Tiger census: What lies beneath the numbers

The science is suspect, logistics inadequate and equipment faulty. But even if taken at face value, the results of the second all-India tiger estimation only signal how our conservation efforts are rapidly slipping on the ground

The Economic Times, 4 April, 2011

It is never easy counting secretive, solitary predators. For decades, foresters studied pugmarks and usually counted more tigers per tiger. Then, in 2002, Project Tiger (now National Tiger Conservation Authority) and Wildlife Institute of India began replacing the human error-prone pugmark census method with a scientific estimation protocol. It was a landmark initiative.

Nine years later, however, India’s tiger numbers remain equally suspect. So far, more than Rs 22 crore has been spent during two all-India estimation drives, in 2006-07 and 2010-11, to scientifically evaluate the status of the tiger. And yet all the government churned out were a few gospel figures for media consumption.

When the subjective pugmark count method was junked, the promise was of moving away from banal number games towards effective monitoring. Yet, the first all-India tiger estimation report said “these population estimates have high variances, but since these estimates are not to be used for monitoring trends… they should suffice the need for converting a relevant ecological index to a more comprehensible concept of numbers.” Numbers make headlines, more so when spiced up by technical jargons.

Sure enough, when minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh proudly announced the gain of 225 tigers last week, it made happy headlines. Accounting for the Sunderbans figures (70) that were not available in 2008, the minister preened, the population gain was a healthy 295.

But the lack of due scientific rigour was soon evident when on March 31, three days after Ramesh had charmed the media, WII rushed to correct its own presentation. An email from a WII scientist to NTCA admitted that “there has been a mistake in the computation of the standard error for the tiger numbers for the state of Maharashtra”, with a request for updating the MoEF website. The Press Information Bureau website, however, is yet to drop the incorrect figures.

To be fair, the WII-NTCA presentation – Status of Tigers in India, 2011 -- the one Ramesh appropriately put up on his ministry’s website, does quote biologists Richard Hutto and Jock Young: “Any monitoring program is a compromise between science and logistic constraints.” While the presentation stops at that cryptic disclaimer, the ministry’s own records do not.

Back in 2006, an international team of experts led by John Seidensticker from the department of conservation biology at Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park in Washington, DC did a peer review of the new estimation method. In its report, the team questioned the feasibility of the exercise given that more than 40,000 forest units would have to be sampled, adding that new method, too, relied on the “integrity of the primary data collectors, data compilers and their supervisors.” The words strangely echoed the NTCA’s own justification for discarding the old pugmark count method.

The peer review also warned that the genetic methods proposed in the census were not “fully developed for this application” and that there were not even enough GPS (global positioning system) sets to map out the terrain.

For the record, the new method breaks down the estimation process in three phases. Phase one involves data collection (signs of tiger presence, prey abundance and canopy status) across the tiger landscapes. In the second phase, satellite data is used to assess conditions of habitat. Phase three requires camera-traps to be set up in selected pockets for capturing tiger images to identify the number of individuals in a sampled area. Next, the camera-trap data is extrapolated to arrive at numbers for entire landscapes.

The observations in the peer review on the challenges of logistics and integrity made the phases one and two look suspect during the first all-India estimation. Little has changed since. What is worse, the phase three of the latest count was compromised by too many malfunctioning camera-traps.

WII purchased around 500 Moultrie camera-traps for the second all-India estimation, out of which 300-odd malfunctioned. The official stand remains that the manufacturer replaced the faulty sets. Sources in the field, however, report a different picture.

In Corbett, around 60 camera traps were installed in two phases (pre and post-monsoon) in 2010. Within days of installation, most cameras reported an activation lag: when an animal passed by, the camera would take several seconds to recover from the sleep mode and click an empty frame or only the animal’s hind portion. Even if the faulty cameras were replaced after monsoon, areas surveyed in the pre-monsoon phase with faulty sets were not covered again.

In Maharashtra’s Tadoba-Andhari tiger reserve, around 60 camera sets malfunctioned when the pre-monsoon camera trapping began last year. While a WII field team returned with replacements after monsoon, it barely spent a month in the field. In some reserves, camera-traps reached only in late October.

Across the world, top institutes like International Snow Leopard Trust uses Reconyx camera-traps. In India, camera-trapping pioneer Dr Ullas Karanth has used analog Trailmaster and later Deercam camera-traps. Among the cheaper brands, Bushnell is believed to be the most versatile. For reasons best known to WII bigwigs, they chose to rely on Moultrie camera-trap and its slow reaction. Maybe, our sarkari scientists expected tigers to stand still and be counted in national interest.

But even this piece of equipment did not make it to many non-reserve areas. Not to mention the tiger-bearing forests outside Protected Areas (PAs). For example, no camera-trap was set up in Tadoba’s Kolsa range, let alone the areas outside the reserve notorious for human-tiger conflict.

WII used about 100 cameras to cover just 120 sq km of Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam tiger reserve in Andhra Pradesh. Only seven tigers were identified in that area. Based on these seven tigers in just 120 sq km, somehow the estimate extrapolated a figure of 60 for a 2342 sq km-area of this reserve.


If data was compromised, the analysis was suspect, too. On the extrapolation process, the 2006 peer review cautioned that “there is also no detailed write-up of the technical analysis, explicitly identifying the analytical techniques to be used in each phase of the framework.’’ As mentioned earlier, the 2008 report did accept “high variances” in estimation. In simple terms, it means different results at different estimation attempts, resulting in unreliability. Nevertheless, those unreliable estimates were further extrapolated to larger areas for arriving at “all-India” figures.

Former WII biologist K Yoganand had pointed out in 2008 how the official count only referred to standard errors of estimated densities and population sizes while offering a range of 1165–1657 tigers. He said the report did not use the appropriate confidence intervals which, if standardised, would have stretched the limits to roughly 900-1900 tigers, an embarrassingly unreliable range.

Surprisingly, the estimation process has not been made public in the last nine years. Only one scientific paper -- Can the abundance of tigers be assessed from their signs? (2011) -- has been published and that too explains only a part of the method.

Clearly, after nine years and more than Rs 22 crore spent, the promise of robust science has not materialised. Instead of quadrennial rituals, the ministry should have opted for intensive assessment, using camera-traps and DNA analyses, of all major source tiger populations, allowing for timely management inputs. For example, four years might be a bit too late for realising that a key tiger reserve like Kanha is losing tigers as has been revealed in the latest estimate. Given that NGOs like Aranyak (Kaziranga) or WWF-India (Ramnagar) did a good job of estimate, the ministry could rope in more organisations for logistics and manpower.

While the number game continues, it is important to note that the new protocol does not allow comparison of subsequent results. The 2008 report noted that “these estimates are not to be used for monitoring trends”. Moreover, a number of tiger areas that were left out during the last estimation, have been covered this time. Comparing the common areas assessed on both occasions, the WII-NTCA report modifies the population growth to 12 per cent or 170 tigers. Insiders, however, claim that the 13 new areas that have been added this time account for a total of 288 tigers. This brings down the actual population gain to just seven tigers or less than 0.5 per cent.

But is a there a case for celebration even if we accept the government’s figures unquestioningly? We may have achieved a 12 per cent rise in our tiger population but lost almost 24 per cent of India’s tiger habitat. Do 170 tigers more or less really make a big difference? Carnivores have high turnover and cats are anyway prolific breeders.

Habitat loss or fragmentation, however, is a long term, often irreversible, damage. Given adequate breeding forests, adding 170 tigers to the national population is always a short-term possibility. In comparison, restoring tigers to 21,000 sq km of habitat lost since 2006-07 will be next to impossible. That our conservation efforts, while rustling up feelgood numbers, have actually conceded one-fourth of the tiger’s home in just four years, is the real headline of this census.

How They Count Our Tigers

How dubious science and faulty equipment created a far-fetched feel-good number. And how the World Bank is back to dominate India’s tiger agenda within three years of a PMO snub

OPEN,28 March, 2011

1706. Tigers are finally making good news with the second all-India population estimation reporting a 12 per cent rise in their numbers. Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh and his worthy babus looked suitably pleased announcing the new census figures, declared 28 March at a quadrennial event, perhaps best described as the Tiger Olympics.

A figure-happy media lapped up the good news: why even discounting the Sunderbans figures (70) not available in 2008, tiger numbers have gone up from 1411 to 1636.

If only the estimate was credible.

When the government (read: Project Tiger and Wildlife Institute of India) junked the traditional, human error-prone pugmark census method, the promise was of robust science. Indeed, pugmark identification is a specialised art that often degenerates into mumbo-jumbo. But what we have in its place is equally dubious.

Back in 2006, an international team of experts led by John Seidensticker of the department of conservation biology at Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park in Washington, DC was invited for a peer review. In its report, the team observed that the new estimation method, too, relied on the “integrity of the primary data collectors, data compilers and their supervisors.”

The peer review warned that the genetic methods proposed in the census were not “fully developed for this application”. It said that there were not enough GPS (global positioning system) sets to map out the terrain as per the methodology, and questioned the feasibility of the exercise given that more than 40,000 forest units would have to be sampled.

