PROTECTED AREA UPDATE

News and Information from protected areas in India and South Asia

Vol. XIV No. 1
February 2008 (No. 71)


LIST OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
Securing corridors…Snapping corridors!
NEWS FROM INDIAN STATES
ANDHRA PRADESH
-Blackbucks feared poisoned near Rollapadu WLS
-Area of Nagarjunasagar – Srisailam TR reduced by over 1000 sq. kms
ASSAM
-Domestic elephants to deal with wild elephant depredation
-Bridge over rail line in Gibbon WLS
-Tiger death in tea estate bordering Kaziranga; management proposes acquiring part of estate
-Increase in Swamp Deer population in Kaziranga
BIHAR
-Large scale fish deaths near Vikramshila Dolphin Sanctuary
JAMMU & KASHMIR
-118 fire incidents in PAs in last three years
-Siltation threat to Hokresar
KARNATAKA
-Dog squad to fight wildlife crime
-Opposition to wall inside Ranganathittu WLS
-NGO initiative secures elephant corridor connecting BRT Wildlife Sanctuary
-Soliga tribals to be allowed to remove NTFP from the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary
-Deer to be translocated from Mysore zoo to Bandipur NP
-Illegal road construction work inside Jayamangali Conservation Reserve
KERALA
- Elephants move to TN forests with onset of Sabarimala season
- Cameras to monitor tigers in Periyar TR
MADHYA PRADESH
-Meeting of Madhya Pradesh Tiger Foundation
-New entry rules for NPs in MP
MAHARASHTRA
-Construction of wall around SG National Park to be speeded up
-Minister visits Tadoba TR after midnight in violation of rules
ORISSA
-Bird census conducted in Chilka
-Bhitarkanika closed for tourists for annual census
-DRDO link for turtle protection units; mass turtle mortalities reported
-Reduced elephant menace around Chandaka-Dampara WLS
PUNJAB
-Fresh water dolphins spotted in Harike
RAJASTHAN
-Rajasthan to get Museum of Natural History
-12 tiger cubs born in Ranthambore NP in last two years
-Keoladeo NP could lose UNESCO world heritage status
UTTARAKHAND
-Poaching alert in Corbett NP for New Year eve
WEST BENGAL
-Tigress in Sunderbans radio-collared
-12 tigers in Buxa TR
-Food problem for increasing rhino population in Jaldapara WLS
-MoEF proposal to deal with elephant deaths in train accidents in North Bengal
NATIONAL NEWS FROM INDIA
-Traffic to be monitored in tiger reserves to avoid animal mortality
-273 villages to be relocated from tiger reserves
-Wildlife Service Awards 2007
SOUTH ASIA
BHUTAN
-Workshop to develop National strategy on human-wildlife conflict
PAKISTAN
-Five year Houbara Bustard conservation project
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
-South East Asian Workshop on CCAs
OPPORTUNITIES
-Research Associate: Forest Fire Management
-Wildlife Conservation Society Invites Applications for its RFP
-Research project on management and use of biodiversity in the North East
-Work with CAT in the Mumbai Metropolitan region
UPCOMING
-International Seminar on PA Management
-ButterflyIndia Meet 2008
-Asian Wetlands Symposium 2008
-Conference of the ATBC - Asia Pacific Chapter

-CRITICAL TIGER HABITATS & CRITICAL WILDLIFE HABITATS: A STATUS REPORT
-READERS WRITE


EDITORIAL

SECURING CORRIDORS...SNAPPING CORRIDORS!

