by M Krishnan
By 1984 what I apprehended had come to pass. The thing about the captive breeding of muggers is this. In nature, the female lays thirty to sixty eggs on a river bank in a clutch, covers them up with earth, and stays close by most of the time guarding them. However, something like 90 per cent of the eggs and young hatchlings (which enter the water at once) are destroyed by natural predators, monitors, mongooses, jackals, even other crocodiles, and only about 5 per cent survive to reach the size when they can fend for themselves. Under captive breeding 90 per cent of the eggs may hatch and the hatchlings reach the size when they can be released into wild waters.
By 1984 huge stocks of mugger hatchlings had already accumulated at various captive-breeding centres and, because of opposition by the vote-holding public to their release, they were still held in captivity. At this meeting of the IBWL it was proposed that a pilot project for trade in crocodile skin should be tried out with this ‘surplus’ stock. I pointed out how dead against the Indian ethos, and the avowed principles of the IBWL itself, this proposal was, and suggested that governments might kill this huge stock of hatchlings quickly and mercifully and sell their skins and flesh too, but that the ban on trade in crocodile skin should be strictly enforced to save the wild muggers still left. I added that, as in the ivory trade, poachers would definitely find ways to circumvent all attempts to confine the trade to government supply.
Many sided with me, but one, a good naturalist and specialist in our reptiles, rose to say that since I had argued that in nature only 5 to 10 per cent of the eggs survived, there could be no harm in utilizing the 90 per cent going waste for pecuniary gain. This was the argument of an elementary mathematician and not of a naturalist. In nature the great mortality of the eggs and hatchlings is not just a waste, as suggested, but goes to sustain other Indian animals. However, I could not argue the point, and a few others as well that are quite relevant in rebuttal, as by that time people were getting visibly restive. The aroma of lunch, being laid out in the next room, pervaded the air, and as an experienced ethologist I knew how futile, even dangerous at times, it was to stand between gustatory arousal and its consummation. I therefore asked for the matter to be left undecided, and asked the secretary for an opportunity to present my arguments fully well before lunch at the next meeting of the IBWL, and he ceded this.
Then, when the IBWL was reconstituted in June 1985, the embarassment I was causing was neatly circumvented by leaving me out of it. I cannot have any objection to this manoeuvre, since Governments have the prerogative in such matters, but may I suggest through this column that the IBWL pledge should once again be revised as follows? ‘Born in the Land of the Buddha and Mahavira, and Mahatma Gandhi as well, I solemnly pledge myself to flay the captive-bred mugger and sell its skin for profit.’
1988
48
Hounding the Sloth
What has happened to the bear with a ring through its nose, that the wandering bear-trainer used to bring to town and village? I believe both the beast and the man are still to be found in places, particularly in the north. Recently, a probationer who had travelled along sub-Himalayan railways, told me how he got down at a station at midnight; a number of men, bundled up against the cold in rough, black kumblis, were sleeping on the platform; he took a close look at the sleepers, then a closer look, then finally appealed to his companions. ‘Do you see what I see?’ he asked them, for three of those slumbering men were bears in fact, stretched out besides their masters and hardly distinguishable from the kumbli-swathed humans.
I also read a thrilling newspaper account about a north Indian landlord suddenly visited with bandits; he fled for protection to the nearby camp of a party of gypsies, who had arrived at his village that day with some performing bears; the bears were unleashed, and attacked the enemy with such zest that some of the bandits were killed on the spot, and the rest bolted into the landlord’s house, and bolted themselves in against the retributory bears, so that the police had no difficulty in arresting them later.
Such happenings prove that the bear-trainer and his impressive pet are still very much there, in places, but it is true that they are no longer the familiar sight they used to be all over the country. Just as well, I think. I can never see a performing bear, however amusing its antics, without feeling sorry for the shaggy, grotesquely semi-human beast. Some captive wild beasts do suffer domestication without losing heart or character, especially those (like the elephant and the civet) which can be given a large measure of freedom. But the Sloth Bear (which is the bear-trainer’s bear) is never happy tied up all the time and fed rations. What a fate to overtake a great natural wanderer and gourmand!