The first all-India estimate was due in July 2006. It was delayed by nearly two years. You could call that teething trouble. But the second all-India census experience showed that the establishment had still not got its act together.

Seidensticker’s peer review cautioned that “there is also no detailed write-up of the technical analysis, explicitly identifying the analytical techniques to be used in each phase of the framework.’’ In 2008, the first all-India estimation report accepted that “these population estimates have high variances, but since these estimates are not to be used for monitoring trends… they should suffice the need for converting a relevant ecological index to a more comprehensible concept of numbers.”

High variances mean unreliability. In simple terms, they mean different results at different estimation attempts. Nevertheless, those unreliable estimates were extrapolated to larger areas to arrive at all-India tiger numbers. To quote former WII scientist K Yoganand, this approach “was fundamentally flawed and rendered the whole exercise of estimating tiger numbers in India futile.”

Moreover, the official count only referred to standard errors (SE) of estimated densities and population sizes while offering a range of 1,165-1,657 tigers. Yoganand pointed out that the authors never used the appropriate confidence intervals (CI), which, if standardised, would have stretched the estimation range to roughly 900-1,900 tigers.

Beyond the smokescreen of these technicalities, the planners, it seems, sought to sidestep the enormity of the exercise. Often the sample size was compromisingly small and the extrapolation scientifically unsupportable. For example, the WII used about 100 cameras this time to cover just 120 sq km of the Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam tiger reserve in Andhra Pradesh. Only seven tigers were identified in that area. Based on these seven tigers over 120 sq km, the estimate extrapolated a figure not only for the 3,568 sq km reserve but the entire Western Ghats of the state.

It wasn’t just dubious science, even the equipment and management were shoddy.

The WII used around 500 camera traps for the second all-India estimation. Several officials admitted that about 300 camera traps malfunctioned. The official stand remains that the premier institute got the faulty sets replaced and reinstalled. Officials also claim this caused a procedural delay of about two months.

Sources in the field, however, report a very different picture. In Corbett, around 60 camera traps were installed in two phases (pre and post-monsoon) last year. Within days of installation, the Corbett ground staff cautioned the WII team that most cameras had an activation lag. Meaning the camera would react late and click after the animal was gone or when only its hind portion was in the frame. The young WII field team tried to overcome the handicap by altering camera angles to obtain a wider focal field but that did not solve the problem when animals walked by too close to the camera.

In Maharashtra’s Tadoba tiger reserve, around 60 cameras turned out to be faulty when pre-monsoon camera-trapping began last year. When WII personnel returned with replacements after the monsoons, they barely spent a month in the field. The same problem delayed field installation in several reserves where camera traps reached as late as November 2010.

If high-profile reserves were covered so shoddily, imagine the fate of less known, newly notified tiger reserves. Few non-reserve areas were adequately camera-trapped, not to mention the tiger-bearing forests outside Protected Areas (PAs).

For example, not a single camera trap was set up in Tadoba’s Kolsa range, leave alone areas outside the reserve notorious for human-tiger conflict. In Jharkhand’s Naxal-infested Palamu tiger reserve, no camera-trapping was possible and WII depended on Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology for scat sample analyses and pegged the number of tigers at six.

A WII scientist involved in the census admitted that no camera-trapping had been done yet in at least three stretches. Even in reserves like Maharashtra’s Melghat, sources say, the camera traps are yet to conclude the “recapture process” crucial to statistical extrapolation.


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Granted, as a top WII scientist puts it, the camera traps with all their faults have recorded more than 600 tigers across the country. Anyway, the tiger is on a marginal rebound. Protection has improved in many pockets and with so many cubs reported in the past four years, a nominal rise in the tiger population was to be expected.

There are other reasons too for the count to increase. In the first national census of 2006-07, bizarre examples of ill-trained field staff unwittingly under-reporting tigers probably compensated for any over-reporting of numbers. For example, field staff in Uttarakhand’s Ramnagar forest division went for pugmark identification and failed to report each individual tiger track in 2007. Eventually not more than half a dozen tigers were estimated in the entire division. This year, a WWF (World Wildlife Fund) team used its own camera traps and, say sources, as many as 23 tigers have been estimated. That is a near 300 per cent jump, if on an exaggeratedly low base caused by tigers left out in the previous count.

But why does a census operation that cost Rs 13 crore four years ago (nobody has spelt out the cost of the most recent exercise yet but it could not have come cheaper than the last census) and had four long years to iron out the creases, end up being so disorganised and scientifically compromised?

Many expected the second all-India estimation to be a far more intensive exercise in terms of camera-trap intensity or number of camera nights utilised. But WII followed the same routine as in 2007. Blame it on inadequate manpower, lack of planning and faulty camera circuits or plain inertia, the exercise stuttered at different stages. Given that Aranyak, an NGO, did a fantastic job at Kaziranga using WII camera-traps, it is a mystery why the government did not try to rope in more NGOs elsewhere.

For reasons best known to WII, it continues to buy analog cameras from a manufacturer that few user agencies endorse internationally. WII opted for the obsolete Moultrie camera traps that need a recovery time (from sleep to click mode) of 60 seconds. Maybe, our sarkari scientists expect tigers to stand still and be counted in the national interest.
When replacements arrived for faulty sets, were these installed and allowed enough field time to ensure uniform parameters across landscapes? If a dubious purchase and deployment had already delayed the results, what was the hurry to declare numbers with “three stretches yet to be covered”? Were the minister and his bureaucrats desperate to score a few brownie points at the high-profile international summit?

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This leads us to another mystery. But, first, a brief backgrounder. In June 2008, the World Bank launched its tiger conservation initiative with much fanfare at Washington DC. India, the most crucial of the 13 tiger range countries, was absent.

It was no coincidence. On the back of a note from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the PMO had refused to endorse the Bank’s initiative and ruled out seeking a loan to save the tiger. The Bank was told that it did not have the expertise or support of (at least Indian) experts to substantially back any tiger conservation effort. On the contrary, much of its history—from the destruction of the Amazonian wilderness to wiping out Asian mangroves—made its tiger overtures appear plain opportunistic. India’s own dismal experience with the Bank-sponsored eco-development projects in the 1990s had also influenced the PMO’s decision.

But in less than three years, the Bank has reclaimed centrestage, with seven of its top officials—among them three Indians—dominating the proceedings at the March 28-30 New Delhi gala. How did the PMO suddenly change its stance? And how come the ministry that advised him against allowing the Bank in tiger conservation is now toasting the Bank’s who’s who?

The ministry’s advice to the PMO was shaped largely by the views of experts outside the government. The minister himself had made it amply clear in 2008 that he was not against accepting the Bank’s help (read: loan) but had been dissuaded by the collective wisdom of conservationists. So has this mighty consensus suddenly reinvented itself?

The Bank sponsored a host of tiger stalwarts and budding greenies from India at the international tiger conservation forum in St Petersburg last November. But a single junket, however lavish, could not have turned the tide in the Bank’s favour. Only weeks ago, the Planning Commission drastically slashed the allocation for tiger conservation. Was that move aimed at preparing the ground for a loan? You never know what a few old Bank boys can get up to.

No, Prime Minister

Either abolish environment laws or follow them—undercutting them is not an option for the Prime Minister's Office

Open, 23 Feb, 2011

In this season of scams and rhetoric, we must credit the establishment for coming clean on at least one front. The government has finally done away with the façade that it is serious about saving the environment. After much posturing, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has cleared Posco and Lavasa. No Opposition party has found these fait accomplis worth even a customary dharna. The Planning Commission has slashed the budget of the green ministry. And the Reserve Bank has singled out ‘environmentalism’ to blame for a one-third dip in foreign direct investments. The Prime Minister has cautioned that green regulatory standards might bring back the dreaded licence-permit-quota raj.

To those who follow the growth-versus-green story, this is a welcome development. All these years, many have wondered why successive UPA governments have not delivered on their lavish green commitments. After all, has not there been a Sonia Gandhi, the supreme commander of the Congress, who took personal interest in saving India’s wilderness? Now that the licence-permit-quota-fearing Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister who is barely audible unless he really means business, has spoken, we finally know why.

It was difficult not to be torn between expectation and experience when Rahul Gandhi, the PM-in-waiting who mobilised parliamentarians to set up a short-lived tiger caucus five years ago, rushed to support the Niyamgiri tribals against Vedanta. But the surrender before Posco and Lavasa came as a cold snub to all those unduly optimistic about a bania system that still makes a rubber-stamp ministry approve 99 per cent of projects.

Then again, minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh, who never tires shooting his mouth against poachers, encroachers, developers and cabinet colleagues alike, was swiftly capturing the anti-establishment space by winning the trust of even some of the rabid green. Now that he has saved his job by meekly following his masters’ order to allow mega sell-outs, Ramesh will probably stop flailing his recyclable tin sword in polluted air. If he does not, it will anyway look rather quixotic after the RBI snub.

