Indian Wildlife Club Forum

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© Suhas Kumar, 2017

Over the span of just a year there were numerous reports of frequent intrusion of a female tiger and its two cubs into human habitation and twice into the city of Bhopal. These incidents precipitated a meeting of experts and forest officials in the office of the Chief Wildlife Warden on 26.07.2012. Considering the risks to human life as well as to the tigers themselves, I suggested capturing both animals and relocating them to a safe and suitable area in Satpura tiger reserve. The prime concern for suggesting this was to protect the tigers from poachers because Bhopal still is a city of erstwhile nawabs who consider shikar a favourite pastime. This was agreed. Another decision we took was to train the territorial field staff in the identification of signs and evidences of wild animals, surveillance, crime detection and investigation.

As the tigress had a territory extending from Ratapani- Kathotiya and Kerwa we recommended utilising the services of baiga trackers from Kanha to train the territorial filed staff in tracking skills. The  CCF of Bhopal forest circle was assigned the task to  implement these recommendations. We also took a decision that once the tigress is located in Kerwa forest, a team of wildlife vets with adequate experience would assemble at Kerwa to carry out the rescue operation with the help of six trained elephants brought from the tiger reserves.

At that time, little did I realize that the tigers were not the intruders but in fact, we (humans) had intruded into their home and therefore it was our duty to protect them, instead of shifting them from their home.

Meanwhile, on 19.09.2012 one of the cubs was found trapped in a ditch near Kathotiya village, our team rescued the cub but despite the efforts of the vets from Van Vihar and the Centre for Wildlife Forensic and Health, Jabalpur it succumbed to the injuries after a week.

In the first week of October 2012, I summoned a retired Ranger Shri N.K Bisen, who had considerable experience in tracking wild animals and rescue operations. I  briefed him and instructed him to locate  the tigress and its cub.  In the evening of 10.10.2012, N. K Bisen accompanied by the  SDO, Bhopal Shri Jain, and range officer located a kill in compartment number 219, about 2.5 km from the Kerwa nursery, and saw three tigers there (one male, one female, and its cub). On the 12th morning, he along with conservator Bhopal, L. Krishnamurthy, and SDO Bhopal again saw a cub, a male, and a female. He had photographed the male and taken video shots of the female. On 13.10.2012 CCF Bhopal did also see two tigers in compartment 219.

As the field-craft training of the territorial staff was to culminate on 14.10.2012, and the field conditions in October was conducive for such an operation, the chief wildlife warden Shri P.K. Shukla instructed me to commence the operation at once. A detailed strategy was conceived for the operation.

On 15.10.2012, we briefed our team  of the strategy. The CCF Bhopal Shri S.S Rajpoot was designated the head of the field operations. From CWLW's office, two APCCFs Dharmendra Shukla and I were deputed as supervisors.

The problem at this moment was that the team of vets and elephants had not yet assembled and therefore it was impossible to commence the operation immediately. Elephants from Pench tiger reserve were not called for this operation as the incidence of Herpes virus had already killed two elephants there.

On 15.10.2012, the Chief Wildlife Warden issued a formal order permitting capture and relocation of the female and its cub to a suitable habitat. S.S. Rajpoot, CCF Bhopal discussed with me the modalities, and at the end, he asked me a question – Sir, What should we call this operation?” and then he suggested a name- “Operation Durga Vahini.” It was certainly an apt name as the operation was to take place during the Durga Puja festival and involved Ma Durga’s Vahan – the tiger.

The team of wildlife vets from Panna, Pench, Satpura tiger reserves and Madhav National Park and six elephants from Kanha and Satpura assembled at Kerwa by the evening of 16.10.2012. A meeting to review the preparations was conducted by the supervising APCCFs at the field camp. By this time the evidence of the presence of only one of the three tigers was found in compartment 219, therefore the search for the female and its cub was intensified. In the evening of 17.10.2012 Chief Wildlife Warden visited the camp to review the progress, as we were briefing the CWLW, we got the news that one of the elephants from Satpura tiger reserve was unwell, the symptoms - swelling of the forehead and cyanosis of the tongue were observed by the wildlife vets, these symptoms were the sign of a deadly disease of the elephants- Herpes. Besides, one of the elephants from Bandhavgarh was showing signs of "Mast' and therefore deploying it for the operation was ruled out. The mood at the camp was desolate, and all the attention was directed to treat and save the elephant. The team of vets tried their best to keep the animal alive. The expert Elephant vet Dr. Sharma of Assam was contacted over phone and treatment of the elephant began, but she succumbed to the infection in the late night. Therefore, the operation was suspended on 18th, but the collection of evidence of tiger presence continued.

