 75 percent of agricultural growth comes from the conversion of forests and savannahs into farmland, as a study in Science showed in 2021. Similar trends have been observed in other regions of the world. The loss and fragmentation of habitats threaten species that rely on large contiguous habitats for survival.

Intensification allows growing more food on existing land, sparing land for “wild” nature. As part of the Green Revolution, India tripled cereal production since the 1960s, while increasing farmland area by only six percent. In Africa, farmers still achieve only around 25 percent of their yield potential, according to a study by Wageningen University. However, intensification is often associated with greater use of agrochemicals such as pesticides and landscape simplification to ease the use of machinery.

The need to reconcile agriculture and biodiversity is gradually more recognised by researchers, policymakers, and farmers, among others. However, discussions on biodiversity-friendly agriculture focus mainly on conservation objectives and — to some degree — on reducing trade-offs with land productivity, which is important as low yields undermine land sparing. In contrast, the role of agricultural labour is often neglected. In a new paper in Biological Conservation, we argue that this is problematic given the heavy toil of agriculture for the world’s 550 million family farms, as exemplified by the story of Precious Banda. Ultimately, neglecting labour needs is not only bad for livelihoods but may also undermine the success of biodiversity conservation efforts. We, therefore, call for biodiversity-smart agriculture, which reconciles biodiversity conservation with not only land productivity but also labour needs.

Farmers strive to reduce the heavy burden of agriculture

Addressing agricultural labour issues is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Raising agricultural labour productivity can help to increase farmers’ income, thereby reducing poverty. Moreover, manual agriculture is burdensome. Cultivating one hectare of maize takes smallholder farmers close to 1200 hours, much of which is spent working with simple hand hoes in extreme heat and humidity (climate change will make this even worse).

“I can still feel it,” says Precious Banda as she recalls her farming experiences without tractors and herbicides. “I often felt bad but could not have done it without my children, sometimes they could not go to school,” she adds. The International Labour Organisation of the United Nations estimates that 70 percent of all child labour is in agriculture, affecting 112 million children. Furthermore, despite the prevailing notion of labour being abundant in the Global South, agricultural labour shortages have become increasingly common in many regions due to ageing, outmigration and structural transformation.

For many farmers, labour-saving technologies such as mechanisation and herbicides are therefore very appealing. In Zambia, farmers like Precious Banda, using tractors for land preparation need only 10 hours per ha — as compared to 226 for non-mechanised farmers, as a recent study in Food Policy has shown. In Mali, a study by Steven Haggblade and co-authors from Michigan State University shows that herbicides reduce weeding workloads by up to 90 percent. In Burkina Faso, William Moseley from Macalester College and Eliza Pessereau from the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that herbicides are often referred to as “mothers’ little helpers”. It is not surprising that the adoption of such technologies has accelerated rapidly across the Global South. Steven Haggblade and co-authors speak about a “herbicide revolution”.

Labour-saving technologies can negatively affect biodiversity

But while appealing and beneficial to farmers, such technologies can negatively affect biodiversity. The case study in Zambia suggests that tractors allow farmers to cultivate more land, which is good for them but bad for the African savannah. A comparative study in Benin, Kenya, Nigeria and Mali published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development suggests that mechanisation can lead to the removal of on-farm trees and hedges and the altering of plot sizes and shapes, leading to a loss of farm diversity and landscape mosaics.

Precious Banda experiences confirm this. “When I first approached the tractor owners, they sent me away,” says the Zambian farmer, “I had to pay someone to remove a couple of trees and stumps and now they are happy to serve my fields.” The same has already happened in much of Europe and the US, among others. Agrochemicals can also have negative effects. Pesticides can affect insect populations, soil biota, groundwater, lakes, and rivers, in particular when unregulated and when management practices are poor.

… and biodiversity-friendly practices can increase labour burdens

At the same time, many solutions to make agriculture more biodiversity-friendly are often met with resistance from farmers. Many organic or agroecological farming practices that would be good for local biodiversity are not adopted by farmers because they come with a high labour burden.

In China, intercropping is said to suffer from a “slow death” due to labour shortages. In a meta-analysis led by Sigrun Dahlin from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, planting basins were found to increase agricultural labour for land preparation by an astonishing 700 percent. A study in Zimbabwe by Leonard Rusinamhodzi, now with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), equates such solutions to “tinkering on the periphery”, as they create more problems than solutions for farmers. The increased labour burden of such technologies can be particularly pronounced for women.

Given these labour dynamics, it is not surprising that farmers typically adopt technologies and practices that ultimately lead them to a low-labour/low-biodiversity situation. This pattern has been observed across the world, first in the Global North but now increasingly in the Global South. In Indonesia, for example, our paper shows that farming systems have evolved toward oil palm monocultures with broadcast mechanical and chemical weed, pest and nutrient management, which are characterised by low labour intensity and high yields — but which are bad for biodiversity.

Biodiversity-smart solutions are good for nature and people

To successfully reconcile food production and biodiversity conservation, we need biodiversity-smart agriculture, which is high-yielding, requires little labour, and is biodiversity friendly. At the farm level, this requires efforts to reduce the biodiversity trade-offs associated with labour-saving technologies such as mechanisation and pesticides, and to reduce the labour trade-offs associated with biodiversity-friendly farming practices.

In parts of the Global North, one solution could be fleets of small agricultural robots, which help to overcome the yield penalties and labour requirements associated with agroecological farming, potentially leading to an ecological utopia as a recent article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution suggests.

In the Global South, less expensive solutions are needed. One potential solution is scale-appropriate mechanisation, where machines are adapted to farm size and not the other way around. This is because two-wheel and small four-wheel tractors are better suited to manoeu- vre around trees and hedges and other landscape features. In Arsi-Negele (Ethiopia), our paper shows that farming systems have evolved toward the low labour, low biodiversity, and high productivity scenario until the mid-1980s. But since then, they started to move to the low labour, high biodiversity, and high productivity scenario, through labour-saving technologies compatible with high biodiversity, as well as reforestation efforts.

With regard to pesticides, integrated pest management, which aims to reduce pesticide use with biological (e.g., crop rotations) and mechanical (e.g., precision sprayer) solutions could help to reduce trade-offs between yields, labour and biodiversity. In contrast, simply refraining from pesticides, would not be ideal as it decreases yields and therefore undermines land sparing. A recent review in the Annual Review of Resource Economics led by Eva-Marie Meemken, now at ETH Zürich, indicates that crop yields in organic farming are 19–25 percent lower than in conventional agriculture. Avoiding pesticides such as herbicides also comes with great labour needs, much of which is shouldered by women as discussed above.

Next to reducing the trade-offs of labour-saving technologies, such as mechanisation and pesticides, biodiversity-friendly measures are needed, including both production-integrated measures (e.g., patch cropping, intercropping) and set-aside measures (e.g., trees, hedges, flower strips). A recent study in Nature shows that tree islands can improve biodiversity in oil palm plantations in Indonesia, without compromising yields. But more research is needed to understand how such measures can be designed to minimise trade-offs regarding agricultural land and labour productivity.

In many cases, labour-saving technologies could help to increase the uptake of measures toward biodiversity conservation. For example, studies suggest that labour-saving mechanisation may be a missing link to a more widespread adoption of Conservation Agriculture, which is good for soil health and biodiversity. Similarly, smart mechanisation solutions could facilitate strip intercropping systems, which are labour-intensive in their manual form, and the management of hedges and flower strips.

Biodiversity-smart agricultural solutions reduce the trade-offs between socio-economic goals and biodiversity conservation for individual farmers, increasing the chances of adoption. This is key in the Global South, where many governments have few resources to otherwise compensate farmers for biodiversity-friendly farming. However, innovative certification or payments for ecosystem services schemes may still be needed where biodiversity conservation comes with more costs than benefits for individual farmers.

Ideally, such schemes should be designed to reward farmers for actual sustainability outcomes and not the practices pursued, and to take into account not only local but also global effects. Such farm-level solutions have to be accompanied by efforts at the landscape level, for example, land-use management to preserve biodiversity hotspots, habitat mosaics and patch connectivity. The case study from Ethiopia shows that multifunctional landscapes can be planned to “work for biodiversity and people”.

More efforts needed to scale up

Developing biodiversity-smart agricultural development requires paradigm shifts in both policymaking and research and development. For example, conservation ecologists must pay more attention to economic and social sustainability. Without explicitly accounting for labour issues, conservation efforts can hardly be successful. At the same time, agricultural scientists have to embrace multiple goals beyond yields.

Our paper shows that many solutions for biodiversity-smart agricultural development already exist. If they can be scaled, they can help us to feed the growing population, improve the livelihoods of millions, and protect the world’s remaining biodiversity conservation before it is too late. And for Precious Banda, the farmer in Zambia, they would allow her to continue her “easy life” as well as have her delightful dish with caterpillars and Bondwe.

Further Reading

Daum, T., F. Baudron, R. Birner, M. Qaim and I. Grass. 2023. Addressing agricultural labour issues is key to biodiversity-smart farming. Biological conservation 284: 110165.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.110165.

Daum, T. 2021. Farm robots: ecological utopia or dystopia? Trends in ecology & evolution 36(9): 774-777. doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.06.002.

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

What’s in a name? Changes in local names can reflect shifts in biodiversity and culture

Western science emphasises standard, universally agreed upon nomenclature for the natural world based primarily on morphology. In comparison, indigenous or tribal names are often based on animal or plant habitats, kinship systems, uses, relationships with humans and non-human species and/or mythology or taboos. For example, the local name given to the nectar-rich

Justicia californica plant by the Comcáac (Seri) tribe—Noj oopis—translates to “hummingbird’s suckings” and the O’odham tribe name for the same plant—Vipismal je:j—translates to “hummingbird’s mother”.

