PAWS FOR THOUGHT

Vivek Menon's new, improved field guide to Indian mammals is an essential companion to conservation awareness

- Bijoy Venugopal

While volunteering on a conservation project in Arunachal Pradesh, I chanced upon a curious bushy-tailed creature that resembled a squirrel but for its pointy snout. An inquiring text to a wildlife expert produced the necessary identification: Tupaia belangeri, the northern tree shrew, an insectivorous mammal more closely related to primates than rodents. That expert was Vivek Menon, executive director of Wildlife Trust of India and an award-winning conservationist, environmental commentator, author and photographer.

Menon’s capacious wisdom is compiled in the second edition of his field guide to Indian mammals, updated after five reprints of the first. Although at least 440 mammal species can be found in India, most visitors to our national parks will probably recognise 10. The big-bucks business of wildlife tourism is preoccupied with charismatic megafauna like large carnivores, rhinos and elephants.