Indeed, it was not easy to decide whether to take Montek Singh Ahluwalia seriously when the suave planning commission deputy chairman (who, last year, publicly committed himself to the cause of “preserving” tigers) approved, in principal, Rs 5000 crore for resettling families from core tiger reserve areas across the country over the next five years. Now that he has slashed a Rs 1,100 crore proposal for the same to first Rs 700 crore and then less than Rs 50 crore, there are no honest doubts about his sincerity.

So the gloves are off and the masks, torn. It is so much more comforting to know who stands where and for what. If diplomatic interest cleared Posco, political interest pushed Lavasa. The Jaitapur nuclear power project in the coastal Konkan got through in the national interest; so did SAIL’s mega mining projects in Saranda’s elephant forests. No wonder Ramesh has already conceded many a mile in negotiating no-go areas with his counterpart in the coal ministry. After all, the spectre of a green licence-permit-quota raj is haunting his Prime Minister.


But, frankly, what does Manmohan Singh have in mind when he airs such apprehension? Does he mean he has inherited particularly unwieldy green laws? If that were the case, his party and government could have easily got those amended in a Parliament that does not have any environmental lobby. Why, whenever there were opportunities, successive green ministries watered down ministerial regulations (from the norms for coastal regulation zones to restrictions on industrial pollution).

Incidentally, thanks to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India’s two fundamental green laws—Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980—are remarkably robust and candid. They deny easy excuses for tweaking or room for confusion. The third major law that impacts developmental projects was enacted by the government headed by Manmohan Singh.The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 was a longstanding electoral commitment of his party. Surely, the prime minister is not resenting what his party pitches as one of the biggest achievements of his government?

So is it the Prime Minister’s case that these laws are not applied fairly, leading to a long-drawn approval process? Unfortunately, facts tell a very different story. If India’s green laws were applied fairly, bulk of the projects would have been summarily rejected. But since the establishment wants to get every project cleared, it drags on the clearance process by instituting panel after panel until the facts get lost in a maze of referrals and finally a go-ahead is obtained.

Worse, many projects take off without due diligence, trusting the establishment to clear those as fait acomplis after a suitably long clearance drama. The latest on that list is Jindal Steel and Powers. The company started construction at its Angul plant in Orissa without obtaining clearance on the forest land and was served a notice by the divisional forest officer in July 2009. Last week, Ramesh signalled all-clear to Naveen Jindal, his colleague in the party and in Parliament.

Intriguingly, many development projects incur huge cost escalation due to such delays and, in effect, end up spending much more than what would have cost the developers to address environmental concerns at the conception stage. Take the Navi Mumbai airport project, for example. In 2004, the project cost was Rs 4,700 crore. After a prolonged drama over green clearance, the project refused to retain the current course of the Ulwe river, arguing that construction on stilts etc. was not financially viable as that would cost an additional Rs 4,300 crore. In August 2009, the promoters claimed the delay had already escalated the project cost by 40 per cent. Finally, when the project was cleared in November 2010, the escalated cost was estimated at Rs 9,000 crore. Had the project authority opted for the environmentally sound plan in 2004 itself, the modifications, discounting for inflation, would not have cost more than Rs 2,300 crore. At Rs 7000 crore, the new airport would still have come Rs 2,000 crore cheaper and four years sooner.

Deliberate and organised attempt to bend laws is behind the delay in the environmental impact assessment process. Therefore, to fast track the clearance process, the Prime Minister should know, every project must factor in the environmental costs at the conception stage instead of resisting legally binding green safeguards later. More importantly, both government and private developers should stop eyeing projects in areas that are legally out of bounds. It is unfortunate enough that many such illegal projects manage to get approval after repeated environmental assessments and sustained doctoring of facts.

Now if the Prime Minister wants even such projects to be cleared forthwith, he should, if he can, get the green laws abolished in the House. Or he should step down. Provocation does not become the country’s highest office.

Lies, more lies, and green lies

It is one thing to watch the nation’s best forests plundered, quite another to be asked to feel good about it

The Bengal Post, 17 Feb, 2011

Steel Authority of India is a maharatna company – one of the government’s crown jewels. Its existing and future expansion plans are supreme in the national interest. The operational mines of the steel major in the eastern region have almost exhausted their ore stock. So the company sought mining leases for Ajitaburu, Budhaburu and Sukri-Latur in Saranda’s Chiria iron ore field, the only “compact deposit” which can sustain large, mechanised mining with an annual yield of 30-50 million tonnes over the next 50 years.

So Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh has overruled the Forest Advisory Committee's recommendations and cleared the proposal. Of course, he cited 13 conditions even though his ministry has no infrastructure to monitor any.

Environmentalists briefly ranted over the sacrifice of Singhbhum’s elephant forests, a decision which will also have serious repercussions for the herds of the Keonjhar district in Orissa. But national interest cannot be questioned too loudly and it was business as usual.

Then SAIL decided to celebrate. After all, nearly 40 per cent of the company's iron ore requirement would be met from Chiria mines in the next five decades. It announced that Rs 5000 crore would be pumped in to develop the mines in Chiria and that the company would start mechanised mining in the next three years to feed its plants in Bokaro, Burnpur, Durgapur and Rourkela. It added that the company had already begun work on development of mechanised mines in Chiria, initially with a capacity of seven million tonnes per annum and appointed Australia’s Hatch Associates for preparing a detailed project report.

Then, SAIL delivered a gem. The company declared that it would leave no stone unturned to ensure mining in Chiria left no mark on the environment. In order to ensure environmental protection, SAIL will carry out only mining and crushing activities in the mines. The iron ore will then be taken out of the forest area through a conveyor system. Installation of the most modern type of conveyor system, with very low-level of noise and without the need for a service road for maintenance activities, has been planned. According to SAIL, such a system will ensure that impact of mining on flora and fauna in the area is zero. Yes, zero; you read that right.


The once virgin sal forests of Saranda, its evergreen undergrowth and two perennial rivers (Karo and Koina) – home to one of the country’s most promising elephant reserves -- have already been decimated by SAIL and others in many parts, such as, Gua, Kiriburu, Chiria or Noamundi. More than one-third of Saranda’s canopy cover is already history, thanks to iron ore mining since the 1920s. Most of Saranda’s elephant herds are fragmented or are cut off from one another. With their traditional migration routes blocked and elephants seeking out new areas in Hazaribag (even Orissa and Chhattisgarh), conflict with the local population is steadily on the rise.

Yet, SAIL wants us to believe that their new, mechanized technology will have “zero impact” on the environment.

This is not the first time a developer or an industry has sought to ridicule the intelligence of India’s citizens. Only a couple of months back, former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Anil Kakodkar supported the Jaitapur nuclear power project, saying it would have no harmful impact on the environment, water, air or bio-diversity. Needless to say that the green ministry already cleared the power project after 1,000 ha of land in the coastal Konkan was acquired for the plant.

Likewise, the Tatas claimed that Dhamra port does not harm Gahirmatha’s sea turtles. Kashmir’s famed Mughal road refused a minor compromise of its alignment but proposed to launch a Markhor (endangered mountain goat) Recovery Project at a cost of Rs 11 crore. Argument for a proposed thermal power plant in the fragile Sompeta swamp in Srikakulam is reassuring because based on environment impact assessment done in the peak summer months, the swamp is not much of a wetland. The list is long.

The bottomline, however, is clear. Whatever the green laws of the country, ministerial discretion rules when it comes to application. The prime minister’s office has been involved so many times in influencing the environmental clearance of projects that the idea of transparency and an equal playing field seems pretty much a joke.

Environment and Forests minister Jairam Ramesh enjoys the confidence of a huge green constituency. Many were excited after the minister had ruled against Vedanta and when PM-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi rallied in support of the Niyamgiri tribals. But the abject surrender before Posco and Lavasa underlined how the system makes a rubber-stamp ministry approve 99 per cent of development projects.

It is difficult to tell when the joke becomes a snub. When the ministry cleared Posco and Lavasa to appease ‘multinational’ and ‘political’ interests, respectively, no Opposition party in India finds these faits accomplis worth even a mock protest. After approving, in principal, Rs 5000 crore for resettling families from core tiger reserve areas across the country over the next five years, the Planning Commission has in fact slashed the budget of the green ministry. To top that, the Reserve Bank of India has blamed Jairam Ramesh and his environmentalism for a 36% dip in foreign direct investment. The prime minister himself has warned that green regulatory standards might bring back the licence-permit raj.

In the hierarchy of power, it is becoming increasingly evident where the greens stand. At the wrong end of a bulldozer and with an earful of assurance: don’t worry, this won’t hurt one bit.

Sex, Lies and Pugmarks

For decades, foresters have relied on pugmarks to tell the gender and identity of tigers. But pugs often lie, as they did in Corbett recently. Open tracks a few alpha males with ‘female’ footprints

Open, 5 February, 2011

Six deaths in 10 weeks, terrified villagers and angry mobs, a shrill media and shriller conservationists, harried forest staff and their nervous bosses—even by Corbett’s vintage standards, it was a classic recipe for chaos.

