Indian Wildlife Club Forum

There has been a drastic increase in human-wildlife conflicts with the animals attacking farms/agriculture land/villages in search of food. Due to this, a lot of farmers are distress as they face huge economic losses because of the destruction of their farm and crops. But I would like to specifically write about elephants here today.

Elephants are afraid of different predators like lions, bees, chilly plants, etc.

1. Elephants are afraid of bees: According to Oxford University, the largest animal on land is so terrified of a tiny insect that it will flap its ears, stir up dust and make noises when it hears the buzz sound. The findings are surprising because elephant skin was thought to be so thick that bee stings do not make any impression.

      In the African forest, they were using real bees to deter away elephants. They are storing all bees in a chemical container tube that will harm bees.

2.Afraid of Mice: Theories abound that elephants are afraid of mice because the tiny creatures nibble on their feet or can climb up into their trunks.

3.   Afraid of a lion: They are afraid of the lion alarm sound.

4.   Chilly plants: Chili has the same effect when mixed with oil and smeared on strings or rugs hung on garden edges. Chilies also repel elephants when planted in or around gardens so farmers reap more to reduced attacks from elephants and also sell the chili to diversify their income.

5. Solar fencing: When an object or animal touches the fence, the electric circuit is completed by connecting to the ground, resulting in a short electric shock, which passes through the object or animal. The solar fencing system is popular and sought a system for protecting premises for Agriculture, Security or High-security applications. The requirement of Solar fencing, (which is also called as Power fencing) with Solar backup.

6.     Message alert System: Whenever the elephant crosses through the sensory device that is placed on the farm. That device sends an alert message to the owner after which the owner will either arrive and secure his farm or move away from harm’s place.

The above method can be used to deter away from the elephant from the agricultural land. But most of them involve manual efforts that are invasive in nature. Apart from the above, we can use technological products for the elephants that can deter them away and noninvasive in nature.

a.  Flashing of lights: The elephants have pretty sensitive rods as well (the higher density of rods in the retina, the more sensitive to light one can be), so elephants do a good job when it comes to night vision compared to humans.

     The eyesight of an elephant is not as far-reaching as a human’s eyesight but its sense of smell is unparalleled. Elephants are color-blind compared to humans. In daylight, elephants are dichromic; meaning they have two kinds of color sensors in their retina: one type of cone for reds and another for green. Humans have three kinds of cones: Red, Blue, and Green referred to as tri chromic.

b.  Buzzing bee audio sound: we can use sounds of bees to deter away from the elephants from the agricultural land.

Parabraksh is one of a kind solar-powered autonomous flashing light system, that is conceptualized and made in India. The product is environmentally friendly and it has dual charging mechanism solar and MicroUSB charging with an indicator LED lights. 

Please contact us at info@katidhan.com for more information or reach us on the following links.

https://katidhan.com/

https://www.facebook.com/katidhan/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/katidhan/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTv9k4aiKT8Onv2JJ-iSsZA

Shaleen Attre is currently pursuing an MSc in Conservation and International Wildlife Trade at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at University of Kent in Canterbury, UK.  Hear her talk about the complex nature of elephant conservation in India.

The specter of this gentle animal turning into a threat to humans needs to be taken seriously by conservationists. Wildlife Research and Conservation Society(WRCS) of Pune has been doing some work at grass roots to mitigate this issue. Read about this at

http://indianwildlifeclub.com/ezine/view/details.aspx?cid=25&m=6&y=2016

http://indianwildlifeclub.com/ezine/view/details.aspx?aid=1186

See the short film at

https://youtu.be/Z08hNz-Puok

• Do not cross the path between a mother and her infant
• Do  not irritate or tease monkeys.   Leave them alone and they will leave you alone.
• Be light footed while passing through a monkey group i.e. do not run.
• Do not go near a dead or wounded monkey.
• Do not feed monkeys.  If anybody found feeding monkeys, necessary legal action shall be initiated.
• In case a monkey collides with your vehicle,(two wheelers especially) do not stop there.
• Do not get scared if a monkey makes a'Kho-Kho' noise as normally it is a bluff.  Ignore the monkey and walk away calmly.
• Do not ever hit any monkey.   Keep hitting the ground with a big stick to make monkeys leave your house or garden.
• Presence of big dogs in premises makes monkeys leave the area.
• Monkeys are scared of snakes.  Keep real looking plastic snakes at roof tops or boundary wall of your house. 
• Loud noise, bursting of crackers or their sound track will force monkeys to keave any premises. 
• If a monkey tries to touch you, gently put an object or board firmly between you and monkey.Do not make direct eye contact with monkeys

In this blog its about the Blackbucks (a species of antilopes) in and around the Koppal district of Karnataka, the place where I hail from.

