Attention For All

The plight of wildlife in the face of development.

- Dr Dipankar Ghose

Eminent wildlife biologist, Dr George Schaller, in a meeting recently held in India, mentioned that the country has far too casually allowed development in nature reserves. It is a worrying trend where wildlife conservation is seen to be blocking the development pathway that the country is trying to take. As a matter of fact, natural ecosystems are irreplaceable and one needs to maintain a balance between conservation and development.

With the approach of summer, forest fires and drought-like situations have been reported from different parts of the country. A forest guard died in Bandipur National Park, Karnataka during this period, and another got grievously hurt in Uttarakhand due to forest fires. Many more guards and watchers suffered serious burn injuries.

Interesting information on tigers came from Sundarbans, where radio-collaring studies on 7 tigers carried out jointly by the Wildlife Institute of India and Sundarbans Tiger Reserve authority suggested that Sundarbans tigers hunt mostly in the morning between 05:00 and 10:00. Home range of tigers was estimated to be 57 sq km for females and 110 sq km for males.

Plight of tigers continued in 2017, as 35 mortality of tigers have been noted between January and April this year. Information on parvo-virus related death of a tiger cub in Madhya Pradesh alerted conservationists. However, in a bold step to curb poaching, the special task force (STF) of Madhya Pradesh forest department has arrested 3 poachers reportedly involved in killing more than 10 tigers in Central India.