The tug-of-war began three months ago after the first human death on 12 November. Wildlife activists dubbed the first two attacks accidental and blamed the victims for trespassing on the forest. But the kills were partly eaten on both occasions. So when a third victim was consumed on 29 December, it was difficult for the forest authorities to ignore public pressure. The next day, Uttarakhand’s Chief Wildlife Warden, S Chandola, issued shoot-at-sight orders.

The sharpshooters, however, were told to go easy, and trap cages were set up to capture the maneater alive. Barring the second killing, the attacks had taken place within a 6 sq km area adjacent Sunderkhal village where two male and three female tigers roam. By now, rumours were flying thick and fast. Many started blaming a tiger couple for the killings. Otherwise solitary animals, tigers do come together while mating, but it was highly unlikely that they would pair up for two long months and forge a partnership to bring down the unusual prey.

No wonder Ranjan Mishra, field director of Corbett Tiger Reserve, thought the theory deserved some wry humour: “What kind of couple would look for human flesh in the mating season? Is it an aphrodisiac or what?” The tense drama was beginning to border the absurd.

All hell broke loose on 8 January when a male tiger walked into one of the trap cages. UC Tiwari, now warden and an old Corbett hand, had been scanning the sites of the attacks and felt some pugmarks near the kills indicated a tigress at work. It was only a possibility, and not a man to speculate, Tiwari had kept it to himself. But now that a young male tiger faced life imprisonment in Nainital zoo, the warden decided to answer the media.

By the time newspapers confirmed the Sunderkhal maneater as a tigress, on 9 January, the captured male had been tranquillised, and against the pressures of local strongmen, released 40 km inside the reserve in the Dhikala zone. (This was hardly the best option for the male that found itself in another male tiger’s territory. But that is another story.)

The very next day, the maneater struck again near Sunderkhal. By now, the villagers had no patience left for theories. They refused to accept the body and insisted that the tiger be shot when it returned to its kill. Two machans were set up: one overlooking the kill and another a little away on an approach path. The animal showed up in the evening and took a bullet. Surprisingly, the shooters were using .315 rifles—a weapon vastly inferior to the .375 Magnum, the minimum calibre prescribed for shooting a tiger. The injured tiger charged at its adversaries, but broke away when shooters from the other machan fired to cover their men. All that remained was a blood trail and samples for a forensic test.

In the days that followed, the media hammered the forest establishment for leaving an injured maneater tigress at large. Trackers combed the forest in vain. Finally, on 26 January, the maneater made a comeback. On a trip to visit his relatives, 25-year-old Puran stopped his two-wheeler on the highway and stepped a few yards inside the forest to relieve himself. All that was found of him the next day was a piece of leg.

The village turned into a wild mob. Stone pelting and road blockades spurred the gunmen. Within hours, they found a big cat near the spot where Puran’s remains had been found. Desperate, they sprayed bullets from all vantages. It took about 30 rounds to bring down the maneater of Sunderkhal. But when the gunners cautiously retrieved the dead cat, it turned out to be a male!


News spread fast. On the web, conservationists and activists started wagging fingers. After all, this was not the first time a ‘wrong’ maneater had been shot. In 2007, Tadoba’s maneater of Talodi was supposed to be a tigress but a young male was gunned down. In 2009, a Pilibhit tiger was blamed for a series of attacks on people, but when shot, it turned out to be a female.

A dead tiger on their hands, the Corbett brass rushed to the spot. Among them, Tiwari kept his fingers crossed. It was he who had told the media that going by the pugmarks, the maneater was a tigress.

Reading pugmarks has been the most traditional method of tracking tigers. Nearly eight decades ago, A Somerville noted that a male tiger’s toes were square while a female’s were more rounded and slender. In 1934, JW Nicholson of the Imperial Forest Service used pugmarks to count tigers in Palamau. In the 1960s, Saroj Raj Choudhury developed it into a field technique at Simlipal.

Subsequently, many noted tiger experts, including biologist C McDougal and former Chief of Project Tiger HS Panwar, observed that ‘the whole hind pugmark of a male tiger fits into a square frame whereas that of the female fits into a rectangular frame’. They also noted that ‘a female’s toes were slender and elongated compared to a male’s toes which were oval and more circular’ (see above graphic: Tale of Two Paws).

These thumb rules have been the most widely used (and misused) field method to ascertain a tiger’s gender. As late as in 2003, a paper co-authored by Dr Y Jhala of the Wildlife Institute of India confirmed that pugmarks ‘can be used to acquire sex-ratio data of tiger populations’.

An old-school forester, Tiwari trusted his eyes. Now he was cursing his luck that the gunners had probably got the wrong tiger. Then something struck him.
In 2004, a tiger created panic near Mohan in Corbett. It had attacked people and stalked villages. It had even injured a patrol elephant. Tiwari had had a tough time tracking the tiger and was relieved when it died.

While villagers celebrated, Tiwari recalled, he had spotted something unusual about the dead tiger. Its hind pads were shaped like a female’s. I remember the story. But in 2004, I was more interested in the tiger than its paws. So was Tiwari.

Two months ago, when the Corbett maneater was still on the prowl, Tiwari came across puzzling pugmarks again. He was following a fresh tiger trail on his jeep. Everybody in the team expected a female walking ahead, but when they caught up with the cat, it turned out to be a male. In a moment of intrigue, Tiwari recalled the Mohan tiger, and drove on.

But this time, in Sunderkhal, he went for the dead tiger’s hind paws. Déjà vu.


The next day, Chief Wildlife Warden Chandola explained to the press that the dead male’s hind pads had the characteristics of a female, adding that the bullet of the failed shooting was found lodged in its flesh. Whether the dead male tiger was indeed the maneater will be clear in the coming weeks if the attacks stop. But conservationists, eminent experts among them, have already dismissed the claim of “a male with female pugs”.

To confirm this, I sent a photograph of the Sunderkhal male’s rear pad to Brigadier Ranjit Talwar, an author of many field guidebooks for WWF-India. He wrote back saying he was ‘fairly sure’ it was ‘a hind left pad of a female’.

This cleared the gender confusion. But how rare are such exceptions? Five years after the Mohan incident, I was in Corbett to investigate the deaths of four tigers in the winter of 2009-10 (‘Who’s Killing Corbett’s Tigers’, Open, 13 February 2010). The first casualty occurred near Mota Sal at Dhikala. That dead tiger too had hind pads with female characteristics. I thought at the time it was a freak occurrence, and focused on the bigger story at hand.

Corbett field staff have stopped taking media calls following an order from Chandola. So I called up the boss himself. He resolved another mystery that dates back to 2009. Chandola recalled how he had gone by the female characteristics of its hind pads and reported a dead tiger (killed and partially eaten by another tiger) as a female in March 2009 at Dhela in Corbett. During post-mortem, the penis was found inverted inside the flesh and the animal turned out to be a male.


Do these five instances make a case? Dr Rajesh Gopal, member-secretary, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), thinks they do. “Pugmark reading is not a reliable field tool for individual or gender identification. That is why we have moved on to better technologies. Yes, pugmarks can indicate tiger presence and possibly direction of movements. Demand anything more and we get into the realm of uncertainties.”

But is there a fool-proof way to identify maneaters and deal with them? Dr Gopal recommends camera traps: “Used intensively and at innovative angles, cameras can tell the gender of a tiger. But to be certain that we are eliminating a maneater and not a wrong animal, there is no other option but to target it at a human kill. We must also use the right weapon so that the animal does not escape hurt. We need professionalism in handling such situations.”

Chandola agrees that the right weapon should be used, but defends his field staff’s decision to go ahead with what was available in an emergency. “The first time they tried to shoot the tiger, the operation was carried out at night with the help of searchlights. They had to go ahead with whatever weapon they had. Also, it is not easy to shoot accurately under such conditions,” he explains.

The larger issue, however, is the triggers for such conflict. Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh has already written to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank for speedy rehabilitation of Sunderkhal village to ease pressure on a key forest corridor. Sources in NTCA have claimed that a new tourism policy would soon deal with the walled resorts that block movement of wildlife.

Corbett field staff refuse to comment on village relocation and tourism pressure. Field Director Mishra says there are policy issues involved that are beyond his span of influence.

But will the killing spree stop for now? Can Sunderkhal sleep peacefully before it decides on relocation? Tiwari answers the questions with a deadpan “wait-and-watch”. But the warden has learnt a new field lesson: never again will he take tigers at pug value.


A tiger’s paw has a pad and four toes. A fifth toe commonly called the dew claw, is placed high on the front limbs only. Front pugs are larger than hind pugs. The pad is three-lobed at the rear end. Pugmark Length or PML is the measurement from the tip of the farthest toe to the base of the pad along the line of walk. Pugmark Breadth or PMB is the measurement between the outer edges of the first and last toe. In a front pug, the forwardmost points of the two middle toes are almost at the same level. In hind paws, the forwardmost points of the two middle toes are distinctly at different levels. In male tigers, the PMB of the front pug is mostly greater than its PML. The pugmark of a male almost fits into a square. In contrast, typically, the pugmark of a female fits into a rectangle. The shape of a male’s toes is more rounded. The shape of a female’s toes is elongated.