In the evening of 18.10.2012, we got the news about the presence of a tiger in compartment 219. Next morning, we commenced our search. We wanted to find out whether it was the female or some other tiger. Dharmendra and I participated in the search. As the tiger had killed a buffalo the previous night and  partially eaten it at the rump, the likelihood of its sighting was high. But despite a thorough search, we could not find the animal. That morning, while alighting from the elephant Dharmendra broke his ankle.

Next morning on 20.10.2012 we searched for the tiger again. Bisen saw the tiger in the morning near the kill that it had made the previous night and kept a watch on it. As the tiger was in sight, the team decided to immobilize it and put a radio-collar on it (even if it was not the female) so that in future its movement could be monitored with ease. The team of vets along with CCF and I began to encircle the tiger with four elephants. When the tiger saw the elephants, it gave out a loud roar and then ran into the cover of lantana bushes. It stayed there for about 5 minutes, growling intermittently and then it walked deeper into the cover of thick lantana bushes. After that, the tiger eluded us. The team assembled for debriefing and to discuss the future course of action. The mahouts felt that four elephants were not enough to encircle the tiger or pursue it after darting as the undergrowth was very dense. Vets, therefore, decided to wait for two more elephants that were to arrive the next day from Kanha.

I apprised the CWLW of the developments. The News that was published in Dainik Bhaskar next morning was a figment of reporter's imagination in which she had painted a fairy tale picture of the happenings of yesterday. She wrote- “The vet fired a drug dart at the tiger, which missed it and then the angry tiger jumped into the air and flew over the heads of the mahout and forest staff and landed on the other side”. Annoyed by this irrational report, I called the lady and asked her whether she was present on the day when such an exciting action was going on in the forest of Kerwa. Then I told her I was there and what had actually happened.

There was still much confusion about the sex of the animal hence the field teams were asked to ascertain this at the earliest. On 21.10.2012 two mahouts, who had seen the animals' rear, confirmed that the animal that we were following was a male tiger. There was no sign of the female and her cub.

As our primary target was the female and her cub, we intensified our search to locate her. CCF Bhopal traveled to Kathotiya from where the staff had reported her fresh pug marks on 21.10.2012. In the evening he reported to me that he had seen and traced fresh pugmarks of the female in compartment 214 Bhanpur on the boundary of Sehore and Bhopal Division. He could also see the pugmarks of the cub some 1.5 km away from its mother's pugmark in compartment 212 Samnapura. It was then decided to try and attract the female to a suitable location in any of these two compartments or at a suitable site near it and launch the operation early morning on 23.10.2012.

As this operation couldn't have continued indefinitely, we gave ourselves a deadline – 31^st October 2012. As shifting the entire camp was not feasible we suspended the operation till 26.3.2017; only the tracking and monitoring teams remained active hoping that the female would return to Kerwa. On the 26th evening, we got the good news that the female and her cub are back. On 27th October we were in the field again, but the tigers continued to play hide and seek. On 31st October at about 6 AM, we found fresh pug marks of the male as well as the female on the dirt road not very far from the Kerwa dam. We mounted the elephants and soon located the tigers in a forest patch nearby. The vets geared up to take the shots but restrained themselves when they saw the tigers in courtship. We left the tigers alone and assembled for debriefing. We unanimously decided to call off the operation in the present circumstances. We also concluded that the tigers in Kerwa and Kathotiya are not vagrants but residents in this habitat and they should have the right to their home. These tigers obviously were from the nearest natal area –the Ratapani sanctuary, and now they have found a home in these forests. I came back and briefed the CWLW. Of course, he was a bit worried as tigers were living too close to people now and sooner or later he would have to face pressures from the politicians and Mandarins sitting in Ballav Bhawan. But he as a true leader respected our point of view and stood by this decision.