An interesting set of ‘infrastructure’ is to come up in protected areas in different parts of the country. These are bridges for wildlife, physical constructions that will allow wild animal movement along traditional routes. Conventional flyovers have been proposed on roads running through the Rajaji and Manas National Parks (PA Update Vol. XIII, No. 5) for vehicles to move over and allow animals to cross under. In the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary, on the other hand, custom made steel bridges, designed like trees are to come up for gibbons to cross over a rail line running through their forest (see story below). In another, first of its kind initiative in the country, a group of NGOs is actually purchasing land that constitutes corridors between significant forest areas (see stories from Karnataka in this issue of the PA Update). The move is ensured at permanently securing these small ‘patches’ of forests so that these vital but tenuous connections are not broken.
While there might be questions about the implementation of the bridge construction plans or the widespread and long term financial and logistical viability of purchasing corridors (how many can be bought and where will the money come from?), there can be no denying their importance. These initiatives are also clear pointers towards the realization that corridors are absolutely crucial in a landscape that is being ruthlessly fragmented, where wildlife habitats are rapidly shrinking and protected areas are left only as islands in a sea of hostility all around. They are the symptoms of a larger problem where there is no vision or planning for the larger landscape and where attempts at securing corridors for wildlife like those discussed above are savagely out numbered by the magnitude and scale of the snapping of existing corridors.
Mining projects like in Orissa, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh; dam building like in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh; road, railway line & canal construction, and destruction of the forests by encroachers all over are rapidly cutting off channels for wild animal movement. The results are evident: rapidly escalating elephant depredation like in Orissa; increased animal deaths in road accidents and on railway lines like in North Bengal and growing hostility of local people as they suffer even more damage to life and property from the ‘straying’ animals. An equally important but little studied dimension is the slow but visible breakdown of the traditional pastoral and agricultural practices. Agricultural systems, in particular, used to be far more tolerant but are becoming increasingly unfriendly to wildlife as they get rapidly commercialized and intensified.
There is, without doubt, a serious and urgent need to go to the root of the problem. Corridors for human movement like the road and rail networks need to be planned (or even stopped or removed when necessary) to ensure that wildlife corridors are not snapped; a larger picture of the landscape (the oft repeated landscape planning) and the needs of wildlife have to be kept in mind; local communities need to be taken into confidence and made part of the conservation agenda; and hugely destructive activities involving construction of ports, dams, mines and industrial complexes that go under the name of developmental projects need to be reigned in.
All we could end up with, otherwise, is another huge cement, concrete and steel construction binge in the name of wildlife. There will be many bridges but all useless, because nothing will be left on either side to bridge.

PROTECTED AREA UPDATE
Vol. XIV, No. 1, February 2008 (No. 71)
Editor: Pankaj Sekhsaria
Illustrations: Madhuvanti Anantharajan
Produced by: Kalpavriksh
Ideas, comments, news and information may please be sent to the editorial address:
KALPAVRIKSH, Apartment 5, Shri Dutta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004, Maharashtra, India. Tel/Fax: 020 – 25654239.
Email: psekhsaria@gmail.com
Website: www.kalpavriksh.org
Production of PA Update 71 has been supported by Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Anand.

Like tigers, good news coverage too these days is a rare sight

New Delhi, March 3: The alarmingly dwindling number of tigers in India as brought out by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) could evoke an average coverage of only 376 words across the national media, according to a study by Newswatch, an independent online entity which monitors, collates and documents news and information pertaining to the news media and journalism.
The Newswatch (http://www.newswatch.in/) probe, which tracked 30 news sources across the Indian media, also looked specifically at the front pages of ten editions of eight newspapers that the launch of the report ‘Status of tigers, co-predators and prey in India: 2008’ generated. Revelation: only three featured the story as its lead; in one it was the second lead but prominently displayed. “This study is not meant to debate whether the dip in tiger numbers is a newsworthy and significant issue. That it is indeed so, is an incontrovertible truth,” said the Newswatch editor, Subir Ghosh.
“The stories,” the probe found,
“did not devote too many words to the news. The mean word count was 376.13. Almost one-third failed to mention where the tiger census report was unveiled. The report was a joint publication of NTCA and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). But, just six said so. Only four of the 25 that quoted R Gopal referred to him correctly as member secretary NTCA. The rest got it wrong.”
The NTCA/WII survey had an error coefficient of 17.43 per cent. The number of tigers could vary from 1,165 to 1,657. This aspect was significant, but was rendered insignificant by half the publications tracked. Counting was not carried out in three tiger reserves. This fact was statistically important, but more than half the stories ignored this point. The NTCA/WII report talked of three primary causes for the alarming tiger number decline; close to one-fourth missed out on this point as well.
The Newswatch study, Tail tell tales, has been published under the slug ‘Contentious’, which would be a series of reports that would be content analysis accounts of the news media. For the complete PDF version, go to: http://www.newswatch.in/research/262/
This study was conducted over a six-day period starting the day of the report launch. It was meant to be a qualitative analysis, not a quantitative one. The idea was to look at the way the news media covered the issue, and not to quantify the exact number of publications that did a story.

The tracking of stories was done by browsing through the websites of news establishments as well as monitoring stories through Google News. In all, 30 stories were selected to be analysed for the ‘breaking news’ category. The ‘breaking news’ in this case is not the same as that in a live medium like television, radio or the Internet. In the Newswatch studies, ‘breaking news’ is the first story of an incident —in this case, the launch of the report by NTCA on February 12, 2008.

Over 200 stories were identified in the first round. Over two-thirds of these were rejected for being duplicates — these had their origins in agency creeds. Initially, a five-day period was chosen. But since newspapers needed to be given a day’s leeway, the study had to look at stories that were published between February 12 and 17, 2008. There was also a need to see how the news-break was being followed by different publications. In the five-day follow-up period, only 36 news items could be tracked down across the publications monitored.