(Source: ‘Reading Pugmarks: A guidebook for forest guards’)

Man Bites Dog

…in a manner of speaking, that is. For it is the irresponsible behaviour of pet owners that is to blame for the menace and misery of street dogs

Open, 5 February, 2011

First, some figures. The Indian pet dog industry has long crossed the Rs 100 crore mark and is eyeing a projected market worth Rs 350 crore by 2012. We have an estimated 10 million pet dogs in India (3.6 million in six major cities). The country’s pet dog population is growing by an estimated 26 per cent, a rate second only to Japan’s. There are dog restaurants (Bow Wow, Gurgaon), dog parlours (Scooby Scrub in Delhi, Fuzzy Wuzzy in Bangalore and Tailwaggers in Mumbai), dog insurance (Bajaj Allianz General Insurance) and dog yoga (doga).

Now, some more figures. India has more than 25 million stray dogs. Few of these strays survive disease and vehicular accidents to die natural deaths. Nearly every second, someone is bitten by a dog. That amounts to more than 20 million bites a year, of which 30,000-40,000 turn out to be fatal. Dogs spread more than 60 diseases to humans. Rabies alone claims three human lives every hour. More than 80,000 quintals of dog shit and 3.3 million gallons of dog piss is discharged on Indian roads and fields daily, causing major health and environmental hazards.

The second set of data testifies to an alarming state of affairs that you can correctly blame on a callous society. But before you seek hope in the first set of data that speaks of how man’s best friendship is growing by the day, think again. The plight and menace of stray dogs in India are a direct consequence of irresponsible pet rearing.

Before the animal lover in you contests the statement, consider why we have not succeeded in controlling India’s stray dog population. Historically, we tried to reduce the number of strays by killing them, and we killed enough before giving up in frustration. Much before it became an animal rights issue, it was evident that killing, unless done en masse, could not bring down the numbers. With increasingly abundant resources (such as food in garbage dumps), the partial elimination of a population only reduces competition for resources and boosts breeding.

From killing, we moved on to sterilisation. Since 1992, the Government and NGOs have been carrying out Animal Birth Control (ABC) programmes in several cities. But unless at least 70 per cent of a canine population is sterilised within a six-month window, ABC drives fail to have any stabilising effect. Left to a few NGOs, no Indian city has yet achieved this target that requires neutering 600-800 stray dogs every day over six months. But even if we expand capacity and manage to hit the target, the stray dog population will continue to swell.

To understand why, we have to look beyond the apparently happy picture that dog owners and their pets present. In India, dog owners are not required to register their pets. It is not mandatory to get one’s pets sterilised or vaccinated. Owners simply do not need to be responsible for their dogs or their dogs’ pups. So every day, hundreds of unwanted pet dogs and pups are abandoned on Indian streets. Also, thousands of pet dogs are allowed to roam or break free and romance the strays.

The result? Governments and NGOs keep neutering a few street dogs while the country’s pet dogs, thanks to callous owners, keep adding to the stray population. It is like an attempt to mop the floor, to quote activist and researcher Meghna Uniyal, while leaving the tap open. It is commendable to adopt and shelter strays, but it is useless if these animals are not confined or sterilised.

Besides, the so-called Indian street dog has very little Indian about it. The stray population is mostly mongrels of various crossbreeds. Uniyal emphasises that ABC drives must target pedigreed pets with high breeding frequency. Like in Taiwan, the Government could offer incentives to owners to get their pets sterilised. To ensure that the carrot comes with a stick, a steep tax can be levied on breeding pets.

But reckless pet owners are responsible not just for the growing population of stray dogs. They must also take the blame for most dog attacks on people.

In The Ecology of Stray Dogs, possibly the most authoritative work on the subject, Dr Alan Beck observed: ‘Loose or straying pets and stray (feral) dogs are different. True stray dogs form somewhat stable packs… are more active at night and cautious about people. In general, straying pets have smaller home ranges and (are) active when people are.’

Merritt Clifton, editor of Animal People, observes that ‘street dogs are relatively non-territorial because they do not have any particular home or anyone to defend except their own pups. But dogs that are often kept in homes and fed by specific individuals at specific places tend to become territorial and protective’ and lose inhibitions.

In simple terms, pets and abandoned pets roaming free on roads are likely to be less fearful of people than strays are. Around its owner’s house, such a dog is likely to act strongly territorial and aggressively protective.

And then there is petting outside the home. We all know our neighbourhood good samaritans who feed a few stray dogs outside their homes or workplaces. This has the same effect as petting, turning stray dogs territorial and aggressive. Such feeding has also created monsters of monkeys in many parts of India. Be it religious or compassionate, Indians are never short of inspiration to feed feral animals. Why, even the Union Ministry of Culture in 2001 doled out Rs 10 crore to various organisations on Mahavir Jayanti for feeding stray animals.

Barely two weeks ago, amid demands for culling stray dogs responsible for killing 18-month-old Prashanto in Bangalore on 13 January, all media reports glossed over a vital detail. After the death, the police arrested one Gonti Yadav around whom the stray dogs lived. Apparently, Gonti used to routinely feed them and they followed him to the victim’s hut when he visited the child’s parents that night. Responsible for the killing or not (no scratch mark was found on the partially mutilated body), the stray dogs in question were not, to borrow from Dr Beck, ‘true stray’ dogs. Indeed, animal welfare is not as simple or straightforward as it sounds.

Merritt makes a compelling point when he offers medical statistics from the US where the last street dog disappeared sometime in the 1970s. But a 300 per cent growth in the number of pet dogs between 1950 and 2010 resulted in an 800 per cent rise in cases of dog bites requiring hospital treatment. In a
country without any stray population, then, 4.7 million people are still bitten by dogs every year.

An impromptu survey of 20 friends in different Indian cities tells me that nine of them have been bitten by dogs. Strays were responsible in only two cases. My family’s last dog died when I was eight. She bit me once. I was too young to follow the don’t-disturb-during-meal rule.

Irresponsible pet owners are the species’ biggest enemy. There are few sights more pathetic than orphan pups scrounging on the roadside. Tokenism in the name of animal welfare only increases the population of strays. It gives dogs a bad name as aggressors. It creates an environment of hate that seeks to justify culling. I am not sure if environmentalist Edward Abbey saw it coming, but yes, when man wants to be seen as dog’s best friend, the dog has a problem.

Why It Need Not Be Such A Lonely Battle

Conservation, as a cause bandied about by the elite few, has alienated its most natural and powerful ally: the marginalized millions

The Bengal Post, 3 February, 2011

What is the biggest challenge facing conservation? Over the years, I have been asked this question many a time. Borrowing from the experts, I have peddled most stock options -- development rush, population boom, vote politics etc – to offer perspective. Today, when I ask this question myself, I realise I have been always naïve with my answers.

Market economy will always try to maximise growth, just like all life forms are programmed to multiply and colonise more bio space. It is in the nature of every being to be earnest to its purpose. We do not resent a conservationist seeking out a patch of welcome green in a high-rise complex. So why should we blame a miner for seeing only prize minerals in a lush forest?

In any natural order, counter-forces maintain the balance. Likewise, in the real world, conservation concerns are supposed to force the checks and balances in a fair competition with the GDP rush. We know that has not happened. Even under Jairam Ramesh, the green ministry has been clearing 99 out of every 100 development projects. It is hardly a contest. No wonder the frustrated greens are reduced to branding the GDPwalas evil, blind or suicidal.

But how has the growth-versus-green contest become so one-sided? The answer is scary.

India is a vastly unequal society. Our growth machine has little pretense of being inclusive. Businesses make profit for a privileged few. Industries thrive on cheap labour. Development projects displace the poor almost at will.

India is also a democracy. Big money may still rule us by proxy but the rulers are careful not to appear autocratic. The power of the people, the poor majority, still decides a lot. Elections often spring surprises. Mass movements are never easy to quash.

Simply put, India’s economic growth has failed to substantially benefit most Indians. In fact, this growth is at the cost of many Indians. Also, much of this growth is at the cost of conservation. So why do we not have mass participation of the marginalized and the poor in the green movements against unscrupulous projects? Surely, that would have made a huge difference in a democracy.

Unfortunately, if “inclusive growth” has been a false promise, “inclusive conservation” is just an oxymoron. From online discussion forums to top government panels, conservationists are full of contempt for the poor, marginalized majority of India. Left to them, these encroachers or poachers should be “thrown out”, “put in jail” and even “shot at sight”.

About five years ago, the tiger-versus-tribal debate generated heated exchanges. I remember many big names that claimed only guns-and-guards could save the tiger. To be fair, the other camp was pushing for a free-for-all. With no middle ground in sight, saving the tiger soon became yet another upmarket fad and the tribal the biggest threat to conservation.