The best outcome of this field exercise was the training that the territorial staff received from us in field craft – making PIPs, maintaining and monitoring PIPs, setting up camera traps, reading pugmarks, made them confident, and they never looked back. Now, these foot soldiers are adept in tracking tigers and predicting their whereabouts. We also provided sufficient resources to DFO Bhopal to create perennial water sources in the forest, camera traps, deployment of watchers and for surveillance and protection. More vehicles were hired for round the clock patrolling and later WWF-India provided a Bolero for the field teams. In due course of time, we supplemented the on-foot and vehicular patrols with an electronic surveillance system – called the E-Eye. Four towers (now 5 in 2017) fitted with cameras equipped with powerful zoom and night visions were erected at strategic places to cover a large part of the tiger movement area in Bhopal and Sehore forest divisions. A permanent control room was set up at Kerwa to monitor tigers, other animals, and intruders. A system of SMS alert is inbuilt in the software that sends messages to the mobile phones of the field teams and DFOs.

The clamour about tigers of Kerwa has resurfaced in recent times- mostly media reports are responsible for terrorizing the public while the resident villagers say they have no problems with the tigers. The problem is that the short-term solution like capturing and shifting tigers from Kerwa is not going to work as the vacant territories will be soon occupied by new tigers dispersing from the Rantapani.

Today, just a thin garland of forest surrounds the city. Though the human habitations and developmental infrastructures have fragmented this habitat at places, the wild animals, especially those who need larger home-range can still move throughout this garland taking advantages of the streams, and riparian vegetation (all along the river banks). But these fragile corridors, too, are threatened by developers and builders have begun to encroach on the water courses - from some places, the Kaliasot river has already vanished under the maze of skyscrapers and duplexes that have popped up like toadstools.

Just on the South-South-west fringe of this garland is the Ratapani sanctuary. Ratapani is the only secure habitat left in this tract where tigers still breed. Over the years the habitat has improved, and the tiger population has increased, necessitating young tigresses and tigers to move out from within the sanctuary boundary to the forests outside to find suitable breeding and foraging places. The tigers of Ratapani are traveling far and wide now - Sehore, Choral, Dewas, Sajapur and Kerwa, Kathotiya, Samradha around Bhopal City have tigers from Ratapani. My personal knowledge is that tiger’s movement in Kerwa has been reported every year since 1996, while a recent survey by WWF –India, in which they interviewed some village elders, reveals that the tigers have been using the Kerwa-Kathotiya forest tract from time immemorial. It is another matter that in those times neither the media was so proactive to seek out tigers and nor the Kerwa area was so full of academic institutions, human colonies, and a heavy tourist inflow. The tigers have become more visible today, not because they have suddenly developed a proclivity to occupy the area in the middle of human habitations, but because humans have now intruded into their haven.

There had been some hasty decisions about a year ago, when a young male was captured and shifted to a tiger reserve. I don’t think that this strategy would work. When I heard of a second such attempt to capture and transfer a young dispersing tiger from Dewas, I couldn’t restrain myself from writing a letter to the CWLW. I am reproducing that letter below-

"This mail is about the latest attempt by the wildlife wing to capture a dispersing tiger from Dewas division.

As you would recall, we began equipping and training the territorial officers and staff to inculcate in them a sense of responsibility towards wildlife management in their respective jurisdiction. Enthused by this support from the headquarter, in divisions and circles where tiger movement was frequent, some of the CCF’s did excellent work towards monitoring and protecting tigers. As you already know, tiger number is going up in most natal areas, and it is quite natural for the young and the weak ones to get out of PAs to find new homes or vacant territories. And while doing so, they are frequently accosted by the villagers and city dwellers. Tigers by nature are wary of human beings, and they swiftly leave the area frequented by people. These dispersing tigers should be left alone. If such a tiger has taken residence in a habitat near a village, the first thing that territorial forest staff should be doing is to plan a proper monitoring and protection protocol and follow it meticulously (Datia case is an excellent example). One should realize that wherever (in territorial forests) the tigers are dispersing were once tiger bearing areas not far back in time (the population estimation data from 1999 to 2002 clearly reveal this truth).

I believe the dispersing tigers should not, unless they pose an imminent threat to people by becoming a confirmed man-eater, be removed and placed in a zoo or shifted to other habitats. Because if we permit this to happen frequently we would be negating our own hard work and the territorial staff would never become responsible for wildlife in their territory (in every case in which a tiger is seen in a territorial division the CCFs and DFOs will inform the head quarter and persuade the CWLW to remove the tiger).The other noteworthy point is that considering the prey availability, as well as most of our tiger reserves, have enough tigers already and sending more tigers caught from territorial divisions to those tiger reserve will create more problems for both – the tigers as well as the wildlife wing.”

