Since the time the jungle has been calling to us, it has also been revealing her secrets to us, one at a time. It also shows us what we, the people feel when we are outside our comfort zones, and into the wild........
Praveen Bidare, an active pro-wildlife campaigner, and I often sit and muse for hours on any topic that closely resembles wildlife and our thought train often stops at Bandipura and NaagarahoLe. And it sometimes makes us laugh and sometime pains us to watch the proceedings at these places as an observer and not as a participant.
Praveen, especially has a lot to say on the topic. I have tried to put his views, and a little mine, in the following paragraphs.
Get set for a long and preachy blog-post.
On seeing a video on nagaarahole, my colleague remarked, ” All this is bull-shit man. There are no tigers in NaagarahoLe. My friend went to NaagarahoLe safari and he did not see anything except deer. Everything in this video is staged”.
Sowmyajith, another active wildlife activist narrates one of his experiences. “A couple of my friends and I went to a National Park in North India. One of my friends casually asked the guide as to how many tigers existed there. As usual the guide said the estimate was about 60 tigers whence pat came the reply from my friend that since they had only half a day’s time at their disposal, they did not want to see all the 60 tigers, and that they would return happily if the guard showed them just 5 or 6”.
Another incident I would like to share with you is as follows: This happened when trekking was allowed inside Bandipur National Park. A few of my colleagues wanted to visit the place and they asked me whether I would take them there. I readily obliged, as it was an excellent opportunity to spread some awareness on wildlife. At the start of the trek everybody was very eager to see lot of wild animals, and it so happened that there were no wildllife sightings that day. We however came across a lot of elephant dung on our way. One of my friends finally and dramatically remarked that not even a rat existed there, and to attract tourists, the forest department collects dung from zoos and captive elephants and throws them around everywhere in the park!
These are just a few examples that bring forth the kind of myths and misconceptions that we city dwellers have on our national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
I have seen vehicles zipping about at 80 kmph inside Bandipur National Park. Trucks, which, laden with fresh fruit/vegetables/flowers, ply regularly, speed across the stretch of the park to cover their trip from Ootacamund to Bangalore and back in a day.
And then you have the tourists. On seeing elephant or gaur crossing the road, they stop and start clicking with their numerous cameras. Suddenly there are 16 to 30 hands out of the windows of the vehicles and the whole scene looks like an alien spider in the middle of a jungle. Some over-adventurous tourists get off their vehicle to get a closer shot.
Some people are so passionate about animals that they don’t miss a chance to feed deer, langur or other monkeys.
Ironically, when it gets dark is when people reveal their true colours. The vehicle is slow as it approaches the check-post but once it passes the post and goes about 500 meters forward, it picks up speed. Then enter the rock-stars with loud music and liquor inside the car. Once the bottle of mineral bottle is empty, the window screen is carefully lowered and the bottle is thrown out. There are some of us who are curious to spot wildlife and keep driving inside the park on the highway repeatedly, and on occasional sighting of a big cat crossing the road, steer their vehicle towards the animal with full beam. Normally cars carrying families (please note that the general conception with the police and forest department during checks is that if there are ladies in a vehicle it’s a family) stop at any shady patch and people get down from the vehicle. They wander about collecting Leaves or anything that they think is interesting. Some groups professionally arrange a community food service with 10 to 20 people sitting in a row or a circle and a couple of them serving food to the rest. Some groups even set up a kitchen and cook food while the rest loiter around!
The whole scenario gets worse during the holiday season. Surveys have revealed that there is at least one vehicle passing a point inside the national park every 15 seconds at the peak of holiday season.
The outcome of this entire careless human attitude is that it changes the animal behavior. Its movement inside the park is severely restricted and the prey-predator balance is turned topsy-turvy as our actions benefit one species while the other has to struggle to survive.
And then there is the magnitude of pollution we create inside the sanctum. We fail to realize that it is a natural ecosystem that is totally and entirely different from our urban settings. For example there is no rag picker paid by the government to pick up trash that builds up inside the park.