If regional names reflect the unique culture and local environment in which they are used and encode valuable knowledge about human societies and their interactions with biodiversity, then why might names change over time? Interviews with coastal fishers in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra conducted by Aditya Kakodkar found that the local names used for sea turtles in 2006 were different to those shared in a later study conducted by Andrea Phillott and Paloma Chandrachud in 2018.

Earlier, Kurma was used for the giant leatherback turtles, Tupalo for the common olive ridley turtles, and Kasai in reference to all other species. Twelve years later, the names Kaasav, Kasho, Kodam and Kachua were used interchangeably for all sea turtle species. The names have different origins: Kasai is of the regional dialect Konkani, Kaasav means turtles in the state language of Marathi, Kachua is from the northern Indic language Hindi, and Kurma is from the ancient and classical Indian language Sanskrit. Kasho, Kodam, and Tupalo as names for turtles are of unknown origin.

The 2018 study proposes four possible reasons for the changes in local names over time: a) the species of sea turtles encountered by fishers in local waters changed over time, b) the cultural significance of sea turtle species to fishers shifted in the period between the two studies, c) change in language over time, and/or d) the language in which the interview was conducted influenced fishers’ responses. Each of these reasons is of concern to people who value the local names for biodiversity.

Change in species presence or numbers

Knowledge encoded in local names for biodiversity is based on a large timescale and focused on a narrow and specific geographic area and therefore provides valuable, in-depth information about localised environments. Sometimes, these names convey knowledge of past phenomena that are no longer observed. Such a case is the name in the language Cmiique Iitom used by the Seri People to refer to an island in the middle of the Gulf of California – Tosni Iti Ihiiquet, which translates to “where pelicans have their offspring”. Breeding pelicans in the area have declined and don’t use the island in current times but historical records from a naturalist’s journal corroborate the accuracy of the Seri name.

Biodiversity has been declining at an alarming rate worldwide, with the current situation being labelled “the sixth mass extinction”. The major causes of this extinction event are anthropogenic—including pollution, habitat loss, hunting, overexploitation of natural resources, climate change, and introduction of invasive species. However, it is not only biodiversity that will be lost as more and more species become extinct; linguistic extinction will also occur.

This loss is already being recognised: declining specialised knowledge and vocabulary related to plants and animals among the Solega tribe of Karnataka is attributed in part to the introduction of the invasive plant Lantana camara that now dominates the landscape with its dense woody thickets, driving many shorter plants to local extinction. Culturally important herbs and shrubs have become rare and then absent from the immediate environment of the community and are, therefore, spoken about less. This disrupts the transmission of traditional knowledge to younger generations and results in a cultural loss of local names.

Shift in cultural significance of species and language

Cultural knowledge and names can diffuse—meaning items such as language, food and clothing, spread out and merge with pieces from different cultures—and erode—where core cultural elements are lost when replaced with other elements—due to environmental and social change. For instance, the root vegetable cassava had an integral role in the culture of the Amuesha tribe of the Central Peruvian Andes, featuring in their songs, myths and traditions, and being collected, cultivated and traded by the community. The value of cassava was reflected in the vast number of local names assigned to the different cultivated varieties of cassava.

Over time, however, there has been a shift in the cultural significance of cassava, with the younger generation focusing on market-viability and increasing cassava productivity using select varieties over maintaining the diverse range that was traditionally cultivated. Older generations attribute this attitude to the loss of traditional knowledge and language, within which the cultural value of cassava is encoded, through modern schooling. Indeed, there has been a shift in the dominant language used by cassava cultivators in the Peruvian region. Before 2000, cassava varieties were referred to by the indigenous names. In 2022, the names were primarily in Spanish or a combination of Spanish and the indigenous language.

Another case of shifting cultural significance of an indigenous language is evidenced by the Solegas described above. The word tho:pu to older Solegas refers to the tree dominated high-altitude forests that the Solega traditionally live in, while younger Solegas use the word to refer to groves or small clumps of trees. The latter is based on the word for “grove” in the state language Kannada, indicating attrition of their tribal language after increasing contact with mainstream Indian society and institutional pressures.

Similarly, the Amuesha describe displacement of traditional knowledge and indigenous language among younger people with increasing acculturation and assimilation with Spanish culture and modern schooling. There is an imminent risk of the disappearance of many of the world’s languages as well as the wealth of knowledge they carry with increasing migration, acculturation, and integration of linguistic minorities. Sadly, linguists have predicted the extinction of 50–90 percent of world languages by the end of this century. The loss of language will come with a great cost to our knowledge systems about biodiversity.

Influence of research language and method

Among the researchers conducting interviews in the 2018 study of fishers’ names for sea turtles, some spoke Marathi, the state language, and/or Hindi, the common northern Indic language. A few Marathi speakers also knew the regional dialect of Konkani and all were fluent in English. Fishers—who can also be multilingual—were given the choice of which language they wanted to speak during the interview. These conversations in multiple languages in their vicinity could have shaped the way fishers thought about the researchers (and their questions!) and shaped fishers’ cultural mindset when responding. We don’t know which language/s were used in the 2006 interviews, but a difference could also have contributed to the difference in local names used by fishers for sea turtles over time. Similarly, the demographics of fishers interviewed and the wording of the questions asked in the 2006 and 2018 studies may also have been different, resulting in the variation in names over time.

Conclusion

The knowledge that can be gained from understanding local names and the insights into cultural and ecological changes that can be inferred by examining changes in local vocabularies mean that conservationists need to be concerned about more than just threats to biological diversity. Loss of linguistic diversity will result in the loss of indigenous and tribal knowledge systems that are valuable for understanding the natural environment.

To understand, and prevent the loss of, ecological knowledge encoded in regional languages, academics from different fields—such as linguistics, ethnobiology, and ecology—must collaborate and form partnerships with local communities. In the case of the change in local names for sea turtles at Sagareshwar beach in Maharashtra, such collaboration could provide valuable perspectives on if and why the names changed and what this could imply. If the difference over time is the result of encountering fewer, or different species of, sea turtles changing cultural significance or research method, then understanding the cause of the change could determine whether conservation action is needed.

Further Reading

Gorenflo L. J., S. Romaine, R. A. Mittermeier and K. Walker-Painemilla. 2012. Co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(21): 8032-8037.

Phillott A. D. and P. Chandrachud. 2021. Fishers’ ecological knowledge (FEK) about sea turtle in coastal waters: A case study from Vengurla, India. Chelonian Conservation and Biology 20(2): 211-221.

Wilder B. T., C. O’Meara, L. Monti and G. P. Nabhan. 2016. The importance of indigenous knowledge in curbing the loss of language and biodiversity. BioScience 66(6): 499-509.

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

A Romp In The City

A once polluted isle where trees were few

Reforested and minimized its rate

Of bay pollution. Greater green and blue

Made Singapore the garden city state.

Pollution meant no otter romps. Today,

In Singapore, they roam the city streets.

No fishpond’s safe if owners are away:

The otter is not coy—koi’s what it eats!

Home owners losing koi may be displeased.

Ecologists, however, are beguiled:

Concern for wildlife would be greatly eased

If city life could coexist with wild …

To keep your koi from otters isn’t hard—

You just erect high walls around your yard!

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

What can we do about illegal trade within the cactus and succulent collector community?

It seems today that cactus and succulent plants are everywhere. Yet, despite their global popularity, many succulents face pressing conservation concerns. A 2015 study published in Nature Plants assessed that 31 percent of all cactus species are threatened with extinction based on IUCN Red List categories, and 47 percent of all cacti are harvested for horticultural and ornamental collection, much of which is for the international illegal trade. Many conservationists reckon that obsessive collectors are driving this trade. But why would people who are seemingly most passionate about these plants, engage in activities that harm them? And, how prevalent is such illegal behaviour among cactus and succulent collectors?

This research emerged through interdisciplinary conversations on how to analyse and assess the role of cactus and succulent collectors in potentially facilitating as well as hindering conservation efforts. Our research survey asked members of cactus and succulent societies about their familiarity and perspectives on current CITES trade regulations (i.e. the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). Barring a few exceptions, the entire cactus family is listed in CITES Appendix II. This means that nearly all cactus plants require export paperwork for legal international trade, while trade in some species is almost entirely banned (Appendix I). The survey also asked direct and indirect questions about illegal behaviour, including directly transporting, purchasing, or shipping CITES-listed plants or seeds without appropriate export and/or import permits.

Our results suggest that around 12 percent of the 441 surveyed participants engaged in some form of illegal trade in cactus and other succulent species. While a minority of survey participants engaged in forms of illegal wildlife trade, it is important to note that those engaging in active rule-breaking tended to do so knowingly, and some justified their behaviour as beneficial for plant conservation. Of course, this will strike many as strange. How could someone argue for participating in illegal wildlife trade as a benefit to species conservation? Further, why does such behaviour persist when 75 percent of respondents—including 62 percent of those who directly acknowledged engaging in illicit behaviour—said illegal collection of cacti and succulents represents a “very serious problem” and two-thirds of respondents stated that wild succulent plant collection was on a rise?

Our results suggest that many within the cactus and succulent collecting hobby believe that the CITES trade restrictions make it harder for collectors to legally gain access to seeds and plant material which in turn drives illegal trade. This opinion appears widespread within the collector-hobbyist community. Further, because the likelihood of detection in many forms of illegal trade in cacti and succulents is generally low, and the repercussions for being caught are often minimal, the risks that collectors face by engaging in illegal behaviours are also perceived to be low. Our survey results also indicate that cactus and succulent collectors see themselves as playing an important role in conservation efforts. To this end, we conclude that despite the persistence of illegal behaviours, there are missed opportunities to develop deeper engagement between collector and conservation communities.

A key takeaway from our study is a need for parties to CITES to engage in more meaningful stakeholder consultation to avoid potentially sidelining would-be conservation allies. Most of our survey respondents show concern about species conservation, and many formal cactus and succulent organisations are actively invested in funding conservation efforts. From a practical perspective, the professional conservation community risks alienating this group of stakeholders by not taking into greater consideration the lasting demand many plant species hold within international collector communities. To put it simply, prohibition of trades may not further long-term species conservation goals.