Since sending this mail, fortunately I haven’t heard of any fresh attempt to capture a dispersing tiger. I hope it remains that way.

Wildlife conservation in M.P owes a lot to stalwarts like Shri J.J. Dutta, Dr.M.K. Ranjitsinh, Padam Bhushan Shri H.S. Panwar, Shri P.M. Laad, Shri S.B.Lowlekar,. They built up a network of PAs in Madhya Pardesh from scratch and tirelessly strived to manage and protect these areas. There were officers such as Shri A.S. Parihar, Shri S.M. Hasan, Shri R.C. Sharma, Shri Pantane, Shri Dharmvir Kapil, who established a culture of hard work and inculcated the field-craft among the ranks. And then there were some others research minded officers like R.D. Sharma, Shri Jagdish Chandra who added value to our efforts by offering their scientific insights. In later years, conscientious officers like Dr. P.B. Gangopadhyay, Shri A.P. Dwivedi, Dr.H.S Pabla, Shri R.S. Negi and Shri Jitendra Agrawal contributed immensely to strengthen the wildlife wing. . It was indeed an uphill task as there were hardly enough resources to do much. Some names may have been missed out but that may be because of my personal impressions of people and I must say that I might have erred by missing out some of the warriors here.

In 1966 Sh. J.J Dutta was handpicked to undergo a 6 months training in Canada, in Wildlife Conservation and National Park Management. On return from deputation from GoI in 1977, he took charge as the Chief WildLife Warden MP and was entrusted with setting up a whole new discipline in the Forest Department. Staff and finances, motor vehicles etc. were sanctioned but personnel for posts were hard to get. No one was too eager to join a new discipline and they did not know what was expected of them. They had no training of any kind in wildlife conservation (source- Life of a Junglee by J.J. Dutta, 2014).

The Wildlife wing of Madhya Pradesh believed in roping in conservation minded individuals, non-government organizations and scientific institutions and in that process it forged long lasting partnerships. This openness not only brought in technical support but resources in cash and kind that helped us achieve our goals. In the field, too, we had and still have several excellent leaders and soldiers who spearhead new tasks and lead their teams ably. I spent almost 3/4th of my 35 and 1/2 year career working for wildlife in the company of these wonderful people and contributed to the task of protecting and conserving wildlife to the best of my ability in the state as well as Wildlife Institute of India and I am proud of doing so. The establishment of a well equipped Wildlife Health and disease diagnostic and research cell in collaboration with the Veterinary college Jabalpur, creation of 9 fully equipped and trained regional wildlife rescue squads, extension of the development fund (a fund generated out of receipts from tourism) to all PAs, creation of the tiger strike force and later its revamping, creation of a separate budget head for management of wildlife outside PAs and its proper utilization by the territorial, divisions, networking with NGOs like WWF-India and WPSI to curb wildlife crime, resurrecting a almost dead training centre at Tala in Bandhavgah, both in terms of infrastructure and the quality of training, revamping the M.P Tiger Foundation Society, ensuring that the vets brought on deputation to the wildlife wing get the best training and exposure, successful relocation of barasingha, saving tigers from being branded as man-eaters and relocating them to safe habitats, supporting and guiding my field officers on a daily basis were some of the major contributions that I could make to strengthen the wildlife wing.