A few of those gun-toting conservationists have subsequently shown the courage to accept that conservation needs people’s support. The rest still continue with their shrill anti-people tirade. Such shocking elitism has completely alienated the green lobby from the marginalized. Little wonder the moneybags, and the crumbs they throw, find enough takers among the poor. Their choice, if any, is simple. GDPwalas may dupe them; conservationists just deny them.

Though unfortunate, this elitism is not surprising. Synonyms of welfare include aid, assistance and dole. This idea of charity has a noble aura that suits the elite. But for the average Indian, the one conservationists snigger at, acceptance of the wild has always been a way of life. While the sparsely populated West eliminated much of its wildlife, many species of large, potentially dangerous animals still survive in a crowded India.

Yet, conservation as we practise it here is a Western concept, with over-emphasis on protected areas. Is it possible to insulate free-ranging elephants and large carnivores in a country of a billion? We surely need undisturbed wilderness but much of our wildlife will keep dying outside those pocket reserves if we antagonise the people.

Our greens have already done everything possible to ensure this fate. They stay in walled resorts and blame open villages for obstructing wildlife corridors. They do not push the tourism industry to share profits with the communities but condemn villagers for entering forests to collect firewood. They refuse compensation if cattle are killed inside a reserve but persecute livestock-owners even if a wild animal is found dead outside reserves. They dismiss six human deaths in 10 weeks as insufficient ground for shooting a rogue tiger. And they also want the poorest and their subsistence economy to bear the cost of conservation.

The same lack of inclusiveness makes our so-called conservationists stonewall new knowledge. Almost none of them ever had anything do with wildlife or conservation sciences. Their expertise is built on anecdotes and experiences. Naturally, they are too insecure to make room for scientific or technical inputs. As a result, our green movements are mostly all action and no direction.

The biggest challenge facing conservation today is rescuing the green cause from this exclusivity. The community of Page3 conservationists and their followers on the web appears ridiculously out of depth against the mighty GDPwalas. Our green movement urgently needs some substance – the quantity of mass support and the quality of scientific guidance – to stand up and play a balancing role against our growth rush.

For that to happen, we urgently need a paradigm shift in thinking. Few experts evolve with time and none comes with a sale-by date. So, to break new ground, a fresh green leadership may exclude some old (and not so old) baggage.

PS: This is by no means a call for group retirement. What may not be good conservation can always be good television. The doting members of so many green groups on the web will still be watching.

Shattered Windows And Leopards In The Alley

Why memories of mean, paranoid neighbours banning galli cricket may help us understand the real factors behind increasing man-leopard conflict

The Bengal Post, 20 January, 2011

If you grew up in Calcutta like I did in the 1970s, you would remember those heady days of galli cricket. For us kids, this was serious business. We knew that Sunil Gavaskar could perfect his trademark straight-drive thanks to a Dadar alley that offered little incentive for cuts and pulls. We were no Gavaskars, and we took cuts and bruises fielding on blacktop ground to ensure that no batsman pretended to be one.

It was also a competition between the decibel level of pesky neighbours (who refused to appreciate a few broken window panes as sporting milestones) and our dogged insistence to free our arms. Nevertheless, our dubious skills flourished between intermittent injunctions and temporary ceasefires. On days, we also enjoyed an indulgent fan following in the balconies overhanging the makeshift pitch.

Not that there were no playfields nearby. In my neighbourhood, we had two dusty squares where the college boys played. They did not let kids play with them. On rare occasions when they did, they considered us dudhe-bhate (inconsequential) which was hardly acceptable to any boy of honour. Anyway, we found them too big to handle. Even holding an occasional side game, on days when they were not having a match, was fraught with the danger of getting knocked out by a cork-and-leather ball flying from their practice pitch. It was only in galli cricket that young boys could come to their own.

In the early-eighties, those two playfields were being marked up for building apartments. The local youth clubs, backed by community elders, tried to reason with the builder. But compelling financial logics won the argument. But do I recall any of the builders ever suggesting that the big boys of the sporting clubs could do without those fields and take to galli cricket after the kids? I do not. Such a suggestion would have anyway led to violence.

Did the game of nerve intensify along our alley after those sporting fields were lost? It did, actually. No, not because the big boys with bigger back-lifts and stronger swings replaced us kids in the alleys. A couple of them joined bigger sporting clubs. The rest simply hung up their keds and concentrated on management courses.

What eventually drove us out was the increasing hostility of the neighbours. Quite a few families had already moved into the newly built apartments. Earlier, cranky aunts and uncles would go ballistic every time a ball sought out a window but everything would be forgotten the next day once we offered an impish apology with a casual promise that it would “never happen again”.

But the new neighbours were strangers and too protective of the glass panels in their posh apartments (or an occasionally parked car in the afternoon). Some of them even found us too noisy. When they started petitioning our parents too frequently, the more notorious among us broke a few eggs in their letter-boxes. Needless to say, cricket was soon banned in the galli.

I am not feeling nostalgic. Last week, a friendly conservationist asked me to accept that deforestation was the reason behind the rising human-leopard conflict. It has been conventional wisdom. But it is outdated and too simplistic. I tried to explain that increasing intolerance, and not deforestation, has been the biggest trigger for the recent escalation in conflict. After a prolonged exchange over three days, the noted expert called off the discussion. I was at a loss. If my technical case failed to move an expert, why trouble my readers with it?

So I felt some childhood memories might illustrate the point. Be it in sugarcane fields or village alleys, many leopards have been living close to and even among people, feeding on smaller domestic and feral prey, far away from forests. They have been doing so historically without causing major conflict.

Why do leopards stay close to people? Because wherever we have protected forests, we have or aspire to have tigers. Leopards usually do not share space with tigers. In the winter of 2004-05, presence of too many leopards in the Sariska valley was the first sign for me that the tigers were missing. In many places, leopards are fringe forest animals that make frequent forays into villages. Elsewhere, leopards use any vegetation cover available to stay close to villages.

It is ludicrous to suggest that anyone can misuse the fact that most leopards live in non-forest habitats to justify deforestation. There are enough animals -- like tigers or elephants -- that cannot survive outside forests. But we know that tigers disperse. So we need buffers. We know that elephants migrate. So we need corridors. Even leopards that live in fringe forests need such wilderness protected. They also need vegetation cover in their natural non-forest habitat intact. But what they need most is acceptance -- of the fact that a mere sighting of leopards near a human settlement is not a sign of danger, that the animals have been around us for a long time without harming any, that we need not rush to capture or kill them.

I have known many old-timers who testified how leopards have always been a part of their life, how they overlooked losing occasional livestock, knowing well that leopards would never harm people unprovoked. What has tipped this balance recently is the intolerance of the younger generations that wants neighbourhood leopards killed or captured (and released far away) for their perceived safety.

Yes, with growing population and shrinking space, chances of accidental face-offs have grown over the years. Yes, occasional problem-leopards will have to be culled. But instead of securing us, random killing and capture-translocation only fuel conflict. Unless we accept that leopards have been and will always be around us, that they do not harm us if left alone, our fight against deforestation alone will not be able to secure the spotted cat.

Back in the mid-80s, we lost our alley to increasing paranoia of new neighbours. Around the same time, the mecca of galli cricket was also weaned off this tradition. Though organized coaching nets have mushroomed in every available ground of the city since, no great Mumbai batsman has followed in the footsteps of the great galli icons Desai, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar or Tendulkar in the last two decades.

But who cares for nuanced batsmanship in the time of cheerleaders?

The Long Walk of a Single Mother

It is a reckless script gone so horribly wrong that a happy ending is unbelievable, if not impossible. A desperate mother seeking shelter far from her forest home in the fields to save her two cubs from murderous males; villagers living the terror of running into big cats amid standing crop they cannot afford to abandon; forest ground staff trying hard to avert conflict that could end all hope for the tiger family. This could well be a tragedy of circumstance but for the villains of the piece

Open, 15 January, 2011

It was nearing noon. Standing on the high western bank, I could see a broken layer of mist still hanging on the Chambal river. The gentle slopes leading to the water glistened with promising crop. About a hundred yards to my left, the slope became steeper where the Kharad nallah, a minor tributary, joined the mighty river. Behind me, red gram (arhar dal) crop stood four feet tall on a rectangular field. Less than 50 yards to the right, shrubby growth of thorny vegetation broke the monotony of green.

Walking single file, forest officials were looking for pugmarks so that they could warn the farmers working nearby. A tigress and her two cubs had killed a cow barely a kilometre away four days ago. Range Officer Jodhraj Singh Hada had already deployed eight men to keep track of the runaway family. Now he was out in the field himself to assess the ground situation.

Clearly, nobody except me was expecting any miracle. But then, these were hardened forest hands, and this was only the fifth time I was looking for tigers on foot. So while I wistfully surveyed the vegetation around, most eyes scanned the ground next to their feet. If we spotted fresh pugmarks, I was told, we would count ourselves lucky.

Walking about 50 yards ahead of me, Hada spotted a lonely farm hand and stopped to give a routine warning. Forester Mahavir Sharma was keeping pace with me. Earlier, as we drove past sprawling mustard fields, he had laughed off the possibility of black-and-golden stripes darting out of a sea of yellow. “Try spotting a tiger here,” he chuckled again, pointing at the standing red gram crop to our right that shuttered vision more effectively than Venetian blinds. I smiled sheepishly and stopped looking.