Ensuring that legally-acquired, and sustainably-sourced cultivated plant material is available within international markets may prove a far more practical—if still controversial—approach to protecting wild cactus and succulent species than trade prohibition. We hope the results of this study can further productive discussions about how to best ensure that these much beloved wild species can thrive in perpetuity.

Further Reading

Margulies, J. D., F. R. Moorman, B. Goettsch, J. C. Axmacher and A. Hinsley. 2023. Prevalence and perspectives of illegal trade in cacti and succulent plants in the collector community. Conservation Biology: e14030. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14030

Goettsch, B., C. Hilton-Taylor, G. Cruz-Piñón, J. P. Duffy, A. Frances, H.M. Hernández, R. Inger et al. 2015. High proportion of cactus species threatened with extinction. Nature plants 1(10): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2015.142

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

Wild tulips fight to survive in their ancestral home

Tulips are one of the world’s most well known spring flowers. Like all other garden plants, they have natural ancestors, and surprisingly these do not grow in the Netherlands—the country that exports the majority of horticultural tulips. In fact, most wild tulips can be found in the steppes, semi-deserts, and mountains of Central Asia, where over half of all known species of wild tulip grow. The number of wild tulips is dwarfed by the tens of thousands of horticultural varieties, yet the large number of species found in Central Asia makes this region a diversity hotspot for this plant group.

These wild tulip species harbour genetic resources that may be crucial for future breeding efforts, especially with respect to disease resistance and tolerance to climate change. They also act as indicators of overall ecosystem health, i.e. they provide an impor- tant signal if their habitat is being damaged. The flowers provide important resources and homes for insects, most notably supporting the insect populations that may also pollinate crop plants. Furthermore, wild tulips hold significant cultural value in this region, with local communities often possessing knowledge about where they occur close to their settlements. Therefore, they are a valuable asset, especially to local communities. However, limited understanding of natural diversity, the impact of climate change, and the effects of environmental disturbance have made it challenging to develop a solid conservation plan for these plants.

Since 2018, a team led by Fauna & Flora International has been proactively working on solving some of these issues. Specifically, I— Brett Wilson, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and Dr. Sam Brockington the Curator of Cambridge University Botanic Garden—have been part of a research team that focuses on using technical knowledge and local expertise shared across organisations, to tackle these challenges. Sam and I have been working most closely with Bioresurs—a Kyrgyz conservation NGO, the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Gareev Botanical Garden in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Additionally, we have also developed collaborations across the region, including in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan. This includes a range of botanic gardens where we have actively expanded tulip collections, not only for public viewing but also for both scientific and conservation purposes—an often-overlooked role of global botanic garden plant collections.

The first task for our team was to improve our knowledge of tulip taxonomy. Without this fundamental information, conservationists struggle to appropriately target and obtain funding as well as carry out mitigation and management. In recent decades, it has become easier and cheaper to sequence DNA, and to use this information to infer whether the target plants are distinct species, and how these species are related to one another. Simultaneously, there has also been an increase in sources of tulip material, especially across the global botanic garden network.

Over the past four years, our team has collected and sequenced DNA from leaf material sourced from: an array of wild tulip populations in Central Asia, the living collections of several botanic gardens, and herbarium material—some of which was collected nearly a century ago. This allowed us to survey over 86 percent of all currently recognised species, as well as many plants collected under old names that are no longer recognised as species. Through this huge effort, we discovered the existence of a new subgenus, and reorganised many sections to simplify these groupings. Based on the data, we were able to reinstate several species, declassify some that are no longer considered separate species, and we also discovered a new species which we formally described in the summer of 2022.

Genetic data can be used to explore the evolutionary history of a plant group across millions of years. Understanding the history of tulips is important as it can allow us to identify the geographic origin of this plant, as well as begin to understand where, when, and why it diversified. In turn, this can help us pinpoint the areas of distribution that are most important for conservation as well as specify which species are the most genetically unique. We were able to show that wild tulips originated in the broader Central Asia region with the most recent common ancestor estimated to have existed here around 23 million years ago. In addition, we discovered that this part of the world was crucial for the diversification of wild tulips throughout their history. The explosion of different tulip species in Central Asia could be linked to aridification, development of large mountain ranges, and global cooling. Strikingly, we were also able to show that tulips most likely moved out of the region through the Kazakh and Russian steppes into the Caucasus, from where they spread into the Middle East, Mediterranean, eastern Europe, and Iran. Very few species seem to have made it south out of Central Asia due to historical barriers such as deserts and seas. Crucially, all this work demonstrated that Central Asia is both historically and currently important for tulips, emphasising the need to conserve these flowers and their habitats in the region.

Central Asia has seen several decades of instability, with the collapse of the Soviet Union leading to economic issues, border disagreements, and political uncertainty. Thus, Central Asian countries often struggle to collaborate on policy and management approaches. This is a major problem for biodiversity, which doesn’t abide by borders or nationality. Although individual countries (e.g., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) have undertaken national assessments of tulip diversity, few studies have looked at the region as a whole.

It is important to work at a larger scale in order to predict and protect wild tulips from the effects of global threats such as climate change. We used a large dataset comprising the location points of tulip populations to predict the impact of different climate change scenarios. Our findings pointed to vast reductions of suitable tulip habitat by 2050, including inside designated reserves. Our study predicted that most species would only survive at higher altitudes. Overall, not only did this work highlight the threat of climate change to biodiversity in the region, but it also provided important information to help policymakers and conservationists take action to protect tulip diversity. This will hopefully act as a rallying call for greater regional collaboration on this and other conservation efforts—especially those related to large-scale threats, such as climate change.

We felt that a good starting point to promote regional cooperation would be making use of the IUCN Red List. The online resource aids in raising awareness and catalysing action by indicating the conservation status of specific species. In order to add wild tulips to the Red List, we created a network of experts from across Central Asia. This ensured better communication, sharing of data, and collaboration—linking up a wealth of country-specific information—so that researchers could conduct a more cohesive, border-spanning assessment of tulip populations. This process took place in several stages: writing initial draft reports for each species, obtaining inputs from regional experts (at a workshop held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), asking an expert to review the reports, and finally, ensuring the reports met IUCN’s standard. These efforts led to collated information about the species’ population sizes, locations, threats, habitat, and required conservation action.

After around two years of hard work, we were able to ensure that reports for 53 species of wild tulips from Central Asia were published in December 2022. The reports showed that approximately 51 percent of all assessed Central Asian species are Threatened: six are Critically Endangered, six are Endangered, and 15 are Vulnerable species, with 14 other species considered Near Threatened. They highlight the precarious situation of wild tulips in Central Asia, especially as a result of livestock overgrazing and climate change. It is clear that urgent conservation attention is required, but we hope that the collaborations to date have brought together the people and information which will be fundamental in stopping the decline of these species.

At the moment, wild tulips continue to bloom in the Central Asian landscape every spring, yet our work shows that this may not always be the case. Although new species continue to be found in this mountainous haven, we may still be losing tulip diversity overall, potentially including many undescribed species. A stable taxonomic framework has now been established, which can hopefully underpin a wave of more effective research and conservation. Our partners have simultaneously been working on expanding botanic garden collections of wild tulips and promoting better management of pastures where they grow. We hope that our work will help preserve this beautiful flower in its native home, so that when spring rolls around once again, we will see the meadows, grasslands, and deserts alive with the colours of flowering tulips.

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

Wolves deserve our best science, not vilification

In the last several years, the hunting and trapping of grey wolves has increased dramatically in the “lower 48” states of the United States. A recently published paper (see Further Reading section at the end) authored by several of the nation’s leading biologists and wildlife advocates, found that there is a lack of data to justify this recent wave of lethal wolf management. This is the first peer-reviewed research of its kind since wolves were removed from the Endangered Species List in the Northern Rockies in 2020.

Below is an interview with authors Dr. Peter Kareiva, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and President and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific, and Elishebah Tate-Pulliam, a research assistant at the Aquarium of the Pacific and a previous recipient of the Aquarium’s African American Scholars award.

Q: Stepping back a bit, why did you personally get involved with the wolf issue? Running the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, what led you to author a peer-reviewed analysis on an issue that is most central to the Northern Rocky Mountain States?

Peter: I joined the Aquarium of the Pacific because I love animals, am committed to conservation, and believe that our planet will thrive only if the public better understands and appreciates wild nature. Our current wolf management conundrum is a trenchant example of three factors: poor treatment of animals, poor conservation, and poor information. Of course I got involved—I used to call my beloved family dog “little wolf” as a puppy. And then there is the science. In 1997, I served on a National Academy Committee that examined the hunting of wolves in Alaska. What we found in Alaska foreshadows what is happening now in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming—the Alaskan wolves were being unfairly blamed for doing much more damage to moose populations than the actual data revealed. Conservation, compassion, and a commitment to data drew me to the #RelistWolves Campaign—a grassroots coalition of conservationists, environmental nonprofit organisations, wildlife advocates, Native American tribes, and scientists. The campaign and its members have dedicated themselves to enhancing public understanding of wolves and ensuring their survival by advocating for one common goal: to restore the grey wolf to the Endangered Species List.

Elishebah: My undergraduate and graduate work included nothing about wolves or terrestrial conservation, but I did conduct research on ecosystem restoration in marine coastal systems. The reintroduction of wolves to western North America is one of the greatest successes of species reintroduction and ecosystem recovery. That caught my attention. So, when Dr. Kareiva invited me to join the wolf team, I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Like many people, I had my own view of wolves, but as a scientist, I wanted to learn more about their ecology and interaction with humans. In some way, wolves remind me of great white sharks, which I think of as wolves of the ocean—feared and vilified, yet magnificent animals.

