Posted by
Susan Sharma
on
May 21, 2006
The MOU for starting the canal work to link the Ken and Betwa was signed in August 2005. The canal will originate at the Daudhan Dam and four more dams will be constructed in the Panna National Park. These will submerge a large part of this protected area.
A major flaw of the link is that
" The entire stretch of the canal diverting the waters of Ken will pass through hilly and rocky terrain. The land slopes from south to north and from east to west. All the rivers and underground aquifiers flow in this general direction. The canal will block
this natural flow of water, leading to water logging in the southern par of the region."
Another expert questions the the very purpose of the linkthat it will mitigate floods and droughts.
"Both Ken and Betwa flood at the same time. The Betwa enters the Yamuna upstream of Ken. If the Ken's waters are added to the betwa, there will be regular floods along the section of the Yamuna between Hamirpur and Chilla. Conversely, there will be droughts
immediately downstream to Chilla. The project will not mitigate floods or droughts, it will exacerbate them."
( Excerpts from article" More Development" by Nitya Jacobin The Hindu dated 21 May, 2006)
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Posted by
Susan Sharma
on
May 19, 2006
Former Vice president of the U.S.A Al Gore has produced the documentary
"An Inconvenient Truth" which premiered in May 2006.
"Al Gore strips his presentations of politics, laying out the facts for the audience to draw their own conclusions in a charming, funny and engaging style."
Paramount'd Classics has committed five percent of their domestic theatrical gross for the film with a minimum guarantee of $500,000 to be donated to a new bipartisan climate effort, Alliance for Climate Protection. Alliance for Climate Protection will campaign
to motivate a critical mass of the public and influential constituencies to demand action to cut U.S emissions and to make solving global warming a national political imperative.
More details on
http://www.wildbytes.tv/index.aspx?vid=wnjx6KETmi4
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Posted by
aditya
on
May 14, 2006
As every bird watcher knows morning time is best time for bird watching or evening time.
But any time have You tried What are the activities at afternoon?
Yesterday I went with my friend
Dr. Pramod Bansode[ One of the best bird watchers and Wildlife photographers] to see the afternoon activities. The tremendous heat and initially no activity, which make us feel bored. But since we had expected it, we waited with patience. and as we
know "Sabra ka phal Mitha hoto Hai!" .After Locating one small pond with water which was surrounded by many trees, we took our positions and started observing the birds. In starting there are 2 pairs of Red whiskerd bulbuls in
the water and their water play was going on and suddenly 6
jungle babblers arrived and started playing in water along with them; 1 pair of
Magpie Robins and pair of Common indian
Mynahs joined the water party. A wonderful play of all these birds we were watching on that day. There are other party animals too look Brahminy Skink, Rat snake and One
Common Indian Mangoose. For actual Detail report of this Article mail on
adi_sawant@rediffmail.com
adi_sawant10@yahoo.com
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Posted by
Susan Sharma
on
May 14, 2006
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Posted by
Susan Sharma
on
May 12, 2006
Jason Antony and Ankur Chaturvedi:
I found this extremely interesting article on the website of Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun. Here is an excerpt
---"For example, elephants use their powerful infrasonic calls in long distance communication, which can be monitored from a long distance using infrasonic recorder. Earlier studies reveal that the elephants strongly respond to their conspecific calls playback
even up to 7 km. distance. Till now, surveys of forest elephants have been based on systematic counts of dung. Cornell Laboratory of Bioacoustics, USA, is developing a new technique known as ‘acoustical monitoring system for elephants’ census.Long
distance acoustical monitoring of the elephants not only useful in population estimation but also be used to alert the peoples living on the edges of forests, regarding the movements of elephants."
The full article by Ani Kumar, discussing sounds made by birds and other mammals is available at the link below
http://www.wii.gov.in/publications/newsletter/annual2002/article11.htm
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Posted by
Susan Sharma
on
May 10, 2006
Hi Harshad,
I found this message in yahoo group "Naturepix" which will interest you.
jugal tiwari jugalt2000@yahoo.com wrote: Mount Abu in India is a great place for Reptiles. Atleast 16 species of Snakes are here (I have in my photo collection). The great work of Reptile rescue is being done by
Kiran Chavda, Shailesh patel and the team. This forsten's cat snake is a rarity in Mount Abu. There are only 4-5 rescues from residential areas in 18 years time. They live in pairs, this one was rescued by Shailesh patel from the St. Mary School building.
Jugal Tiwari 09414026156
Message from Yahoo group Naturepix message No. 6606
You can read the message at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepix/messages/6602?viscount=-100
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Posted by
sanjay
on
May 09, 2006
Although dogs do not come into the catagories of wild animal except the dholes, but infact we have more than 38 rare breeds in our country. When I say rare indian breed dogs I do not consider 1947 partition as thin redline; when I define rare indian breed
I take pakistan and burma also into it.
Some rare breeds are rampuri, laholi, rajapallayam, carvani, bully etc. I would love to share my knowledge with all those who are interested in rare indian breed dogs. I myself am trying to save these breeds and I am also looking forward to meet people who
want to come forward and save these breeds. People can contact me at
rampur_hound@yahoo.com
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Posted by
aditya
on
May 06, 2006
Dummerils black headed snake[Sibynophis subpunctatus]
is one of the uncommon snakes in india becuse this snake is very small and mainly found in forest areas; so sighting of this species is very rare. I get this snake specimen during my project on Fauna diversity of Rajmachi one of the hot spot from western
ghat. I study this specimen for 8 months. After studying them i found this snake shows different type of Defence behavior i.e it acts like dead snake when the large predator approaches it; also as soon as it feels predator leave that place it slowly turns
the head and moves with fast speed and starst going under the soil. these and many amazing facts i have studied about this snake.
If you want more details about this snake pls mail on
adi_sawant@rediffmail.com
adi_sawant10@yahoo.com
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Posted by
aditya
on
May 06, 2006
Peb fort near Matheran is a treat for bird watcher and herpetologist. I visited this fort last Sunday. It was a very harsh treck due to summer heat. On peb fort there were many caves some of them are natural and some of them are man made. in these caves
there were many gekos such as
1]Rock geko : Hemidactlylus maculatus.
2]Ground geko: Gekoella sp.
3] Bark geko:hemidactlyus leschenaltii.
We also get some snake Species such as
1] rat snake
2] Indian krait: in cave
3] Indian cobra:
At the base of fort a lot of bird species listed there. I watched 42 species in single treck. special achievement of treck is locating two nests of crested serpent eagle. it was an amazing treck. for more details e mail me on
adi_sawant@rediffmail.com
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Posted by
Harshad V Kulkarni
on
May 04, 2006
One of the beautiful Indian snakes is Forstein's Cat snake. According to the reference in The Book of Indian Reptiles & Amphibians by J.C.Danial(BNHS),this snake is found in forests of western ghats and in Assam.
But last year we found two females of these species with one male too. The sizes were 4'9" ,4'8" and 5'2" respectively.
I hope that this will be a great finding.
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