Two forest guards who were painstakingly scouting the slopes below for pugmarks suddenly decided to catch up with us. Possibly their upward momentum took them a few yards inside the red gram field. Ahead of us, Hada was now standing in an open ploughed ground, looking for that farm hand. Mahavir and I also veered to the right to cut distance.

Perhaps the four of us formed a human chain too close-knit for comfort. Out of the blue, I heard an angry rumbling. Through the corner of my right eye, I caught a glimpse of at least two big cats making a dash in our direction barely ten yards away. The next second, I could only see the vegetation sway and Mahavir dash away. The rumbling of the growl only got louder. Unsure and terrified, I blindly lunged forward.

+++

My desperate lunge got me entangled in a bush of thorny Prosopis juliflora. But the tigress, known as T13 in Ranthambhore, had no intention to harm any of us. She was worried for her cubs and had just warned us before we got too close for mutual safety. For more than a month now, her close vigil against people has worked. But the next time, her nerve may not hold.


On 26 December, the Ranthambhore management launched a search after T13 and her cubs had been missing for 22 days. On 29 December, forest guards found their pugmarks, and the same day, a blue bull kill made by T13 was spotted near Senwati Dharmpuri, more than 10 km from her home range inside Rajasthan’s famous national park.

Bodol forester Sudarshan Sharma saw the family the day the blue bull kill was found. He noticed that one of the cubs was bigger, implying a male. But why did he lose track of the family? How did the three big cats leave the reserve unnoticed? Sudarshan claims the canny tigress took the hilly ridge behind his range via Bheronpura village and then took the Kundli riverbed to reach the Chambal. To be fair, if tigress T13 had managed to give her murderous suitors the slip, Sharma stood little chance.

To complicate matters further, T13’s aging mother, T14, has also been pushed out of the reserve by younger competitors. The old tigress is now fighting her last battle for survival in the same ravines not too far away from her daughter’s family. While T14’s days are numbered, aged tigers wandering close to habitations have a history of getting into conflict with humans. If the old granny ends up attacking people, the mother and cubs may have to face the ire of villagers.

Meanwhile, out in the ravines, T13 made her first cattle kill on 2 January near Lasora village. Ranger Hada promptly swung into action. Forest guards recovered the remains of the kill the next day to leave no room for poisoning. On 7 January, a local NGO raised funds through its volunteer network to compensate for the kill. With Rs 5,000 each coming from the volunteers and government, Bhuvanya Bairwa admitted that he would make a small profit on the bull he lost to the tiger.

Lasora sarpanch Tej Singh appeared a reasonable man. Before posing with Bairwa and Mahavir for photographs while handing over the compensation, he did ask Hada how soon the ranger would take away those tigers. But when told that the mother and cubs might turn the village’s fortune around, Singh listened carefully. Hada explained that thanks to the tigers, Lasora had already been added to a list of villages that will benefit from a new Rs 12 crore ‘tiger fund’ meant for micro development. Now Singh was nodding easily; so a little routine advice followed on the precautions to be observed while the tigers were around. It was a breeze. The few villagers present readily agreed to comply. Relieved, a confident Hada went scouting for pugmarks.

But the growling, darting tigers were surely more than what the forest staff had bargained for. Immediately after the scare, Hada readily accepted suggestions from Dr Dharmendra Khandal, noted field biologist who generated supplementary compensation for the cattle kill, to preempt conflict. With a frown on his forehead, the ranger set out to plan daily village meetings, pamphlets for distribution and even media advertisements.

But the media has already lapped up the story, explaining the runaway tigress as a victim of over-population. Intimidated by too many males, forest bosses explained, tigress T13 fled the reserve to save her cubs. For the record, the tigress was photographed on 1 October last year. Next morning, she was seen fighting and pushing a male tiger, T28, almost 3 km back from Ranthambhore’s Ada Balaji main road to Goolar Kui. That night, she was seen by the forest staff at the main road barrier with her cubs. The next day, she boldly crossed the tar road with her cubs and probably started her journey away from the nasty males.

In the absence of the tiger that sired T13’s cubs, any other male tiger seeking to mate with her would first kill the cubs to establish its own bloodline. Also, it is not rare for a male tiger to be killed or chased away by a more able adversary. But the father of T13’s cubs was not eliminated by nature. Tiger T12, one of Ranthambhore’s four dominant males then, was airlifted to Sariska last year in a joint exercise by the state forest department, Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority.

After the first three translocated tigers turned out to be siblings (‘Conservation: the New Killer,’ Open, 24 July 2009), the Sariska repopulation drive was put on hold and a thorough DNA test was ordered (‘Centre Orders DNA Test for Tigers,’ Open, 24 February 2010). The fourth tiger was to be picked up based on this DNA report (‘DNA Tests Confirm Sariska Siblings,’ Open, 26 June 2010). But the officials inexplicably decided to overlook other crucial criteria. A Union ministry guideline clearly stated that only young transient tigers could be selected for translocation. Nevertheless, forest officials shifted a mature male tiger, which had already impregnated a tigress, T13 (‘Dispatched to Die,’ Open, 19 November 2010).

It was nothing short of a pre-natal death sentence for the cubs. Only a really exceptional mother could raise her cubs in the absence of their father. And so far, T13 has done a great job.

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But life around Lasora is on the edge. The people here are simple, unlikely to target the big cats if they get timely, adequate compensation for livestock losses. Between Hada and Dr Khandal, they have a sound assurance. But an accidental attack on people—a distinct possibility during the crop gathering due next month—can change the entire equation. T13 needs to shield her seven-month-old cubs for another 13-17 months. Major conflict is inevitable if the family stays put in the cropland and ravines for that long.

Presence of ample livestock and some wild prey in the fields along the Chambal river may discourage major movement of the family. However, it is not really practical to tranquilise all three tigers simultaneously, which is essential to keep the family together. In any case, taking the family back to the national park will again expose the cubs to dominant males, and the tigress’ courageous foray into the unknown to save her young ones will come to naught.

The tigress has not tried to cross the Chambal river yet, probably because her cubs are too young to risk the tide. But if the trio does move onto the other side of the river in the months to come, they will enter a very crowded landscape and may run into poachers. While gunmen may hit them even at their present location, it is easier to secure the area, flanked as it is by the tiger reserve and the river. In recent times, few Ranthambhore tigers that crossed the Chambal have survived.

So, is there no hope for T13 and her cubs? Nature is never short of possibilities. Male tigers do not harm young females that are potential mates. So if both cubs of T13 are female, the family may well be rehabilitated if it moves back to Bheronpura area in the Sawai Man Singh sanctuary, about 6 km from its present location. Bheronpura has a small but good tiger habitat without any resident tiger and is only occasionally scouted by a couple of male tigers.
However, if Sudarshan’s observation is right, T13 will be wary of venturing anywhere close to the forest with a male cub. Unfortunately, a growing male cub in the cropland may also increase the chances of conflict.

Ranger Hada and his team of ground staff have a thankless job at hand. These foot soldiers of conservation are now expected to undo the damage done by their mighty generals. Rajasthan’s chief wildlife warden HM Bhatia went on record last week accepting that T12 is the father of T13’s cubs, but did not explain why the tiger was packed away. The WII scientists who picked up T12 after handpicking three siblings are still at the helm of the country’s most ambitious conservation project. The NTCA has not explained why it flouted its own guidelines by allowing the translocation of a dominant male.

It will take great resolve and much greater luck if the ground staff are to secure the future of T13 and her cubs. However, it should take Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh much, much less to fix some accountability, somewhere.

Just laugh it away, Mr Ranthambhore

Though stunning in its winter splendor, Ranthambhore is incomplete till the resident tigerman returns from his sickbed in Jaipur

The Bengal Post, 13 January, 2011

“What do you do with so much mustard?” The question came from an American couple who clearly had a taste for that yellow sauce (the more innocuous French versions of it) but were at a loss, considering the quantity of paste those hundreds of acres of standing flowers would amount to.

It was heartening to note that in a sea of tiger-hungry tourists, there were a few who drove away from Ranthambhore, cutting across those luscious mustard fields in search of blackbucks. The Americans went back with happy photographs and the knowledge of a new cooking medium. Ranthambhore always has a surprise or two for every visitor.

My friends among those blackbuck spotters recalled the collective “whoa!” that went up earlier in the day as their vehicle bounced up the undulated entry road on way to Jogi Mahal, throwing open the spectacular horizon. Under a mystical aerostat of bluish mist that masked the sun, the panorama was complete with craggy rock faces and majestic fort walls draped in winter vegetation of green and yellow.

It is difficult to feel partial to any particular forest. But Ranthambhore feels almost like home. Though I do not even remember the last time I entered the national park for a safari, this amazing forest has never failed to surprise me with its bounty of wildlife and stories. In fact, some of my best tiger encounters happened outside this national park, including the surreal leap of a young male tiger that cleared my jeep as I watched his white belly fly overhead.