Q: What are some of the benefits of wolves? Why are wolves so vital for our society and for nature?

Elishebah: As a keystone species, grey wolves are critical for maintaining healthy, resilient ecosystems and preserving biodiversity. We depend on these amazing animals to serve as ecosystem guardians. For example, wolves help keep herbivore populations, like deer and elk in check. Without predators, elk and deer can become so abundant that they overgraze, which in turn exacerbates soil erosion and produces heavy loads of sediment in streams.

Keystone species
The concept of “keystone species” can be traced to R.T.Paine, who introduced the idea after conducting field experiments in which the removal of starfish from rocky intertidal communities in Washington State, USA, led to a transformed intertidal zone blanketed with mussels, whereas in the presence of starfish intertidal rocks were covered with barnacles, sea palms, mussels, anemones, and other “space-holders”. “Keystone” is a metaphor for a species that holds the ecosystem together, much like the keystone at the top of a stone arch. Some species are more equal than others, and keystone species are those organisms which, if deleted from an ecosystem, the ecosystem shifts to a totally different state with a cascade of impacts that dramatically alter the abundances of other species. Without its “keystone”, a stone arch collapses into rubble. The elimination of these species in nature can prompt surprising and far-reaching changes or collapses in the local environment. Examples of keystone species include sea otters, elephants, sharks, certain diseases, and of course humans! Unfortunately, human activities have tended to deplete and in some cases locally extinguish keystone species throughout the world, largely because keystone species are most often predators at the top of food chains and are thus viewed by humans as dangerous or as competition.

Elishebah: As a keystone species, grey wolves are critical for maintaining healthy, resilient ecosystems and preserving biodiversity. We depend on these amazing animals to serve as ecosystem guardians. For example, wolves help keep herbivore populations, like deer and elk in check. Without predators, elk and deer can become so abundant that they overgraze, which in turn exacerbates soil erosion and produces heavy loads of sediment in streams.

Peter: Elishebah is exactly right. The best documented case study comes from Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were reintroduced in 1995. The return of wolves changed elk behaviour, keeping them on the move, which in turn allowed young willow and aspen plants to survive when previously they would have been browsed by elk. The return of these plants then helped beaver populations recover, and helped reduce sediments in streams. A less commonly appreciated benefit of wolves is their prudent predation of sick and diseased animals.

For example, chronic wasting disease has been spreading among elk and deer populations in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and wildlife biologists hypothesise that wolves could play a valuable role in removing sick and infectious animals, thereby slowing the spread of this deadly brain disease.

Q: What is wrong with current wolf management policies?

Peter: Extreme wolf hunts in states like Idaho, Montana, and Wisconsin have shocked many wildlife biologists because of how many wolves were killed in such a short period of time. In only six months of the 2021–2022 hunting season in Montana, at least 25 wolves from Yellowstone were killed when they wandered outside the park boundary—a number that represents one-fifth of the federally protected Yellowstone wolf population. Even more dramatic is the killing spree in early 2021 of at least 216 wolves in Wisconsin over a three-day period. The zeal with which hunters killed wolves clearly overwhelmed Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources. By the time the hunt was shut down, at least 97 more wolves had been killed than the state-mandated quota of 119 wolves. More generally, we found that data surrounding the benefits of wolves typically has not been incorporated into state-level wolf management decisions. Also, when state agencies formulate their wolf policies, it does not appear that they gave much weight to the collateral damage associated with rampant trapping and hunting of wolves.

Elishebah: Creating effective management policies for wolves is complicated. Firstly, wolves are predators and there’s no denying that wolves kill both wild and domesticated animals as they go about their business of being a wolf. That said, data indicate wolves much prefer wild prey to domesticated cattle and sheep. Human societies have a long history of treating predators like wolves as vermin. Before the arrival of European colonists, wild nature thrived in harmony with Native Americans, and wolves were abundant throughout North America. That all changed as western colonists spread across the continent hunting, trapping, and poisoning wolves to near extinction. But now as wolves make a comeback, they encounter a landscape filled with human activities. This renews opportunities for wolf-human conflict and in turn has created the threat of a second round of persecution and wolf slaughter.

Unfortunately, our protest of the wolf slaughter is seen by some as an attack on hunters. It is not an attack on hunters. We know that hunters are often great conservationists. We also recognise that hunting is a cultural legacy for many westerners, and any ban on hunting might be interpreted as an infringement on the rights of hunters. I certainly agree that hunters have rights. But animals also have rights. Ethical hunters respect animal rights when they embrace the principle of fair chase. However, no one would call baiting, trapping, running wolves down with packs of dogs and ATVs, and night-vision hunting a fair chase.

Q: You have mentioned poor information— what did you mean by that?

Peter: That’s a great question. First, there is huge uncertainty about how many wolves there are, how many have been killed in the recent hunting spree, and how frequently wolves have preyed on livestock. We think there are around 6,000 wolves left in the lower 48 states as of last year, but credible analyses of the uncertainty of this estimate have not appeared in the scientific literature. We are not even sure how many wolves have been killed over the last two years—we think it is around 1200. However, because of poor data transparency, under-reporting, and poaching, we worry the 1200 number is an underestimate. Finally, when we attempted to quantify wolf impact on livestock, we ran into difficulties. We examined the US Department of Agriculture’s data on livestock killings in our analysis and found that it’s only published about every five years and includes livestock deaths that are only presumed wolf kills, not necessarily confirmed wolf kills. The bottom line is this: the current justification for wolf hunts is based on data that is inconsistent and unevenly reported. It is my strong belief that given the precarious status of wolves, no hunting should be allowed until we have more transparent and accurate data. In the absence of such data, prudence tells us to be cautious before we sanction such widespread slaughter of wolves.

Q: What do you say to the tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers throughout the US who claim that they must kill wolves, In certain instances, to protect the well-being of themselves and their livestock?

Elishebah: Firstly, I understand the desire to protect one’s livelihood. Ranching is a tough business: droughts, fires, diseases, extreme temperatures, and predators can cause a rancher to lose income. At a more personal level, I am sure ranchers are upset whenever one of their cattle or sheep are killed. For this reason, ranchers should have their concerns heard and addressed—and they are. I wonder, however, if the ranching community has an accurate view of the deaths caused by wolves in the context of all the undesired deaths that their livestock suffer? To provide some context regarding this concern: the number of sheep and cattle killed by wolves never exceeded 0.21 percent and 0.05 percent of unwanted deaths in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Wisconsin, according to the 2020 USDA report on sheep and 2015 report on cattle. Causes other than wolves made up the vast majority of unwanted livestock deaths. Why are we vilifying wolves for their attacks on livestock, when in fact theirpredation on livestock is minor compared to all the other factors?

Peter: We understand the challenge that independent ranchers have, which is why we advocate for conflict reduction (which has proven effective) and reimbursement programs. Our point is simply that killing wolves should be a last resort, not the first option.

Q: You mentioned conflict reduction, what can this look like in practice?

Peter: There are a wide variety of effective non-lethal wolf management techniques. Ancient techniques like fladry, which entails creating a perimeter of colourful flags around livestock, combined with contemporary techniques like strobe lights and loud noises have proven effective at deterring wolves. In addition to these tried and true methods, some recent non-lethal innovations promise even greater success going forward. I just learned about this idea of infusing carcasses of cattle with cocktails of nauseating chemicals. When the wolf eats this cattle carcass, it feels sick and develops a learned aversion to cattle. That clever innovation is exemplary of the creative ideas we should be exploring in order to avoid primitive lethal approaches.

Elishebah: One idea is establishing programs that reward ranchers who invest in conflict reduction. This can complement programs that compensate ranchers who have lost livestock to wolves.

Q: Does the killing of wolves ever evolve into the killing of other, non-targeted species so to speak? If so, can you explain?

Elishebah: Attempts to deplete wolf populations often result in wolf hunters and trappers accidentally shooting and trapping dogs and other “non-target” species. Nearly one non-target animal was accidentally trapped for every wolf trapped in Idaho from 2012 to 2019, including threatened and endangered species. In Montana during the hunting seasons of 2018– 2020, half of all non-target species accidentally caught in traps were domestic dogs.

Q: Is there anything being done to advocate for wolf protection? What can readers do to get involved?

Peter: The Biden Administration is conducting a status review with the chance to restore federal protections to ALL grey wolves. Relisting wolves is the only way to stop brutal state-led hunts before it is too late. In the long term, we need to pursue coexistence with wolves, as well as coexistence with the many other “dangerous” animals that were once endangered but are now recovering. We have learned how to save and restore wildlife—now we need to learn how to live with wildlife. Write your congressional representatives and encourage them to pay attention and care. Support organisations that strive to protect wolves and other wildlife.

Elishebah: Dr. Kareiva mentions what amounts to advocacy. As a recently graduated student, I think education and communication are key. We need to escape the tyranny of an “us versus wolves” mentality to an “us and wolves” mindset. Moving toward this change in mentality is what we are working towards with the #RelistWolves Campaign. I’d encourage folks to visit RelistWolves.org for more information on the campaign and how they can take action.

Further Reading

Estes, J. A., J. Terborgh, J. S. Brashares, M. E. Power, J. Berger, W. J. Bond, W. J. Carpenter et al. 2011. Trophic downgrading of planet Earth. Science 333(6040): 301– 306. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1205106

Eisenberg, C. 2013. The wolf’s tooth: keystone predators, trophic cascades, and biodiversity. Washington DC: Island Press.

Kareiva, P., S. K. Attwood, K. Bean, D. Felix, M. Marvier, M. L. Miketa and E. Tate-Pulliam. 2022. A new era of wolf management demands better data and a more inclusive process. Conservation Science and Practice: e12821. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12821.