Even apart from its trainer and nose-ring, what has happened to our Sloth Bear, in its native jungles? This is the bear of peninsular India, and peculiarly our own. Most other bears have a wide, almost a worldwide, distribution, and have bigger or smaller brothers in other countries. Not so our Sloth Bear. There is a race of it in Ceylon, but it is found nowhere else. It is unique in its anatomy and habits, and so has been assigned a class, all to itself, by zoologists.
And it is a creature associated with our oldest folklore and mythology. There is no countryside adjoining boulder-strewn hill jungles, where bears once lived or still live, where they do not tell the story of the male bear abducting the village belle. From available evidence it seems clear that the bear, though devoted to its mate, indulges in a rough courtship—however, in the story, the bear always treats the girl it has abducted with the utmost consideration, and lavishes gifts upon her that are valuable to a bear, such as honey and queen-termites and jungle berries! Our Puranas, too, have their bears, and our classical poetry knows them well.
How is it that the rapid disappearance from the country of an animal so anciently associated with our culture, and so peculiarly distinctive of our fauna, has been viewed with such complacency? I know many places named after the Sloth Bear, whose favourite haunts they were till recently—Bear Sholas and Karadi Kollas. Where, now, are the bears that gave these places their names?
Perhaps I am unduly apprehensive, and there is no likelihood of the Sloth Bear becoming extinct in India, no imminent likelihood, anyway. However, I must point out that the disappearance of this bear from many places where it was known a generation ago is not a question of opinion, but of fact. Moreover, it has happened time and again in the past that people have realized the need to protect some wild animal a trifle belatedly, when the species has been reduced to beyond the biological minimum necessary for its survival.
The Sloth Bear should be strictly protected where it occurs, and introduced into sanctuaries from the neighbourhood of which it has disappeared in the recent past. Many of our animals have become locally rare or extinct due mainly to the increase of the human population, rather than to being shot out. The bear, however, has been shot out. It is neither the conversion of its homes into agricultural land (it lives in stony hill jungles) nor the professional trapper that has been the main cause of its disappearance in places. For generations the ‘gentleman sportsman’ has thought the bear fair game, in any circumstance, and even found its ululations in mortal agony killingly amusing.
It is true that, when stumbled upon in its jungles, an early bear may attack a man in its panic, and that occasionally it has inflicted grievous wounds on some careless woodcutter poaching in the jungles. However, it is no more harmful to man, left alone, than many other wild animals, and definitely less harmful than transport buses, trains, and the like. The Sloth Bear is mainly nocturnal and crepuscular, and causes no great damage to agriculture—it is not a crop-raider in the sense in which pigs are crop-raiders. Those who have studied its habits agree that it is one of the most interesting denizens of our forests, and it is wholly ours. If a strict ban on the shooting of this bear, except when the authorities may consider it necessary, is enforced, it would be easy to save our bear.
1958
49
The Vanishing Bustard
Recently I r
ead a book on the common game birds of west Africa, and was surprised to find quite half a dozen bustards mentioned. I could not help comparing our one bustard with these exotic cousins, and pondering over its fate. I noted with pride that the Great Indian Bustard is far larger than any of its west African relatives: but, unlike them, it is doomed. I have met men who will not admit that the Hunting Leopard is virtually extinct in India, because they cannot bring themselves to believe that an animal they knew in their youth is already gone. But even they realize that our bustard is going, going, though not quite gone.
The Great Indian Bustard is a bird of the open country and very large, so that its presence anywhere is not hard to locate. It is a big fowl, nearly forty lbs when full grown (a prodigious weight for a flying bird) and four feet tall on its thick, yellow legs. It takes off with some difficulty and after the manner of an aeroplane, with a long run assisted by flapping wings. Once launched in the air, it gains height with lubberly beats of its sail-like wings, then soars on their stretched spread with surprising ease. However, it comes down to earth after a while, for it is essentially a ground bird. It carries its boat-shaped body like a boat, horizontally, and runs with its head and neck flung forward; it runs far more readily than it flies, and at a fair pace.