The stories selected for the analysis were coded on basis of over 20 parameters. Each of these data entries were subsequently cross-checked by two other persons to avoid errors of omission and commission. There is but one shortcoming in the study — it looks only at the English language media. This was done, or not done, only because of logistical drawbacks —lack of adequate financial resources.


Details of the report:
Pages: 4
Format: PDF
Colour: All-colour
Price: Free
Size: 1 MB
For more information contact:
Subir Ghosh, Editor-Publisher, Newswatch
Tel: 0-9811316305
Email: newswatchindia@gmail.com
Website: http://www.newswatch.in/
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Migrant Watch - First Arrival results

Citizen Science initiative tracks arrival of migratory birds

Press Note: 25 Feb 2008 Volunteers from across the country have banded together to contribute information on the timing of bird migration into India. Individual citizens from places scattered as far between as Pattanur in Kerala, Guda Bishnoian in Rajasthan, and Gangtok in Sikkim have been sending information on the dates on which they first observed a specific set of migratory birds arrive into their areas. This effort, called MigrantWatch, is coordinated by Indian Birds journal and the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore. Pooled together, the contributions of more than 150 participants show the arrival of winter migrants from the North, and their spread through the country. Among the findings: Wood Sandpiper, Barn Swallow and Rosy Starling are among the earliest winter migrants to arrive in India (first records in mid-late July), with the first two species spreading quickly south, and Rosy Starling taking considerable time to reach the southern tip of India. Later arrivals into India include Black Redstart (mid August), Greenish Warbler (late August) and Northern Shoveler (early September). This forms valuable baseline information, from which changes in migration timing in coming years can be assessed (such changes are expected to accompany global climate change). These results will be published in the forthcoming issue of Indian Birds journal. A map and a figure illustrating the arrival of Rosy Starlings into India accompany this press note. The entire dataset is available for free download from the MigrantWatch website. Now the challenge is to record departure dates, as migrant birds return from India to their breeding grounds in the North. For this, volunteers are asked to maintain regular (daily or weekly) records of whether or not they see the nine species. As the weeks pass, it will then be possible to assess the dates of departure of these birds. MigrantWatch is calling for volunteers from any part of the country to participate in this unique and important activity. Please visit the MigrantWatch website for more information or email MigrantWatch(at)ncbs.res.in

Links: - Further description of results http://www.ncbs.res.in/citsci/migrantwatch/results2007.html - MigrantWatch home page Downloads: - This press note plus additional details about MigrantWatch plus high-resolution figures for publication (zip file, 1.6MB).

Andhra Handlooms in New Delhi

Great Andamanese in Port Blair

Will this be the fate of all the indigenous communities of these islands?

Great Andamanese begging in Premnagar, Port Blair.

Photo by Zubair Ahmed, The Light of Andamans.
Contact: zubairpbl@gmail.com

Continuing gharial deaths

Monday, February 4, 2008
http://madrascrocbank.blogspot.com/2008/02/continuing-gharial-deaths.html

More information filtering in from the Etawah base camp of River Watch (a GCA-WWF-India initiative):

Death toll: 95

Available evidence is consistent that it was a single event that caused this die-off of gharial and not a continuing one. Meaning something happened probably months before the first week of Dec that continues to kill gharial, although at a decreasing rate now. There is no indication of infectious disease. So the focus now rests on toxins. It causes the kidney to malfunction resulting in a lethal build up of uric acid in all the joints of the body, a condition known as gout. It is so painful that the animals are unable to move – they cannot even haul themselves out of the water to bask during a time of record low temperatures. Dead animals were covered with algae, a sign that they had not left the water for some time. Members of the team say it is really sad to watch the dying animals as they roll in the water, seemingly unable to float the right way up.

The Chambal flows into the Yamuna most of the year. However, during the monsoon, the Yamuna flows into the Chambal for several kilometres. The toxic poisoning of the relatively clean Chambal could have very well occurred then. A recent colliform count for the Chambal was 21 while that of the Yamuna was 14,000! There was a fish die-off within the last 2 days in the Yamuna.

Along side these indications, there seems to be an enormous ecological upheaval in the making. Tilapia, an invasive fish from Africa, seems to be making visible inroads into the Chambal from the Yamuna. The implications for the fish predators of the Chambal is unknown.

The dead gharial found yesterday was unusual in having no fat deposits and appeared to have not fed for a long time.

Four gharial of the same size class as the dead gharial were captured yesterday in the Ajab Singh Kheda stretch of the Chambal River for detailed veterinary examination.

Over the next few days histopathological reports are expected.