This article is from issue

17.3

2023 Sep

Sleuths on a dog hunt

Asiatic wild dogs (dholes) are group-living carnivores found in the forests of South and Southeast Asia. They are generally shy, elusive, and very sensitive to human disturbance. But in the Valparai plateau of India’s Western Ghats, they live alongside people in human-modified habitats such as tea and coffee plantations. How do dholes live in such areas? Are they not scared of humans? Have they changed their behaviours and habits to adapt? In a quest to answer these and many other questions, I travelled to Valparai earlier this year to understand the secret lives of dholes in this unique landscape. 

Within a week of my arrival in Valparai, I had seen a lot of wild animals including Nilgiri langurs, lion-tailed macaques, gaurs and even elephants living alongside people in tea and coffee plantations. I found myself constantly amazed at the incredible adaptability of these large animals that were living in ‘human spaces’. I started interacting and engaging with the local residents who lived or worked within tea and coffee estates, almost incessantly enquiring about their last dhole sighting or their knowledge about the dholes’ movements and whereabouts. 

The contrasting accounts left me rather surprised. One person reported seeing dholes 13-14 times in a year, while their neighbour had never seen a dhole in the 10 years they had lived in that area. People’s accounts of dhole sightings and their enthusiasm in sharing information about the species was heartening. Most were amazed at how well co-ordinated a dhole pack was and how well they communicated with each other to bring down large prey such as sambar deer. 

Conducting field surveys to look for dholes. Photo: Ajith R

Often overshadowed by other charismatic species they co-occur with, dholes have largely been overlooked in terms of research and conservation. This was also evident in my conversations with the people of Valparai. At the end of each conversation, they would almost invariably ask me if I also wanted information about leopards or elephants. When I told them that I was only looking for information on dholes, I would get puzzled looks; they would even ask, “Why do you want information on dholes when there are so many leopards and elephants here?” Some would admit that they have only ever had researchers ask them about leopards and elephants, but this is the first time someone is asking them about wild dogs. 

Dholes are listed as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN and their populations have experienced significant declines across their range. Their largest population occurs in India, and so far, most research on dholes here has focused on populations inside protected areas.

Based on the information I gathered from the local residents, I started looking for signs of dhole movement (scat and tracks) in areas where they frequented. Initially my instincts told me to look for signs in locations closer to forest fragments because there was no way that dholes would venture too close to places where humans lived or worked. Subsequently, I started combing the plantations—tea bushes, swampy areas with small streams adjacent to forest fragments and grounds that had been cleared for annual football tournaments. 

I found dhole scats in all these locations, as well as along the roads of tea estates that were heavily used by plantation workers. Despite having heard of high dhole activity in these areas, I was still very surprised at what I was seeing. Apart from dhole scats, I also found signs of leopards, sloth bears, elephants, and gaurs on these same paths. The people in Valparai were sharing space with big carnivores and mega-herbivores on a daily basis.  

My field assistant and I investigating the sambar carcass the dholes had been feeding on. Photo: Abraham Pious

It had been almost three weeks since I had arrived in Valparai. I had seen a lot of dhole signs all over the landscape, but the dholes themselves continued to elude me. I connected with local naturalists who took me to more locations where they had frequent dhole sightings. Again, I found an abundance of indirect signs but no dholes. 

One morning in the last week of January, we were in the eastern part of the plateau where the dholes had killed a sambar around two weeks earlier. As I meticulously inspected the skull of the sambar, I felt a bit restive, wondering if I would see any dholes in Valparai at all. At that very moment, my field associate received a phone call about a sighting of a pack feeding on an ungulate inside a dam around 20km away. It would take us 40 minutes to get there, and the dholes would have probably finished their meal and moved on by then. But that was a risk we were willing to take; we were desperate. 

As expected, yet to our disappointment, we missed seeing the dholes by the time we reached. Upon inspecting the kill site, we found the damp soil covered in fresh tracks of several dholes and a sambar. We suspected that there had been a chase before the hunt in that location. As we followed the tracks, our suspicions were confirmed when we found the extremely well-camouflaged carcass of the sambar that the dholes had been feeding on. Luckily, there was some meat still left on the carcass, which meant that the pack would likely come back to finish it off. 

Dholes are diurnal animals, with peak activity at crepuscular hours (i.e., dawn and dusk). It was presently getting hot with the sun looming high, roasting up the open, dry reservoir bed. We decided to return to the site at around 4pm. Later that day, stationed on an elevated path that overlooked the dam, we eagerly waited. An hour passed and the sun started to set. The air around us cooled down but there was no sign of the pack. Minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and my field associate excitedly pointed at the path below. A single dhole went trotting towards the sambar kill. Within seconds, seven more dholes followed. We watched in fascination for 20 minutes, as they tore into every last bit of meat from the carcass. Once they finished their meal, they headed back to the tea bushes where they had emerged from. And with that, I had seen my first ever dhole pack in Valparai.  

A pack of 8 dholes feeding on a sambar carcass. Photo: Sabiya Sheikh

A mere five minutes after the dholes had disappeared, a tea estate worker walked down the same path, completely unaware that they were treading the same path that a pack of carnivores did, just moments ago. Agroforests like coffee and tea plantations have been predicted to play an important role in maintaining connectivity between source populations of dholes in the protected areas of the Western Ghats. In Valparai, these habitats are doing more than just maintaining connectivity; they are providing space for dholes to live, hunt, rest and reproduce. The sighting left me feeling excited about finding out the myriad ways in which wild dogs are adapting and cohabiting the landscape with the wonderful people of Valparai. This project is part of Wildlife Conservation Society-India and The Dhole Project’s efforts to conserve dhole populations in India. 

वाळवंट आणि समुद्रातून यात्रा

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वायव्य मेक्सिकोतील बाजा कॅलिफोर्नियाचे मध्यवर्ती वाळवंट जितके अक्षम्य आहे तितकेच सुंदर आहे. स्वप्नासारख्या भूमीवर शतकानुशतके जुन्या निवडुंग वनस्पती (Pachycereus pringlei) आणि बुजम वृक्ष (Fouquieria columnaris) यांचे वर्चस्व आहे, त्यांचे इंग्रजीतील सामान्य नाव लुईस कॅरोलच्या “हंटिंग ऑफ द स्नार्क” या पुस्तकातून योग्यप्रकारे घेतलेले आहे. कडक उन्हाळ्यात तापमान ५० अंश सेल्सियसपेक्षा जास्त वाढते. हिवाळ्यात सहसा शून्य अंशच्या खाली घसरते आणि वार्षिक १००-३०० मिमी दरम्यान पाऊस पडतो. प्रशांत महासागरातील थंडगार पाणी कॅलिफोर्नियाच्या उष्णकटिबंधीय आखातामध्ये वसला आहे. पाच प्रजातीच्या सागरी कासवांचे घर, प्रशांत महासागरातील खाडीमधील राखाडी देवमासा (Eschrichtius robustus) यासह विविध सागरी सस्तन प्राणी, असंख्य मासे आणि अपृष्ठवंशी प्राण्यांनी समृद्ध आणि विपुल आहे.

कोपऱ्यात स्थित असणाऱ्या या भूप्रदेशात मानवाने सुमारे १२,००० वर्षे वस्ती केली. कोचीमी जमातीचे लोक भटके, कोळी आणि शिकारी होते.  ते ऋतुमानानुसार फिरत असत. त्यांचा प्रवास जमिनीवरील आणि समुद्रातील पाण्याच्या स्रोतामध्ये होत होता. १८व्या शतकात युरोपीय संपर्कानंतर कोचीमी स्थिरावले. दरम्यान उद्भवलेल्या साथीच्या रोगांमुळे आणि दुष्काळामुळे त्यांच्या दोन पिढ्यांमधील लोकसंख्या ९० टक्क्यांनी घटली. पुढील शतकांत कोचीमी लोकांचे वंशज, स्पॅनिश व मेक्सिकन वसाहतकार, त्यानंतर मेक्सिको, युरोप, अमेरिका, चीन आणि जपान या देशांच्या विविध प्रदेशांतून स्थलांतरित झाल्याने एक बहुजातीय समाज निर्माण झाला.  त्यांनी संपूर्ण द्वीपकल्पात लहान, विखुरलेले समुदाय आणि कुरणे स्थापन केली. आजपर्यंत, या एकाकी प्रदेशात लोकसंख्येची घनता प्रति चौरस किलोमीटर सुमारे दोन लोकांची आहे, जी जगातील सर्वात कमी आहे.

गेल्या दहा वर्षांपासून मध्यवर्ती वाळवंटात काम करण्याचे भाग्य मला लाभले. अशा लोकांकडून शिकायला मिळाले ज्यामुळे ते केवळ येथे टिकून राहिले नाहीत तर निसर्गाबद्दलचे त्यांचे तपशीलवार ज्ञानामुळे कठोर वातावरणातही  त्यांच जीवन भरभरून गेले.  मी दोन्ही किनाऱ्यावरील तरबेज मासेमाऱ्यासोबत काम केले.  भूतकाळात महासागरांची पुनर्रचना करण्याचा प्रयत्न करण्यासाठी आणि ते कसे बदलले आहेत यासाठी होते. जर संशोधन उपलब्ध पर्यावरणीय माहितीच्या संचापुरते मर्यादित असेल तर वैज्ञानिक भूतकाळातील जैवविविधतेच्या किंवा विपुलतेच्या परिमाणाला कमी लेखू शकतात.  या प्रदेशात सामान्यत: ३० वर्षांपेक्षा कमी कालावधीचे असते. ही घटना “शिफ्टिंग बेसलाइन सिंड्रोम” म्हणून ओळखली जाते. समुद्री कासवे आणि विशेषत: हिरव्या कासवांनी (Chelonia mydas) हजारो वर्षांपासून या प्रदेशातील रहिवाशांसाठी अन्न आणि औषध म्हणून मूलभूत भूमिका बजावली आहे. सर्वात जुन्या मच्छीमारांनी आज आपण जे पाहतो त्यापेक्षा खूपच वेगळा समुद्र पाहिला आहे.  काळानुसार हिरव्या कासवांची संख्या, अधिवासात झालेले  बदल आहेत याबद्दलचे त्यांचे ज्ञान वर्तमान समजून घेण्यासाठी आणि भविष्यातील आव्हानांना सामोरे जाण्यासाठी महत्त्वपूर्ण आहे.