In spite of its dull brown back and dull, earth-bound habits (no one will call it a vivacious bird), the white in its plumage against the dark ground and its size give it away from afar. It has not many enemies in the flat, bare country that it loves, but unfortunately it is excellent eating, and man has never forgotten this.
Man (especially the man with the gun) is entirely responsible for the fact that this wholly Indian and magnificent bird is on the verge of extinction, and only man can save it now. Let me explain that statement.
Animals do not become extinct because they are shot down to the last pair. In nature, every species faces certain hazards, and survives in spite of them because if some of its members succumb others live to reproduce the species. There must be a minimum population for any species to survive, and the hazards of nature seldom reduce its numbers to below this minimum. This is what is implied in the much-used phrase ‘the balance of nature’, and this is not only a phrase but a proved fact as well, the principle underlying the running of any large sanctuary.
By shooting them, by infringing on their territory and driving them to fresh, unsuitable grounds or overcrowding them, and in many other ways that may not be intentional, man reduces the numbers of some species to below its biological minimum. Then it becomes extinct. When such a fate is about to overtake any creature, only by preserving it jealously, by helping it in all possible ways to breed back to its biological minimum strength, can we save it.
I have reason to believe that in a dying race the reproductive instinct is exceptionally strong, but unless sufficient living space, food and protection are provided (artificially, by man) this lastminute resurgence cannot save the species.
Our bustard is a useful bird, besides being ours, on the brink of extinction, and one of the largest of its tribe. It feeds mainly on locusts, grasshoppers, a variety of insects, and the like—the damage it does to cultivation is more than offset by its beneficial influence.
Can we save it? I think it is possible, if governments will enforce protective measures without too long deliberation. The bird is already on the protected list—on paper. The penalties to be imposed on people shooting the bird should be made stricter—and they should be enforced. A fine will not deter a gourmet, especially when he does not realize that the bird he is shooting is not merely illegal game, but a representative of a dying race that is a hundred times more valuable than it would be otherwise because it is struggling to breed up to the biological minimum necessary for the survival of its tribe. Something must be done, harshly, effectively, to make the flesh of the bustard have a bitter taste to the man with the gun. Only governments can do such things—but is not the Great Indian Bustard a fit challenge to the resources and responsibilities of our national administration?
It may be thought that already the bird is too far gone for any attempt to save it, however resolute. I do not think so. Someone told me, last week, that there were not then half a dozen bustards now in Mysore state. Perhaps that was a highly exaggerated statement, but even if it was true, no matter. The Great Indian Bustard is not such a rara avis as it may seem at first sight. Last year I counted seven of these birds in the flat country surrounding the village of Hagedal, near Gajendragad in the Dharwar district. These bustards, I was informed, had defined beats. Two of them were noticeably subadult, with dark streaks on their necks: very likely these birds breed in that area. I do not know how many of those seven are extant today, but surely there must be other places like Hagedal?
Experienced sportsmen need no appeal not to point their guns at our bustard but how many gun-licence holders know that the bird is rare and dying out? It is quite necessary to inform public knowledge on our vanishing fauna, and the need to preserve it. This, again, is something that only governments can do well. Private enterprise can make little headway in this direction; nor have I seen many appeals to the public on behalf of this bird. The only notice of it that I have seen, outside the writings of a few naturalists, was in an old drawing-book for schoolchildren, and here, too, the bird had been ill-served, for it had been defamed, in thick black type!
1952
50
A Lament for Lost Wood
During the past year I travelled many miles along the great arterial roads radiating from the urban heart of Madras, and along their rural branches. And once again I noticed the ruthless destruction of trees all over the countryside.