A Blackbuck in dry grasses.

    Now these Blackbucks (Antilope cervicapra) are a species of Antilopes native to the Indian sub-continent. These have been classified as endangered by IUCN since 2003. Blackbuck is the only living species of genus Antilope. Today, the blackbuck population is confined to areas in Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, with a few small pockets in central India.

Female ones can be identified without horns.

         There are about a few thousands of blackbucks found in Koppal and Yelburga taluqs(sub-districts) about 15km away from Koppal district. These herd of blackbucks graze in a group of 5 to 20 individuals in the dry grasses near Koppal. Though these are prohibited against hunting and poaching, occasionally these are hunted down for their flesh and skin. The only natural predators of these blackbucks are wolves other than man. The main food of these animals is the leaves of thorny shrub, Prosopis juliflora found abundant through out the district.

         The most of area in which these animals graze is black soil. These herds are found nearby small streams and more often graze into the crops of nearby villagers. The people have found it tough to avoid them from grazing into the fields. There has been a loss of Rs. 1 crore to the farmers in the year 2010. However the farmers do no harm to these antilopes instead they request the Forest Dept. Officials to shift these herbivores to nearby sanctuaries and save their crops.

         However, since there is no or very less forest land in the Koppal district, it is not possible to shift them. Also the blackbucks are sensitive animals and they may die of shock if they are tranquilized and physically shift them to nearby sanctuaries. Since there is no forest land in Koppal district, the department may require around 400-500 acres to set up a blackbuck sanctuary. However there are no plans to setup a sanctuary as it involves a long process like huge funds to buy agriculture land from farmers and taking permission from the state and union governments.

        However the union and state governments are not in a mood to take a positive step.

Leopards straying into in villages nestling along the forest fringes in the State, attacking people and their cattle have become a matter of serious concern.

The killing of a healthy female leopard that had strayed into the small hamlet of Angamoozhy in the Ranni forest division by an unruly mob on Tuesday was the latest in the series of human-leopard conflict in the State.

Three weeks ago, a five-year old boy was fatally dragged by a leopard from the company of his father and brother at Athirappally in Ernakulam district. The boy’s body was found, later, in the surrounding area and the leopard was not traced.

In another tragic incident, a four-year old boy was killed by a leopard on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border in Idukki district a year ago.

Killing of a Tiger by the villagers was also reported from the Munnar Forest division when the animal attacked a woman worker a year ago.

As many as four leopards were fatally trapped by humans in Idukki in 2011, according to Mr M.N. Jayachandran, secretary of Society for Prevention of Cruelty Against Animals in Idukki.

Animal-lovers’ concern

Tuesday’s killing of a female leopard had evoked concern and criticism from animal-lovers across the State.

The ferocious animal that had killed two domesticated dogs in the village went into hiding in the bushes adjoining a rubber plantation closeby a school. The entire village, including the local panchayat president and a former District Panchayat member, thronged the spot.

The animal that came out after a five-hour wait inside the bush was more or less overpowered by a man from Kollam, Kuttan alias Vettu Kuttan, who claimed to be an expert in trapping of leopards. However the leopard was suffocated to death when 50 to 100 enthusiastic people swooped on the animal, thrusted their weight on it, plugging its mouth and nostrils, later, leaving the nearly 50 Forest department and Police personnel mere mute spectators of the tragic episode.

The violent mob even blocked the vehicle of the Divisional Forest Officer, R. Kamalahar, and other Forest personnel, when he had directed the Range Officer to register case in connection with the killing of the wild animal.

A local granite quarry group had even granted Rs 50,000 to Vettu Kuttan and another group from Ernakulam had announced cash worth Rs 1 lakh to him in recognition of his ‘valour’, later.