Some experts believe that till the year 2010, the management of wildlife in Madhya Pradesh was mostly limited to the amelioration of habitat, development of water sources, protection and tourism but that is not the fact. All this while, besides doing our modest bit to protect and manage habitats in protected areas, with the meagre resources available to the wildlife wing, we had painstakingly taken innovative measures and some of those were first in India – The resurrection of hard ground barasingha from the verge of extinction in Kanha tiger reserve and of gharial in Chambal sanctuary were two major success stories of the seventies and eighties. Later, the formation of Madhya Pradesh Tiger Foundation Society in 1997 and creation of development fund from tourism receipts in protected areas were two major initiatives to augment resources for wildlife conservation, which were minuscule in those days. The creation of Wildlife Heath Monitoring, Disease Diagnostic Research Cell in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Nehru Agriculture University in 1999 and its elevation to Centre for Wildlife Forensic and Health in 2008( now “ The school for Wildlife Forensic & Health”), was a step towards strengthening our capabilities in the field of wildlife health management and wildlife crime investigation.
Inducting veterinarians on deputation from the veterinary department in 2000, training them in wildlife health management, and deputing them to tiger reserves, Kuno sanctuary and Van Vihar National Park, was another milestone. In 2006, the wildlife wing created 9 (now 10) fully trained and equipped regional wildlife rescue squads located at strategic places to tackle human: wild animal conflict that had escalated overtime due to the shrinking habitats and expanding villages and towns. In 2008, the wildlife wing established the State Tiger Strike force at Bhopal with five field units located at strategic places that are the hubs of wildlife crime or transit points for wildlife trade; 2 of these units have been provided with dog squads (now 3 more dog squads have been added). Today the State Tiger strike Force is a force to reckon with. Obviously, the management practices pursued by the wildlife wing cannot be termed 'passive' as some experts have been claiming. 
Since 2005 we began raising orphaned tiger cubs in semi-wild condition within Kanha tiger reserves and later in Bandhavgarh.. Most of these cubs were released into the wild as healthy adults. 
It was difficult to convince forest dwelling communities to leave the Protected areas and resettle elsewhere, besides there was hardly any money to shift those who wanted to get rehabilitated .In 1996, We were lucky to get a commitment from the MoEF that they would fund relocation of 1543 families from the Kuno sanctuary to facilitate reintroduction of Asiatic lion. The funds made available by GoI resulted in a relocation work involving 24 villages. Perhaps this was the largest and the only example of such massive relocation of villages from any PA in the country. It is another matter that we had to fight a battle with the MoEF to get funds in the later part of 2004.. Gradually the funds from the MoEf and NTCA for relocation of villages diminished and since 2014 most of the relocations were funded by the stste government. The credit for garnering funds from the stste bidget solely goes to shri Jitendra Agrawal as APCCF and PCCF wildlife

Despite the dearth of money and land for rehab we mustered resources to shift several villages till a reasonably better policy and package was launched by GoI in 2008. But the problem didn't end there as GoI had little funds to spare Here one of our most resourceful officers Sh. Jitendra Agrawal, who joined as APCCF wildlife in 2012 (he is presently the CWLW) convinced the state government to allocate funds from surpluses in the Tribal department. The then CS and PS forest were quite helpful and soon we had enough to relocate villages from Kanha, Satpura,Panna,Bandhavgarh and Sanjay tiger Reserves and some of the sanctuaries. The village relocation was thoroughly planned and executed.The managers kept a detailed record of all the aspects of relocation and ensured post-relocation hand-holding. Both Kanha and Satpura received international acclaim for their extraordinary work. And the end result was that the tigers of both reserves got extensive inviolate areas at their disposal and the prey responded to the additional areas as the sites were converted into flourishing grassland with the able assistance of Professor Muratkar. We owe a lot to Professor Murtakar,too.

We successfully reintroduced an orphaned tigress, raised in captivity since 2005 within natural habitat in Kanha tiger reserve, into Panna tiger reserve. This ‘raise and rehab’ programme was conceived and began by Mr. Khageshwar Naik , who was the field Director of Kanha tiger reserve, then. This success encouraged us to raise some more orphaned tiger cubs in captivity (instead of sending them to a zoo) and rewild them in the same or any other tiger reserves wherever population dynamics of tigers and prey availability permitted such supplementation. Till now we have rewilded seven orphaned tiger cubs successfully. Besides, we regularly monitor tigers dispersing from natal areas, and whenever they are found straying into hostile territory such as human habitations, we captured them; radio collared them and released them in suitable and protected habitats. This particular activity has opened up a new path to ensure genetic exchange among tigers critical for their continued survival in the wild as natural corridor are fragmented and extremely stressed under the demands of development and ever increasing biotic pressure.

By 2010, we had created a strong foundation and learned the skills to take the next step in 'Proactive' management and took up the task of reintroduction of those species that had gone locally extinct from some of our parks. After obtaining permission from GoI in October 2010, we began gearing up for reintroduction of gaur into Bandhavgarh tiger reserve from where it had become extinct about 20 years ago. The then Chief wildlife warden Dr. H.S. Pabla spearheaded this task with extraordinary zeal, overcoming all odds and opposition. He roped in experts from South Africa through Conservation Corporation of Africa (now -& Beyond). This collaborative exercise built up the confidence in field personnel and vets and the next batch of gaur was captured and transported to Bandhavgarh, totally without any external assistance. Heartened by this success the wildlife wing planned reintroduction of black buck into Kanha tiger reserve. The methodology was borrowed from Andhra Pradesh and involved immobilizing a group of black buck during the night with high decibel sound and search light and then physically lifting them and loading them into transport trucks. This operation caused heavy mortality. The reason for mortality obviously was the onset of capture myopathy that ensued as the animals were physically handled by the captors while the animals were fully conscious. We learned an important lesson from this failure. We learned to become more circumspect and honed our planning skills.