My first Ranthambhore trip of 2011 was a short one. Yet it packed the usual punch -- two playful leopards by the road near Kushalpura village, a growling tigress with two cubs in the Chambal ravines, villagers negotiating the demands of conservation, and the customary evening debates in the open by the fireside.

But something was amiss. Ranthambhore’s resident tigerman Fateh Singh Rathore was away in Jaipur, in hospital for more than a week now. One who refused to lose his hearty laughter even after losing much of his voice, Fateh is a rare life force. But those close to him said he was not too well.


I know Fateh, Fatji to his innumerable admirers, for many years. He is the man who had virtually created the Ranthambhore national park as its first conservator. A true old world forester, he lived inside the forest and often put his life at risk to protect the park. A number of broken bones in his body still testify to those wild days.

I have never written anything on Fateh’s immense contribution to tiger conservation (lest it appeared a puff job). But some of my news reports did show him and his NGO’s early dealings in a not-so-favourable light. Not too long back, Fateh spoke to me of the injustice done to him and his family by the forest department when parts of their properties were demolished but I did not report (it was not national news). In short, Fateh had enough reasons to resent me.

However, I do not recall a single occasion when Fateh closed his doors to me. Every time he learns I am in town, he gets a beer or two placed in the freezer in case I drop by unannounced during the day. Age has forced him to give up drinking but it is still my privilege to light up a cigarette for him every time we meet. On occasions, I have simply walked in and shared his lunch.

Why has Fateh been so indulgent to a journalist who did him no favour? Is it because he believes my stories help his cause of tiger conservation? Possibly, yes. But I think it is in his nature to show warmth and trust people. He has many detractors, some among his friends, who routinely let him down. Some of them were jealous of his global fame, some others gloated whenever he was harassed by the establishment. A few still call him farji (fake) behind his back. For all his rustic charm, Fateh is sharp enough to know who stands where. But time and again, I have seen him open up with childlike spontaneity to his detractors when they need him. One requires a lion’s (or tiger’s) heart for that.

Dr Dharmendra Khandal came to Ranthambhore to work in Fateh’s NGO, TigerWatch, in 2003. Today, he is recognised internationally for his successful anti-poaching operations. I have never seen the boss rankled by his protégé’s meteoric rise even when occasional reporters left Ranthambhore with Dr Khandal’s quotes, without even meeting Fateh. Instead, he has happily given his protégé more space with each passing year.

To be fair, Fateh is no saint and he never claimed to be one. Like many Rathores, he has a weakness for land, lager (or whiskey) and ladies. Like most of us, he loves attention. His famed knowledge of tigers, though unmatched among his contemporaries, is largely anecdotal. At times, he overstates his cases against the establishment. When he is angry, he is usually abusive.

What distinguishes Fateh though from more visible tiger experts is the ferocity of his passion. He often concludes our discussions with a simple vow: “So long I am alive, come what may, I won’t let tigers disappear from Ranthambhore.” I often hear such lines in my job. I can tell Fateh does mean it.

But, like Ranthambhore, Fateh also keeps surprising me. In a world where experts are life prisoners of their early convictions, I least expected Fateh to be an exception. A man of modest education and feudal upbringing, he set up Ranthambhore by resettling villages and fighting poachers in the only way he knew: with an iron hand. Decades later, he was asked to accept that only guns would not save tigers, that poor tribal poachers were also victims of their circumstances. It required a paradigm shift in thinking that more erudite conservationists struggled with. But Fateh was up to it and soon, TigerWatch started rehabilitating poachers and educating their children.

For me, Fateh is as special a person as Ranthambhore a place. It is difficult to think of the two in isolation. The place owes its coming-into-being to the man. The man loves the place so much that he refuses to stay away one extra night than necessary. I am sure Fateh is laughing away his damned sickbed in Jaipur and itching to return. Ranthambhore is waiting.

Why the ‘real world’ does not get real

In this age of activism, do-gooders get to choose what good they may do; besides, it is really tough to fix real problems

The Bengal Post, 23 December, 2010

How much do you think is a forest guard’s salary? I popped the question when a fellow delegate at a neat little film festival on tribal arts in Bhubaneswar paused for a breather last week. She was lamenting the sorry state of our forests and wildlife and wondering if corporate-media initiatives were the last hope to save the wilderness.

I stood nodding for a while and when she sounded positively pained by the plight of poor forest guards, asked my first question. “Salary, well,” she said, “could not be more than three-four thousand for sure.” I told her that a forest guard, depending on seniority, took home Rs 10-18,000 a month. “Oh, I see,” she instantly wondered, “that’s quite a lot more than what we pay our driver.”

Now, for the first time, she seemed to be thinking. Surely, with that kind of salary, those forest guards did not require any charity. But then, she asked me, why was conservation still in such a mess? What was the problem?

The evening nip in the air was comfortable for northerners and we could go on discussing the issue. But artist Jatin Das, the one-man army organising the film festival, walked by. Like most artists of his stature, Das commands a lot of attention. As the delegates craned to hear him talk, the issues changed fast.

But the question returned with my fellow delegate later in the evening. Over a smoke, in a corner of the tastefully landscaped plot owned by Jatin Das Centre for Arts, I tried to find her answers.


No, forest guards do not need charity if they get their salaries on time (which does not happen in a few states like Bihar or Maharashtra). They earn enough to afford two uniforms, a jacket, a torch or even a tiffin box. But they are too few. In most states, vacancies are huge and the new recruits are mostly hired on contract for a maximum of Rs 3,000 a month. Corporates and NGOs can buy these temporary staff this and that. But they will still lack the authority and, more importantly, the accountability of a bona fide forest guard.

So one problem is the unwillingness of the states to fill in vacancies and ensure a workforce of well-paid regular forest guards who have a career and a pension to look forward to. Temporary ground staff can still be hired seasonally to supplement this workforce and to keep the local communities involved.

The second part of this problem is the states’ refusal to bear the recurring costs of conservation. A recent corporate-media telethon raised some Rs 5 crore to buy some sets of vehicles and an assortment of equipment for some tiger reserves. The Centre spends hundreds of crores for tiger conservation and makes such one-time purchases at a simply incomparable scale. But even if the Centre buys a jeep for each range officer and a motorbike for each forest guard, the fleets will need fuel to run on -- a recurring cost the states are supposed to bear and, in most cases, refuse to.

If the number of regular staff is one problem, the unreasonable workload is another. Forest staff must focus on protection. They should not be burdened with tourism duties, including facilitating VIPs, or relocating villages or doing research. Regular tourism duties make them corrupt. They become servile handling VIPs. They are often highhanded in negotiations and usually bad researchers. We need specially trained and specifically assigned personnel at different levels for such work. The regular sanctioned staff strength of a forest should do only what they are supposed to: watch over the forest and its wildlife.

The next problem, I told her, was of training. From a guard to a conservator, everyone must be trained adequately before serving at a wildlife area. The long-term solution is to create a wildlife service, perhaps a specialised short service, within the IFS. For now, we need specific and practical field courses tailor-made for all levels. We also need to churn out a bunch of good wildlife veterinarians to be deployed as regular/contract staff in each of our wildlife units.

This brought us to an even bigger problem: the sensitive issue of political will. Committed and performing field officers are always rare. Time and again, those few who actually make a difference are shunted out for offending powerful interests. But even state-of-the-art kits will rust if we do not have officers to lead from the front in an hour of crisis. Take the recent example from Ranthambhore. Range officer Daulat Singh was not mauled because he did not have adequate equipment. He suffered injuries because he was forced to act unwisely by his seniors. Availability of a few fancy kits may only encourage such foolhardy bravado in the absence of able and informed leadership.

The last on my list of administrative problems was the issue of mishandling losses suffered by local communities. Be it crop or cattle loss or restriction on livelihood practices, compensation has to be reasonable, transparent and prompt. At present, the process brings more agony than relief. In case of crop/life loss, assessment of damage should not be a bureaucratic (hence corrupt) process. For the larger issue of livelihood losses, benefits of tourism must be shared generously with the communities. Locals should also get preference for jobs with the forest department.

No, this list of problems, I told the now-exhausted delegate, did not include pressure of development (for profit or survival) and population. Those are almost philosophical debates nobody can win. However, redressing the administrative issues listed above is very much within our mortal scope. Yet, corporate-media spectacles are happy to donate some clothes and a few cars. Why, they could at least buy single-premium insurances to cover all forest guards in the country.

It was probably a giveaway and the keen delegate asked me if I had anything against a certain telethon. On the backfoot, I ducked, kind of. The media’s job is to correct public policies. The corporate’s job is to make profits out of ethical businesses. If both had even limited success in their primary jobs, the crisis they joined hands to fight so spectacularly on live TV would not have existed.

She dismissed me. “That’s a different thing, haan. We know how the real world works. But, at least, they did something, no? Spread so much awareness, no?”

I could see they really did. I nodded. She shuffled on her feet. Jatin Das walked by with an announcement. The bar was open.