डॉन कार्लोस यांनी १९४० च्या दशकाच्या सुरुवातीला पॅसिफिक किनाऱ्यावर समुद्री कासवमार म्हणून काम करण्यास सुरुवात केली. तो आणि त्याचे वडील ओजो दे लिबरे सरोवरातील एका निर्जन बेटावर काही आठवडे घालवत असत आणि एका छोट्याशा बोटीतून हिरव्या रंगाची कासवे शोधत असत. हा सरोवरा खोल कालवे आणि विस्तृत उथळपणासाठी ओळखला जातो.  कासव पकडण्यासाठी केवळ वाहतुकीचे नाही तर वारा, प्रवाह आणि भरती-ओहोटीची अचूक परिस्थितीसुद्धा तितकीच आवश्यक आहे. पृष्ठभागावरील पाण्यातील सर्वात लहान लहरींमुळे दृश्यमानतेत अडथळा निर्माण झाला, म्हणून शांत वारे आणि स्थिर पाणी यासह केवळ अष्टमीच्या भरती वेळीच मासेमारी शक्य होती. पकडलेली कोणतीही कासवे खारट केली जात असत आणि त्यांची चरबी तेलात उकळली जात असे. गोड्या पाण्याचा कोणताही स्रोत नसताना, त्यांनी तेलाचे डबे आणि तांब्याच्या नळ्यांपासून समुद्राच्या पाण्याला पिण्यायोग्य केलं.  एलआर्को या जवळच्या खेड्यापर्यंत प्रवास यशस्वी चालेपर्यंत पुरेसे खारट मांस उपलब्ध असायचे. 

ते दीड दिवस गाढव किंवा खेचराने प्रवास करत असत. सोबत सुमारे २० किलो सागरी कासव भरलेले काही महिने न खराब होता टिकू शकत होते आणि एकाकी प्रदेशात किंवा खाणींच्या शहरांत खाण्यासाठी असत. एलआर्कोमध्ये, मांसबीन्स, तांदूळ, कॉफी किंवा गव्हाचे पीठ यासारख्या रेशनच्या बदल्यात कासव विकले जात असे.  त्याकाळी समुद्री कासव पकडण्यावर अनेक घटकांनी बंदी घातली होती.  मूठभर लोकांची वस्ती असणाऱ्या काही शहरातून किंवा कुरणेपुरती कासवांची मागणी मर्यादित होती. मासेमारीसाठी सरोवराचे तपशीलवार ज्ञान, विलक्षण कौशल्य आणि धोक्याचे कोणतेही लहान मोजमाप आवश्यक नव्हते. डॉन कार्लोस आणि त्याचे वडील हे एकमेव मच्छीमार होते जे किमान ५० चौरस सागरी मैल क्षेत्रात काम करत होते.

डॉन इग्नासियो १९५० मध्ये कॅलिफोर्नियाच्या आखातातील मिडरिफ बेटांवर आला. त्याचे कुटुंब तब्बल दोन आठवडे गाढवावरून प्रवास करत होते. एका मरुभूमीपासून किंवा वसंत ऋतूपासून दुस-या भागापर्यंत मासेमारीसाठी योग्य जागा शोधत होते. त्याच्या सुरुवातीच्या काळात दोन – तीन लोकांचा गट तासन्तास किंवा काही दिवस दूरवरच्या मासेमारीच्या छावण्यांमध्ये रांगा लावून जात असत, जिथे ते एकतर कासवांनी आपल्या बोटी भरेपर्यंत किंवा अन्न-पाणी संपेपर्यंत राहत असत.  पथ-निर्देशकाचे कौशल्य अत्यंत महत्त्वाचे होते. वाऱ्यातील विश्वासघातकी प्रवाह आणि बदल वाचावेत, येणाऱ्या वादळांचा अंदाज बांधणे आणि वाळवंटाच्या किनाऱ्यावरील (निर्जन असले तरी) बंदरांना सुरक्षित करण्यासाठी कामगारांना मार्गदर्शन करणे याचा अर्थ जीवन आणि मृत्यू यांच्यातील फरक असू शकतो. मासेमारी चांगली असताना फेऱ्या कमी वेळाच्या असत. जेव्हा मासेमारी कमी किंवा वारा वादळामुळे जाण पूर्णपणे थांबत होते.  वाळवंटातील किनाऱ्याचे तपशीलवार ज्ञान त्यांना पाणी पुरवठा करण्यास मदत करू शकले. कधीकधी लहान झरे किंवा हंगामी तलावांमधून पुरविले जाते. शिकार करण्याच्या कौशल्यांमुळे अन्नपुरवठा वाढण्यास मदत होऊ शकले. मच्छीमार समुद्री कासवाची चरबी आणि समुद्राच्या पाण्याने चपात्या करत असत. हरिण (Odocoileus hemionus) आणि मेंढी (Ovis canadensis) सारख्या शिकाऱ्यामुळे खारवून खाल्ले जाऊ शकणारे मांस छावणीत दिले जात असे. 

मच्छीमारांनी प्रामुख्याने हिरव्या कासवांना अत्यंत निवडक पद्धतीने पकडले: हार्पूनिंग. समुद्री कासवांचे वर्तन आणि जीवशास्त्र यांच्या काळजीपूर्वक निरीक्षणावर आधारित असलेल्या या कलेला प्रचंड कौशल्याची गरज होती कारण कासवे विकत घेऊन त्यांची जिवंत वाहतूक करावी लागत असे. रात्रीच्या वेळी पाण्याच्या पृष्ठभाग उजळवाण्यासाठी कमानीवर तेलाचा दिवा लावून काम चालत असत. हार्पून बोटवाहकाला दिशा दाखवत असे आणि कासवाचे कवच न फोडता किंवा फुप्फुसांवर आदळल्याशिवाय छिद्र पाडण्यासाठी पुरेशा शक्तीने हार्पून काम करत असे. उन्हाळ्यामध्ये कासवे जेव्हा फिरत असतात आणि पृष्ठभागाजवळ वेळ घालवतात तेव्हा लहान, हलक्या वजनाच्या हार्पूनचा वापर केला जात असे.  हिवाळ्यातील महिन्यांमध्ये जेव्हा कासवे समुद्रतळावर सुप्तावस्थेत असत तेव्हा वजनदार टोकांसह लांब हार्पूनचा वापर केला जात असे.

हिरवी कासवं अमेरिकेच्या सीमेजवळ ८०० किलोमीटर दूर बाजारात पाठवण्यात आली.  परिस्थितीनुसार वाळवंटातील प्रवास दोन दिवस ते दोन आठवडे लागू शकतात.  समुदायासाठी समुद्री कासव हे मुख्य अन्न होते.  एक कासव २० लोकांना खाण्यास सहजपणे पुरत होते. त्याचे मांस खारवून अनेक आठवडे टिकवले जाऊ शकते. काहीही वाया जात नसत.  गाळलेल्या चरबीचा वापर स्वयंपाकासाठी आणि औषध म्हणून केला जात असे. प्राण्याचा प्रत्येक भाग – कवचसुद्धा जो जिलेटीन सुसंगततेसाठी उकळला जाऊ शकतो तोही वापरला जात असे.  छोटी लोकसंख्या, मासेमारीची आणि वाहतुकीची अडचण, बाजारपेठेच्या मर्यादित मागणीमुळे शिकार एका विशिष्ट स्थरावर होती. पण, लवकरच परिस्थिती बदलेल. १९६०पासून अमेरिका-मेक्सिको सीमेवरील शहरांमध्ये झालेल्या वाढीमुळे सागरी कासवांच्या मांसाची बाजारपेठेतील मागणी वाढली. विशिष्ट जाळ्यांचा वापर सुरू केल्यामुळे कासवे सहजपणे आणि अधिक संख्येने पकडली जाऊ लागली. वाढत्या अश्वशक्तीच्या जोरावर शक्तिशाली मोटारीमुळे कर्मचाऱ्यांना आणखी वेगाने पुढे जाण्याची मुभा मिळाली आणि वाऱ्यात किंवा जोरदार प्रवाहांमध्ये अडकण्याचा धोका कमी झाला. १९७०च्या दशकाच्या सुरुवातीला बांधण्यात आलेल्या या पक्क्या मध्यवर्ती महामार्गामुळे बाजारपेठेच्या केंद्रांकडे जाणारा प्रवास दिवसागणिक कमी झाला. बाजारपेठेतील मागणी, बाजारपेठेतील प्रवेश आणि सुधारित मासेमारी तंत्रज्ञान या ‘परिपूर्ण वादळा’मुळे मोठ्या प्रमाणावर कासवांची पकड झाली आणि त्यामुळे दोन दशकांत त्यांची संख्या जवळजवळ नामशेष होण्याच्या मार्गावर आली.

हिरव्या कासवांच्या मागील लोकसंख्येचा अंदाज लावण्यासाठी मच्छिमारांबरोबर काम करून आणि त्यांना पर्यावरणीय आकडेवारीशी समाकलित करून, मी आणि माझ्या सहकाऱ्यांनी या प्रदेशातील ७०वर्षांहून अधिक हिरव्या कासवांच्या संख्येच्या स्थितीची पुनर्रचना केली आहे.  निश्चितच एक चांगली बातमी आहे. ४०वर्षांपेक्षा जास्त काळ संरक्षणाच्या प्रयत्नांनंतर कासवांची संख्या वाढत आहे (दक्षिण मेक्सिकोमधील समुद्रकिनारे १९८०पासून संरक्षित केले गेले आहेत आणि १९९०पासून मेक्सिकोमधील समुद्री कासव पकडण्यावर पूर्णपणे बंदी घालण्यात आली आहे). तथापि, संख्या ऐतिहासिक आधारभूत पातळीपर्यंत पोहोचली नाही आणि समुद्री कासवांना हवामान बदलामुळे वाढत्या धोक्यांचा सामना करावा लागतो जे कि थेट मानवी प्रभावांपेक्षा कमी करणे अधिक कठीण आहे. मासेमारी करणारे समुदाय आणि समुद्री कासवे यांना वेगाने बदलणाऱ्या या ग्रहाच्या आव्हानांचा सामना करावा लागत असल्याने, पिढ्यानपिढ्या मिळवलेले ज्ञान भविष्यातील अभ्यासक्रमांची आखणी करण्यासाठी महत्त्वपूर्ण ठरेल.