Mr M.S. Rajendran, former District Panchayat member, told The Hindu that incidents of leopards attacking cattle and people were on the rise in Angamoozhy, Seethathode and Chittar villages. The local people were left with little option other than taking their own measures for protecting themselves from the wild animal attacks as the Forest department failed to ensure their safety, he said.

Dr Gopakumar, veterinary surgeon, said the leopard was a healthy one and the death was due to suffocation.

A tiny piece of information regarding snakes by Pooja Shah in the July issue of care4nature(E-magzine) inspired me to share some more myths on snakes in rural Rajasthan which I think to an extent justify to science and rurals as well.

Myths, may it be on anything, are never false but they are always time proven general observations around people & followed by the justifications of the innocent brains or sometimes created by shrewd quacks. Snakes!!! after God unfortunately crowns the maximum number of myths amongst all immortals and living things,  in my last 18 Yrs. of   resquing, releasing & general social working on reptiles I came across many situations for example a road side welder once called me on the site & I saw a rare behavior of a cobra, the welder and the labour around refused to work cos a cobra used to surface a few minutes after the welder would start welding in the underground pipeline, I was unable to help at that time but now I think I know the reason, Infact the Arc welding rod leaves a long trail of red hot metal behind it, snakes depend upon their Thermal vision for food & the hot trail of metal must be giving an illusion of a smaller snake or  amillipede or   may be some other insect in the snakes menue. 

Similar is the reason behind a common misbelief that the Ratsnake (Dhaman) suckles milk from the cow’s nipples& people are not lying when they say they have seen this, in fact this is another illusion of the thermal vision, the ratsnake confuses the nipple for a live rat & holds around it looking for the head of the rat as all reptiles eat their prey from the head first, the moment it realizes that its not a rat it simply leaves it, but why ratsnakes only do this? this is so as ratsnakes have a great ability to lift their bodies very high in comparison to the rest.

It is most commonly believed that snake charmers remove the teeth of the cobra as protectection, but snake charmers or beggers to be precise are far more cruel than simple Defanging, The heart touching fact is that the helpless cobra’shead is laid inverted on an upside down mud pot and then using a shaving blade an H shaped incision is made inside the mouth over the venom duct to expose it, then a small piece of the duct is cut off in order to delink the venom gland and the fangs, turmeric powder is then applied as a disinfectant. Even if thecobra survives the trauma the results of this barefoot surgery are sad as the snake is unable to eat on its own and neither can it digest the force fed egg or minced meat, nothing on earth can stop the snake from dying due to starvation& in addition to this snake charmers stop giving water to their snakes months before the Naga festivals cos the snake has to perform in public the act of drinking milk while the starved reptile is actually drinking milk to satisfy the quench of water as it has no other options.

 Well! Placing myths and the facts behind is endless, it is required that we wildlifers start sharing the responsibility to generate awareness to protect this innocent reptile, there are very simple things we can do like stop entertaining charmers on streets and ask others to follow, efforts are to be made by coordinating with NGOs dealing with beggers& ask them to add charmers in their targets & to help snake charmers find alternate means of living.

 It is not a good idea to call a snake charmer or a local wildlife activist involved in snake resquing (like me) if in case a snake enters the house as the snake charmer will kill the cobra & if it some other snake apart cobra he will simply leave it next doors cos he will never bother to find the right place to release, where as the local wildlife activist is likely to release it in some forest adding to food pressure on regular basis, any how removing the snake or killing it is never a solution as a new snake will take its place uptill the food source (rat, frogs, insects, lizards, bird nests) is not removed so it is always better to shift the snake outside the house and explain to people the facts of their  food chain and easy availability.

 It is indeed very difficult to explain this to most of the people around because of the myths and fears but that is where we conservationists are required in the society. This reminds me of an instance where I made a Monitor Lizard (varanusbengalensis) bite my finger in order to explain to the villagers that it is not poisonous and to my surprise they started making fun of me saying ”We know you are not gonna die as you catch snakes, you’ve poison in you but we’ll surely die if this one bites any one of us”  I felt very helpless indeed but continued to work.  Today people of that village are far more aware about snakes than what they were at that time.

 VickrantSaggar

V.saggar@rediffmail.com

09928857151