To avoid the recurrence of earlier mistakes, we adopted the African boma capture strategy which was partially deployed in the gaur capture exercise at Kanha. At this time we were facing over abundance of chital in Van Vihar National Park, which is a 4.5 sq.km totally fenced area without any free-ranging carnivore except Jackal. We sent a proposal to the state government to permit us to capture Chital from Van Vihar for restocking some PAs deficient in prey. Once we received permission from the Government, a capture boma was set up at Van Vihar, and training of staff began. After several trails and errors and innovations, by 2013 a team of staff at Van Vihar became quite adept in capturing chital and safely transporting them to other PAs. Till November 2014, we had successfully captured and transported 26 chital from Van Vihar to Ralamandal sanctuary, Indore zoological park and Ratapani sanctuary and 31 chital from Umaria to Sanjay tiger reserve.

Since 2010, we had pursued our plan to reintroduce critically endangered hard ground barasingha from Kanha to Satpura tiger reserve. The purpose of such reintroduction is to ensure long-term continuity of the species. Based on the Population Viability Study by WII, the plan envisages establishing a founder stock of 20 (with a male to female sex ratio of 1:3) individuals in a predator-proof enclosure at Bori in Satpura Tiger Reserve and release them into the wild when the population within the enclosed area reached nearly 50. Supplementation of 12 animals will follow this exercise with the same ratio of 1:3, every alternate year, for the next five years. The founding stock shall be kept in an enclosure which is approximately 27 ha in size and shall be enlarged if necessary. (The enclosure was built at Bori after a thorough study of the site for habitat suitability. This task was completed by the scientists of SFRI, Jabalpur). By the end of 5th year, the population in the enclosure is expected to reach 106. A stock of approximately 60 animals, from the enclosure, shall be released into the Bori meadow at the end of the 5th year and shall be supplemented with ten animals each year, from the surpluses in the enclosure. A small breeding group shall be retained in the enclosure to supplement the wild population from time to time. 
Agreeing to our proposal, in May 2011, the Government of India had permitted capture of 20 barasingha but soon after that the black buck capture debacle prompted GoI to withhold the permission. Our relentless persuasion over three years finally resulted in NTCA granting us permission with two caveats – 1. We should first shift two male and three female barasingha from Kanha to Van Vihar National Park to demonstrate our skills 2. and only use chemical restraint to capture barasingha.

As soon as we received the concurrence from NTCA in January 2014, we began preparations for the capture and translocation operation. Chemical immobilization of barasingha was ruled out as our experience in late 1977, 1981, 1982 and early 90s with narcotics as well as other common immobilization drugs did not bring about desired success, and we lost many animals, though the managers were able to create a small population of Barasingha in Supkhar. Only the operation conducted in June 1981 met with reasonable success – 7 out of 8 captured, using Ketamine and Xylazine mixture, survived. Therefore, we decided to use the safer boma capture method. Preparations were already on at Kanha, and a Boma was erected within the 50-hectare enclosure that held around 35 barasingha, some chital, and blackbuck.

Because 50 hectares was a vast area for capturing Barasingha using the Boma technique, we had decided to reduce the area so as to manage it comfortably. When I reached Kanha for the operation, I found that the area, even after reduction, was a massive 26 hectare. I also discovered that the acclimatization of barasingha to the boma was not achieved till then, therefore, it was necessary to reduce the size of the boma further. We took on the spot decision, and by the evening of 6 January, the size of the boma was reduced to about 3 hectares. As the animals were not acclimatised to grazing inside the boma, we improvised and took a decision to make arrangements for haakaa which is deployed in Africa for the mass capture of animals. While in Africa Haakaa is carried out either by helicopter or vehicles, we decided to conduct it in the traditional way with the help of a crowd of people.

It was an operation fraught with difficulties and a very high risk of failure. But with meticulous planning that took care of the minutest details, in comparison to our previous attempts, this operation turned out extremely successful with zero mortality. Besides, we have learned a safe method to restrain and transport a species that is considered hyper sensitive to human handling and stress. The success of this path-breaking operation has been possible due to detailed planning and skilful implementation in which a large number of wildlife personnel participated.