Monkeys and deer have become habituated to approaching humans for food in the Bandipur tourist reception area and have lost the natural fear of humans, and this in turns aids poachers. In other words, by feeding the wild animals we are actually helping the poachers who will not think twice before killing a friendly animal!
Some animals get holed up in one stretch of the park for long because of the stopping vehicles and people having picnic, and invariably get exposed to predators or other dangerous forces. A lot of animals desperate to cross the road by negotiating the traffic get killed and run over. The situation gets worse when there are calves. The calves find it a lot tougher to cross over and many times get run over or get separated from the herd. The high beam used at night inside the park blind the animals increasing the chances of them getting run over.
I have encountered dead wild boar or deer or langur during most of my visits to the Bandipur National Park.
These beautiful animals that thronged in thousands in our forests have been reduced to mere hundreds now. This is nothing but unnatural behavior! All these human induced behavioral changes will tilt the balance further against these forest dwellers, bearing an adverse effect on these shy and secretive creatures. The direct effect of this is that it aids in the further shrinking of forest cover.
Courtesy : http://happymonkeyplanet.com/WordPress/?m=200809
We have spoken enough about ill effects on animals. Let us consider a little on what humans face inside the national park.
It is extremely dangerous to play music, over-speeding, stopping and getting off the vehicle, and trust me, a lot of lucky people will tell you the same (lucky not to have spotted animals, but lucky to have survived, that is…..). In an urge to get a super-sighting or a picture-perfect photograph, going close to animals means exposing yourself to imminent danger because you nobody can predict how the animal will react to your “advances”.
Anything out of ordinary will arouse animal’s curiosity, irritate or enrage it. Brilliant Blue, Ujala White or Ferrari Red might please your companion, but certainly not an angry matriarch elephant. And the plesant whiff of the strong perfume will do the same too.
Man is far cleverer than any of the inhabitants of the forest, but unlike them, he cannot let them leave them in peace. If you want to see how intolerant, careless and irresponsible a man can be towards himself and the world at large, take him to a forest. Sadly, the prevalent feeling in most of us is that the nature, the forest, and the wild animals are only for our pleasure and entertainment, something, which though nice to have, is not a necessity. This kind of feeling is sad, but it is true that we feel so.
It is a very healthy and wonderful hobby of wanting to know more about wildlife. But to all beginners, here’s a word of caution. Go with realistic expectations lest you lose interest because you did not find what you expected to see! We might have our last zoo visit in our mind when we start off, and this premeditation and curiosity overtakes us when we actually sight an animal. Our immediate reaction reduces the sighting to a nanosecond; a lot of you will vouch for this.
Among many of you who have been on a safari might remember that suddenly your neighbor had shouted, “PEACOCK!!!!!” with dramatic hand gestures. You had whipped around, only to see an innocent Teak tree. The peacock had vanished! You wondered whether there really was a peacock. After more such incidents when the Safari ended, you had vented your ire saying there are no animals in the forest except deer, langur and tame elephants.
A lot of us need to realize that a zoo and a national park are two different worlds all together - a zoo is set up mainly for safe public viewing of animals, with a much smaller area and the animals are caged or extremely tame, and used to humans, where as national parks are natural free open spaces without a cage or fence, there is no tab on animal movement.
And if you really want to see animals in their own habitat and behavior, without being a danger to the animal or yourself, a few small pointers can be kept in mind while visiting a national park.
·Always wear dull or earthly colours – dark green, light brown etc.
·Never use strong smelling cosmetics, soaps or perfumes
·Stay calm if an animal sighting occurs and never shout or make sudden movements.
Remember, everyone else in the jeep is equally vigilant and would have seen the animal too.
Many of us come back from these visits with an idea that not many animals live in the forests. But trained eyes can sights lots of wildlife like mongoose, rare birds, reptile life and the ever-agile animals.
There is no way one will see big cats during every visit to the jungle.
Sighting animals in open forest or in safari is a matter of luck, skill and patience to a certain extent.
These are but a few points for a successful stay in a national park or a wildlife sanctuary. Let us practise them and dive into understanding, as Jim Corbett says, the Book of Nature.