मूळ इंग्रजी लेखिका – मिशेल मारिया अर्ली कॅपिस्ट्रान

अनुवादक – राघवेंद्र वंजारी 

चित्रे – अथुल्या पिल्लई 

This article is from issue

16.2

2022 Jun

जैवविविधतेच्या नोंदीसाठी ध्वनीशास्त्र

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इकोएकॉस्टिक (पर्यावरणाचे ध्वनी शास्त्र) म्हणजे पर्यावरणातील विवध आवाजांचा, ध्वनींचा अभ्यास करणारी ज्ञान शाखा जगासमोर आली आहे.  हे एक उदयोन्मुख आंतरविद्याशाखीय शास्त्र असुन नैसर्गिक तसेच मानवनिर्मित ध्वनी आणि त्यांचे पर्यावरणाशी असलेले संबंध वेळ आणि जागेच्या मापणीवर तपासते.  यामध्ये मुख्यतः पर्यावरणीय क्षेत्रांचा समावेश होऊन, लोकसंख्या, अधिवास, भौगोलिक प्रणाली अभ्यासली जाते.  त्याचबरोबर जमीन आणि सागरी  दोन्ही या क्षेत्रांत हा अभ्यास विस्तारला जात आहे. इकोएकॉस्टिक मध्ये आवाजाचे सूक्ष्म अध्ययन करून त्याचे स्वरूप, गुणधर्म, उत्क्रांती आणि पर्यावरणातील त्याच्या कार्यातील तपास केला जातो. ध्वनीला एक पर्यावरणीय गुणधर्म म्हणून देखील मानले जात असल्याने पर्यावरणातील विविधता,  वातावरणात, विपुलता, प्राण्यांची गतिशीलता व वर्तवणुकिच्या व्यापक तपासण्यासाठी उपयोग केला जातो.  याच शास्त्राच्या आधारे संशोधकांनी जैविक विविधता कशी अभ्यासली आहे ती पाहूया. 

निसर्गाचा आवाज तुम्ही ऐकला आहात का? पर्यावारातील विविध घटकांचा आवाज तुमच्या कानी पडला असेल ना ! जस बेडकाचे डर्याव डर्याव, किड्यांची कुरकुर आणि झाडावर गाणाऱ्या पक्ष्यांचा आवाज आपल्याला निसर्गाच्या जवळ घेऊन जातात.  हाच आवाज जैवविविधतेवर बारकायीने लक्ष ठेवण्याची एक सुयोग्य संशोधनाची पद्धत देखील ठरू शकते.  आर्थिक दृष्ट्या परवडणारे, स्वयंचलित ध्वनिमुद्रक (रेकॉर्डर) आजकाल बाजारात मोठ्या प्रमाणात उपलब्ध झाले आहेत ज्यामुळे संशोधकांना ‘साऊंडस्केप’ किंवा एखाद्या भुभागावरील ध्वनींचा संग्रह जलद गतीने तपासता येतो.  अभ्यासातून असे समजले आहे कि प्रवाळ किनाऱ्यापासून शेतजमिनिपर्यंत सर्वप्रकारच्या नादामध्ये वातावरणातील जटिलता जैवविविधतेशी जोडली आहे.  मानवीवर्स्तीपेक्षा मानवेतर भौगोलिक परिसरात कमी त्रास होत असल्याने जैवविविधतेचे दीर्घ काळासाठी दूरस्थपणे मूल्यांकन केले जाऊ शकते. 

देशोदेशीच्या अनेक संस्थांनी प्रचंड ध्वनिक्षेपक मुद्रणे संग्रहित करण्यास सुरवात केली आहे.  इतक्या मोठ्याप्रमाण ध्वनी मुद्रणे मिळवल्यावर ती ऐकणेही तेवढेच जिकिरीचे होते.  ते संपूर्णपणे ऐकणे अव्यवहार्य ठरेल म्हणून संशोधकांनी ध्वनिक वातावरणातील विविधता मोजण्यासाठी ‘ध्वनिक निर्देशांकांचा’ वापर करण्यास सुरुवात केली आहे. ध्वनी निर्देशांक ही एक आकडेवारी आहे जी ध्वनिमुद्रणातील ध्वनिक ऊर्जा आणि माहितीच्या वितरणाच्या पैलूंचा सारांश देते.  याचा वापर आज पर्यावरणीय शोध जगतात मोठ्या प्रमाणावर होत आहे.  प्रत्येक प्रजाती ध्वनिक वातावरणाचा एक विशिष्ट भाग वापरून ध्वनीसंकेतांचा वापर करत असतो.  समप्रजाती किंवा इतर प्रजातीशी संदेशवहन करताना विशिष्ट आवाज आच्छादित होऊ नये म्हणून ध्वनिक निर्देशांक या तत्त्वावर आधारित आहे. अश्या विविध ध्वनी लहरीचे प्रथ्थकरण विविध प्रजातीच्या अधिवासांमध्ये विविध प्रकारच्या ‘ध्वनिक कोनाडे’ ची मुद्रण नोंदविली जातात. 

कार्लटन विद्यापीठातील संशोधकाच्या संघाने यापुर्वी ध्वनीमुद्रानातून करण्यात आलेल्या अभ्यासाचा सूक्ष्म आढावा घेतला.  त्यानुसार निर्देशांकांचे विविध प्रकार तपासून पाहिले.  त्या निर्देशांकांच्या माध्यमातून विविध प्रकारची जैविक माहिती दर्शविण्यासाठी ते किती प्रभावी होते याचा परामर्ष दिला.  त्यानंतर सर्वात यशस्वी निर्देशांक गोळा करून अटलांटिक महासागरा भोवतालच्या ४३ सागरी आणि भूस्थळांवरून ध्वनिमुद्रणे मिळवली.  यंत्रज्ञानाच्या (मशीन लर्निंग) मदतीने निर्देशांकांची पडताळणी केल्यास पक्ष्यांच्या गाण्याची विविधता अचूकपणे नोंदविता आली.  दरम्यान सभोवतालचा वारा, कीट आणि मानवी गोंगाटामुळे अभ्यास नमुन्यामध्ये अडथळा निर्माण होत होता. परंतु सागरी मुद्रीतामध्ये कमी गोंगाट ऐकायला आला. बहुधा कोळंबी आणि लाटांच्या आवाजामुळे अडथळा कमी होता. म्हणून जैवविविधतेचे संवर्धन करण्यासाठी ध्वनी मुद्रीतेच्या मदतीने नोंदविलेली निरीक्षणे व त्यांच्यातील बदल अचूकपणे अधिक प्रभावीपणे अभ्यासले जाऊ शकते. 

संशोधन लेख:

Buxton RT, McKenna MF, Clapp M, Meyer E, Stabenau E, Angeloni LM, Crooks K, Wittemyer G. Efficacy of extracting indices from large-scale acoustic recordings to monitor biodiversity. Conservation Biology 32(5):1174-1184. 

मूळ इंग्रजी लेखिका – रेचल बक्सटन  

अनुवादक – राघवेंद्र वंजारी 

చనిపోయిన తేనెటీఁగల రహస్యము

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 హాయ్! నా పేరు ప్రీతి. నేను తేనెటీగలను అధ్యయనం చేసే శాస్త్రవేత్తను – అంటే వాటి ఆహారం, వైవిధ్యం, ఉండే వాతావరణం  మరియు వాటి ప్రాముఖ్యత గురించి తెలుసుకుంటాను. నా స్నేహితురాలు పేరు రాబిన్. ఆమె సేంద్రియ వ్యవసాయం చేస్తోంది.  

ఒకసారి, రాబిన్ తన పొలంలోని  చెత్త డబ్బాలో ఒక తేనెటీగల  గుంపుని  కనుగొన్నది. ఆ తేనెటీగలు  కొన్ని నెలలుగా  తమ తుట్టెను చెత్త డబ్బాలో ఏర్పాటు చేసుకొని నివసిస్తున్నాయి. రాబిన్ వాటిని  చూసి ఆనందించి, అప్పుడప్పుడు వాటిని పరిశీలించడం ప్రారంభించింది. జూన్ 2020లో ఒక ఉదయాన, రాబిన్ చెత్త డబ్బా దగ్గర చనిపోయిన తేనెటీగలు చెల్లాచెదురుగా పడి ఉండడం గమనించింది. అలాగే చెత్త డబ్బా మూత రోజూ కంటే ఎక్కువగా తెరిచి ఉంది. లోపల నుండి తేనెపట్టు స్పష్టంగా కనిపిస్తోంది. దెబ్బతిన్న ఆ తేనెతుట్టెను మళ్ళీ నిర్మించడానికి తేనెటీగలు  చాలా కష్టపడుతున్నాయి. 

రాబిన్ చనిపోయిన  తేనెటీగల గురించి నాకు చెప్పింది. నేను ఉత్సాహంతో తనిఖీ చేయడానికి అక్కడికి వెళ్ళాను. వేసవిలో తేనెతుట్టె దగ్గర మగ తేనెటీగలు చనిపోవడం చాలా సహజం – ఎందుకంటే ఈ సమయంలో పువ్వులు దొరకడం చాలా కష్టం. ఆహార కొరత వల్ల, ఆడ తేనెటీగలు మగతేనెటీగలను తేనెపట్టు దగ్గరకు రానివ్వవు. కానీ ఆశ్చర్యంగా డబ్బా దగ్గర చనిపోయిన తేనెటీగలలో ఒక్క మగ  తేనెటీగ కూడా లేదు!