I do not refer to our forests. Rarely did I get much farther than fifty miles away from Madras city, and within that radius forests, in the botanical sense of the term, do not exist. Such forests as we do have in our state are sadly depleted, the ‘clear felling’ of areas without any compensatory, enforced plantation having been permitted in them for generations. Light jungles, of the kind that one may hope to find on minor hills, are rare in the neighbourhood of Madras: there were such jungles, but most of them have disappeared in the recent past. Why, Mylapore, so anciently a part of the city, and now so unrelieved an expanse of crowded architecture, was wooded in the 1920s!
In the old days people planted fruit trees and shade trees, and nurtured them in groves and on roadsides, so that succeeding generations might enjoy the comfort and charm of their maturity, and rest in their shade. From remote times it has been typical of the culture of India to care for trees, and to take good care of them.
Many passages from ancient classical Sanskrit and Tamil prove this, but let us not look into them—particularly as I have no Sanskrit! Instead, let us look nearer our times. As recently as the last century, and even during the early years of this century, people still took pride in trees. It was during this period that many exotics were introduced into the country—some merely because they had the appeal of novelty, others from a deeper motive. Our two chief hill stations, Kodaikanal and Ootacamund, will serve as examples. Many foreign trees and herbs were introduced into Kodaikanal, irrespective of the country of their origin, but in Ooty, where the Englishman felt most at home in south India, English flowering plants and even English weeds were planted, to satisfy a deeply felt sentiment.
I sometimes think that the disembodied ego of the Abbe Jean Paul Bignon, librarian to Louis XIV, would feel deeply gratified if it could visit south India today. Excepting Millingtonia hortenis (the one tree of acceptably native indigene common alongside roads here), the trees of the family Bignoniacede that have found favour with our avenue planters and gardeners are all exotic; Spathodea campanulata and Jacaranda mimosifolia probably flourish as exuberantly in Bangalore as they do in their native tropical America and Argentina; another African tree of this family, common on roadsides in and around Madras, is Kigelia pinnata.
Other exotic avenue trees are no less common here. We do not know who planted them or
when, but judging by their girth and growth they must be fifty or a hundred years old, some older. Who planted the magnificent avenue of Ficus benjamina that adds so much to the looks of Vellore town? On a common adjoining the main road at Meenambakkam is a small group of African baobabs, whose swollen boles and stature suggest mature years—this tree is also to be found in old gardens in Madras. Late in the nineteenth century or earlier it must have been harder to get a plant from afar than it is now. There must have been real interest in sylviculture then, for such trees to have been established here.
But of course this interest in sylviculture, by the road and beside human settlements, was not confined to exotic species. I cited these foreign examples only to establish the comparatively recent data of their importation. A number of indigenous trees have been valued as specially suitable for plantation in groves and avenues, from time immemorial. In Book 1 of The Sacred Books of the Hindus by Professor Benoy Kumar Sarkar, I find the following among the species listed in the Sukraniti: the custard-apple, the champak, the pear, the Punnai (Calophyllum inophyllum), the Ber (Zizyphus jujuba), the mango, the red silk cotton (Salmalia malabarica), the sandal, the Asoka (Saraca indica), Pongamia glabra, the tamarind, the lime, the wood apple, the bael, the neem, the Vakula (Mimusops elengi), the Kadamba (Anthocephalus indicus), the country fig (Ficus glomerata), the peepul, the banyan, the mulberry, and the date, the betel and the coconut palm.
This citation is by no means exhaustive. I have merely listed the species mentioned in that ancient text (as per Sarkar) which are common in south India—many more are mentioned. From old Tamil works, and from personal recollection of the southern countryside I may add the following, as typical roadside and village-side trees: the guava, the jamoon (Syzygium jambolanum), the Illuppai or Southern Mohwa (Bassia longifolia), the white silk cotton (Eriodendron pentandrum), the coral tree (Erythrina indica), the Sarakkondrai (Cassia fistula) now largely replaced near dwellings by the imported Peltophorum pterocarpum, Odina wodier, the Nettuligam (Polyalthia longifolia), Ficus retusa (occasionally) and, of course, the ubiquitous palmyra.