Though I was the overall in charge, the whole operation was carried out by the officers and staff of Kanha tiger reserve with support from a small team of Van Vihar national park and vets from Centre for Wildlife Forensic and Health Jabalpur. An observer from WII, Dehradun also participated. Shri Jasbir Singh Chouhan, the Field Director Kanha provided excellent leadership to the entire team throughout the field operation, Shri Shubhranjan Sen, Scientist WII, Dr. Atul Gupta, Dr. A.B. Shrivastava and their respective teams contributed wholeheartedly. Shri Rajnish Singh ably handled the translocation task with his team of able drivers and vets. Devi Singh, the driver of the transport truck, needs special mention as his skills came handy on the treacherous hilly roads inside Satpura tiger reserve. All the CCFs, DFOs and their staff of forest circles falling on the route were alerted before the transportation began; their teams ensured a hassle free and safe passage for the transportation team through busy city streets and toll nakas. They also arranged food and water for the team throughout the long journey.

The next step is to reintroduce barasingha in Satpura valley which once teemed with barasingha. We hope ardently that in the winter of 2015 we would be bemused by the resonant, long-drawn rutting call of barasingha in Van Vihar and Bori meadow and enthralled by the sight of them holding their neck skyward with tufts of grasses dangling like royal decorations from their majestic antlers.
Post script- After this successful exercise, several batches of barasingha were brought to Bori. Today, both at Van Vhar and Bori the barasingha have bred successfully. And at Bori, with the onset of winter the resounding rutting call of the majestic males, with their massive grass adorned antlers, resonates against the towering Bailkandhar hills to the delight of the onlookers. It gives me immense satisfaction to behold the cute spotted fawns frolicking across the vast expanse of grassland.

End note- The wildlife wing is in able hands at present but I am pained to see that some very fine and diligent officers who have given away a sizable part of their career to wildlife management have been kept away from action. Shri Jasbir Singh Chauhan, Shri R.Srinivas Murthy, Shri C K Patil , Shri Aseem Shrivastava must be brought back to the wildlife wing. I also must mention Shri G. Krishnamurthy, Shri Rajesh Sahay, Shri L.K Choudhary Shri Atul Shrivastava,Shri Alok Kumar Shri Pushkar Singh, Shri Chitranjan Tyagi, Shri P.C. Dubey, Shri R.B, Sinha,Shri Amitabh A\/’gnihotri, Shri Vivek Jain, Shri L. Krishnamoorthy, Shri R.S Bhaduriya, and C.S. Nimama, - who without any formal training in wildlife management, have excelled in protecting and managing wildlife in their territorial jurisdictions. There is a long list of dedicated ACFs, rangers, foresters and guards and their watchers who have toiled consistently in remote areas away from their families to ensure safety and well being of wildlife. I have not seen any other civilian outfit where employees brave such hardships. My salute to all of them and their families. In the research field I recall three persons who excelled in their task – Dr. P.C. Kotwal, Dr. R.K Shukla and Dr. R.K Sharma- all three of them have contributed in their own way to our knowledge and understanding, strengthening our work. On the legal side we have a devoted lawyer Mrs. Manjula Shrivastava who not only fights legal battle in courts but trains our field personnel with equal zeal. Her dedication is such that once I received a call from her from the forests of Damoh where she was following a dispersing tiger along with the staff of Damoh division at 10 o';clock in the night. Her worry was that the Katni staff had not arrived despite her several calls to the DFO and the tiger was about to enter the outskirts of Katni town.
In the field of wildlife rescue a name that singularly stands out is of Shri Niranjan Bisen, a master of field-craft. Out of several hundred watchers who are eyes and ears for us in the forests I remember Manglu baiga, a tracker par-excellence - he was once got bit in the neck by a man eater leopard while he was sleeping along with the team sent there to track and immobilize or kill the aberrant animal.. Shri Manglu survived the attack. Among the veterinarians I admire DR. A.B Shrivastava, whose contribution will never be forgotten, besides him all our vets in the wildlife wing have excelled in their job and I consider them ''world class''. Please forgive me if I have missed some names owing to my inability to recall names. You may mention those names in the comment slot below.I hope and pray that the government brings back the officers who have been victimised and kept away from the wildlife wing owing to the whims of the myopic and self centered politicians otherwise the Madhya Pradesh, a leader in wildlife management in the country, will soon lose its respect and credibility.

Suhas, 30 April 2017.