Agencies and Institutes actively collaborating on this:

Forest Departments of UP and MP
Jiwaji University
River Watch (GCA-WWF-India)
Wildlife SOS
IUCN/CSG
IVRI
ITRC
Madras Crocodile Bank/Centre for Herpetology

Crocodile tears

Monday , February 04, 2008 at 22 : 59

http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/bijoyvenugopal/1226/50088/crocodile-tears.html

Curious how the stuff of Animal Planet becomes a mainstream media issue and everyone in the animal kingdom a spokesperson for it.

First, it was the tiger - when the Sariska poaching incident came up, our friends in the media announced doomsday for the big cat. Sorry, even before that it was the elephant - Veerappan and his ivory oligarchy won Jumbo a number of page-one anchors.

And then we forgot about them.

Now, because tigers are so last year and elephants scarcely a blip on the radar, media melancholia has shifted to the knob-nosed, fish-eating crocodilian we know as the Gharial. Before we wait to find out what's behind the mysterious gharial deaths in the National Chambal River Sanctuary, we already have hyper-informed, scoop-hungry television anchors beating their chests in public and writing the ancient reptile's epitaph.

Before you can say Gavialis gangeticus they have flung a daisy chain of jeremiads upon everyone and everything within the finite radius of their imagination: What is the forest department doing? Why is the chief minister silent? Who killed the gharials?

Generic, irrelevant questions that any J-school undergrad with a fleeting idea of the 5Ws and 1H would ask. Irresponsible questions that can unnecessarily politicize matters and skew popular judgment. And what of the issue itself? Why wait to understand it when you can invent it?

So what's really happening?

The Madras Crocodile Bank - founded by Romulus Whitaker, arguably India's leading reptile expert - has announced that there is evidence that toxins are killing off the gharials. Initially, suspicions of an epidemic were high. But now it appears to be clear that a single instance of poisoning has caused all of the 95 gharial deaths reported thus far.

The good news is there is no indication of an infectious disease. Autopsies reveal gout - uric acid build-up in the joints of the animals. Such evidence points to a case of poisoning (the causes are only being unraveled) and not an epidemic. Note: epidemics, such as avian influenza, are highly contagious and spread rapidly from individual to individual.

Nearly every day, the Madras Crocodile Bank publishes an update on its website, uncovering the events and reporting the findings from autopsies of the dead gharials. Their views are corroborated by a team of leading researchers including Samuel Martin of La Ferme aux Crocodiles, France, the only veterinarian experienced in working with gharials.

The team also reports that, contrary to what the media has to say, the much demonized forest departments of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, responsible for the governance of the National Chambal River Sanctuary, have been proactive.

Now contrast all of this with the balderdash that our friends in the media have had us believe over the last few days. First, as always, there was the frenzy to report the scoop. After that had passed, it was a duel of speculation over the facts. Then the usual TRP-motivated charade of lies, damn lies and statistics. And when that too became passé, they drew inspiration from the subject of their story and shed gallons of crocodile tears.

How much has this contributed to the average person's understanding of the gharial crisis? Join the tips of your index finger and thumb for the answer.

Wildlife reporting is something of a new fad with our media. For the longest time, but for a few newspapers and magazines that devoted glossy photo-features to tigers and elephants, no one covered wildlife in any seriousness. Apart from Tehelka and the Indian Express among mainstream media, Sanctuary magazine continues to make the sole difference in reporting wildlife conservation issues. There are any number of newsletters and online discussion groups that keep the fraternity of wildlife enthusiasts in touch with reality.

But a wildlife crisis with political undertones is yummy media fodder, and it takes no time for an OB van to find its way to the remotest location. Here again, as with our staples of cricket or Bollywood, there are stars and underlings.

Tigers are stars, no matter what the wildlife expert Dr. Ullas Karanth says about the cats making a comeback. Vultures, whose numbers fell nearly 97% due to the effects of the livestock antibiotic Diclofenac, are not. Blackbucks are stars, only because they are linked to the shenanigans of certain road-raging, muscle-bound actors. The Gangetic Dolphin, which is being killed off thanks to careless commercial fishing practices, is not. This list doesn't end here but I shall be merciful to you.

The future course of action in the gharial crisis has to do with controlling the pollution levels in the Yamuna, which meets the relatively pristine Chambal at their confluence. There are also indications of an ecological invasion. Tilapia, a fish introduced from Africa, has multiplied in large numbers in the Chambal, threatening indigenous species on which the gharial and other predators have fed for millennia.

If media must report wildlife crises seriously, it must inevitably consider the facts and chase them down. Yes, it is old-school journalism, but that had more to do with unearthing the truth than just looking good muttering it on TV.

If that sounds like too much hard work, journalists are better off chasing the wildlife of our urban jungles