 అక్కడ చనిపోయినవి అన్నీ ఆడ తేనెటీగ కార్మికులు. వీటికి తేనెతుట్టెతో చాలా దగ్గర సంబంధం ఉంటుంది. ఎవరైనా తేనెను దొంగిలించడానికి వస్తే, అవి వాటి శరీరంలోని  ప్రమాదకరమైన ముల్లుతో    దాడి చేస్తాయి. ఆ ముల్లుతో పాటుగా వాటి కడుపు కూడా దాడి చేయబడ్డ శరీరంలో ఉండిపోయి, ఆ ఆడ కార్మికులు కూడా చనిపోతాయి. అయితే, అక్కడ చనిపోయిన తేనెటీగలను పరిశీలిస్తే వాటి ముల్లు కూడా పోలేదు. మరిన్ని విషయాలు తెలుసుకోవడానికి డబ్బా చుట్టూ గమనించాను. ఒక ఆసక్తికరమైనది   కనుగొన్నాను – అది ముంగిసకి  చెందిన మలం!

ఆ మలం యొక్క  ఆకారం, కొలతలు   మరియు దానిలో ఉన్న వాటిని గమనిస్తే,  అది భారతీయ బూడిద రంగు ముంగిస యొక్క మలం అని గుర్తించాను. ఈ ముంగిస  మలం మన చిటికెన వేలు అంత మందంగా, చిన్న పురుగులు మరియు జంతువుల శరీర భాగాలు కలిగి ఉంటుంది. ఈ పొలం పరిసరాలలో కనిపించే ఈ  ముంగిసే తేనెతుట్టె దగరికి వచ్చి ధ్వంసం చేసిందనే నిర్ధారణకు వచ్చాము. 

చిన్న చిన్న పురుగులు ముంగిసకు ఆహారం. కాబట్టి, తేనెటీగలను తినడానికే ముంగిస  వాటిపై దాడి చేసిందని మేము అనుమానించాము. కానీ మాకు చాలా ప్రశ్నలకు సమాధానం దొరకలేదు. ఒకవేళ ముంగిస   తేనెటీగలను తినడానికి వస్తే, అక్కడ ఉన్న కొన్ని వందల తేనెటీగలను ఎందుకు తినకుండా వెళ్ళిపోయింది? తేనెతుట్టెను ఎందుకు నాశనం చేసింది? చెత్త డబ్బా చుట్టూ తేనెపట్టు విరిగిన ముక్కలు ఎందుకు కనిపించలేదు? ఈ ప్రశ్నలకు జవాబులు కనుక్కోవాలని మాకు   ఆతృతగా అనిపించింది. 

ముంగిస తినే ఆహారంపై కొంత పరిశోధన చేయడం కోసం మేము పుస్తకాలు మరియు ఇంటర్నెట్ వెతికాము.  ముంగిసలు పక్షులు, చిన్న చిన్న ఎలుకలు, పురుగులు, పాములు, బల్లులు మరియు పండ్లను తింటాయని మేము తెలుసుకున్నాము. కొన్ని అధ్యయనాల్లో  ముంగిసలు తేనెటీగలను కూడా తింటాయని తేలింది. కానీ తేనెతట్టుకి సంబంధించిన ప్రశ్నలకు సమాధానం దొరకక, మేము తలలు పట్టుకున్నాము.  అలా ఆలోచిస్తుండగా మాకు ఒక ఆలోచన తట్టింది! ముంగిస తేనె తినడానికి డబ్బా దగ్గరికి వచ్చి ఉంటుంది. అది తేనె తినే  క్రమంలో తేనెతుట్టెను తన్ని ఉంటుంది, దీంతో ఆడ తేనెటీగలు  ముంగిస మీద దాడి చేసి ఉండవచ్చు. భారతీయ ముంగిస యొక్క మందమైన గట్టి బొచ్చు, దాన్ని విషపూరితమైన పాము కాటు నుంచి కూడా కాపాడుతుందని ప్రసిద్ది. కాబట్టి   ముంగిసను కుట్టడానికి తీవ్రంగా ప్రయత్నిస్తూ, తేనెటీగలు అలసటతో చనిపోయి ఉండవచ్చు అని ఊహించాము. 

ఈ విధంగా చనిపోయిన తేనెటీగల రహస్యాన్ని మేము పరిష్కరించాము! కానీ శాస్త్రవేత్తలు ముంగిస తినే ఆహారంలో, తేనెను ఎందుకు చెప్పలేదని మీరు అడగవచ్చు! మలంలో  తేనె కనిపించకపోవడమే దీనికి కారణం.  

సైన్స్‌లో ఒక సమాధానం తరచుగా మరొక ప్రశ్నకు దారి తీస్తూ ఉంటుంది. ఇప్పుడు మాకు ఇంకో ప్రశ్న వచ్చింది – ముంగీసకు తియ్యటి పదార్థాలంటే ఇష్టమా అని. మరి మీలో ఏ ప్రకృతి పరిశోధకురాలు/ పరిశోధకుడు ఈ ప్రశ్నకు సమాధానం వెతుకుతారు?

ప్రకృతితో సత్సంబంధాలను పెంచుకొనుట

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ప్రకృతితో మంచి సంబంధం అనేది మీరు పల్లెలో ఉన్నా, పట్నంలో ఉన్నా, అడవి మధ్యలో ఉన్నా, సముద్రతీరాన ఉన్నా, మీకు ఇప్పటికే సత్సంబంధం ఉన్నా కూడా ఇంకా పెంపొందించుకోవచ్చు. మీ చుట్టూ ఉండే ప్రదేశాలు, ప్రాణులు, వాటి చేష్టలను గురించి ఆలోచించడానికి ఈ క్రింది ప్రశ్నలు మిమ్మల్ని  ప్రోత్సహిస్తాయి. మనకు అలవాటై ఇవి సహజమే అనిపించవచ్చు కానీ, కొంత ఆలోచిస్తే ఇవి నమ్మశక్యం కానివి అని తెలుస్తుంది. ఈ క్రింది ప్రశ్నలకు సమాధానాలు మీరు మాటల్లో చెప్పవచ్చు లేకుంటే బొమ్మలు దించడం, ఏదైనా పదార్థంతో రూపం తయారుచేయడం వంటి ఆసక్తికరమైన పద్దతుల్లో కూడా తెలపవచ్చు..

  1. మీకు ఇష్టమైన ప్రాణి ఏది? 

(మనుషులు కాని, మీరు పెంచుకొనే జంతువులు కాకుండా మరేదైనా చెప్పండి. ప్రకృతిలో మీకు కనిపించే జంతువులు, మొక్కలు, సూక్ష్మజీవులు, క్రిములు ఏవైనా అవ్వచ్చు.)

  1. ఆ ప్రాణి అంటే మీకు ఎందుకు ఇష్టం? 

(దాని గురించి ఒక ఆసక్తికరమైన విషయాన్ని తెలియజేయండి. మీకు తెలియకపోతే, తెలుసుకొనే ప్రయత్నం చేయండి.)

  1. ఏ ప్రాణి మీ జీవితం మీద అతి పెద్ద ప్రభావం చూపించింది?

(మీకు సమాధానం ఇవ్వడం కష్టమైతే, మీ రోజువారీ జీవితంలోని ఈ క్రింది అంశాల్లో ఆ ప్రాణి ప్రభావితం చేసి ఉంటుంది – ఆహారం/ వైద్యం/ పని సులభతరం చేయడం/ వస్తువులు తయారుచేయడం/ మీ పరిసరాలను పరిశుభ్రంగా ఉంచడం)  

  1. ఈ ప్రాణి లేకపోతే మీ జీవితంలో జరిగే మార్పు ఏమిటి?
  1. ఏ ప్రాణి మీద మనుషులు చాలా పెద్ద ప్రభావం చూపించారు?

       (మీకు వన్యప్రాణులతో ఉన్న సంబంధం, లేక మనుషులు చేసే పనుల గురించి అలోచించే ప్రయత్నం చేయండి.)

  1. చాలా రకాల ప్రాణుల్ని ఒకే చోట లేక ఒకే సమయంలో మనుషులు ప్రభావితం చేసిన సందర్భాలు ఏమైనా ఉన్నాయా?
  1. మనుషులు ఇతర ప్రాణులపై మంచిగా లేదా చెడుగా ప్రభావితం చేస్తున్నారని మీరు అనుకుంటున్నారా?
  1. ప్రకృతిని ఆస్వాదించడానికి, మీకు ఇష్టమైన ప్రదేశమేది?

       (ఈ ప్రదేశం చిన్నదైనా, పెద్దదైనా, దగ్గరిదైనా, దూరమైనా కావచ్చు. ఒక వేళ అలాంటివి లేకపోతే మీ ఇంట్లో కిటికీల్లో నుండి కాసేపు చూసి, ఎక్కడ ఎక్కువ మొక్కలు, పక్షులు, పురుగులు మొదలైన ప్రాణులు కనిపిస్తున్నాయో గమనించండి.) 

  1. మీరు ఎంచుకున్న ప్రదేశంలో ఏది ప్రత్యేకంగా కనబడుతోంది?

       (ఎలాంటి ప్రాణులు కనిపిస్తున్నాయి? అవి ఎలాంటి ఆసక్తికరమైన పనులు చేస్తున్నాయి?)

  1. ఏ ప్రదేశాన్నైనా, ప్రకృతిని ఆస్వాదించేందుకు వీలుగా ఉండేందుకు మీరేమి చేయగలరు?