Elephantophobia!

Elephants are one of the creatures which are revered and feared equally. These magnificent creatures are very deeply rooted to the culture of people and complexly intervened in the ecological process of the forest dynamics. They are known open up new paths and make way for other creatures to forage in the dense forests, they are known to peel off barks thus killing the tree, raid paddy and sugarcane crops and are known to chase and trample those who ignore the innumerable warning signs given by them and cross the limit.

Lot of research from ethology to ecology has been carried out with regard to elephants and many more are still underway however, little work is done on the effect, both psychological and physical of elephants on humans in elephant habitats (mostly on the lighter side!).

The movement of these creatures can be easily detected!

The amount fear generated in the minds of many people especially the assistants, the integral part of a researcher is astounding. All of a sudden the ears prick up, eyes become sharp to notice any movement, both limbs get set to run or climb a tree, whichever is earlier and the stride becomes one that of a spy in an enemy zone and all this is accompanied by discussions on when where and how the elephant has passed, how far it has moved and what time it takes for it to be on our backs. This is often associated with problems like instances where the assistant takes the lead as in one case, all I saw was my assistant running with chappals in his hand and i realized the elephant was heading right where I was standing and followed suit albeit the chappals in hand!

When he was at the back as in another case, he once froze silently without telling me that there was a tusker right ahead of me and I almost walked to trunk shake distance of the giant! End of most cases, one ends up in coaxing and pleading him to continue the work reasoning that the elephant has moved away and is safe to work. Recently when sampling trees for epiphytes, we came across huge tracks of elephants on the trail. Thought the track was visibly a day old, the whole place carried the pungent odour of elephant and going by the size, we guessed it to be a lone tusker. This along with the large imprints of the elephant on the soft soil along a stream seemed to have scared my assistant a lot for he tried to stop us from proceeding further but he yielded to my persistence and agreed to work there for the rest of the day but strongly disagreed to come to work from then on!

The day next, we caught a glimpse of two elephants bathing in the stream near the “wooden bridge”.

People of Nalmuku in general and surrounding tea estates seem to be petrified by these gentle giants due to past experiences and gross exaggeration of the same. When they are on the bus and if they happen to see elephant dung on the road, they end up warning almost everyone who is walking along the road about elephants in the bushes along the road. In reality, their fear is not always exaggeration for elephants in that area maintain a regular route of movement, they start from the forest near Kakachi and move on and along the road via Nalmuku, spend some time in the tea estates and continue further up into the forests of Kodayar all the while leaving a tell tale signs of their movement on the road. though they spend some time in the tea estates, they do not indulge in crop damage but only browse in the corridors but that creates enough fear to prevent people from picking leaves form that field of estate! Prevention seems to be better than the cure in this case.

In search of the Thar!

The south western hills of KMTR, covered by vast areas of high elevation grasslands are one of the southernmost strongholds of Nilgiri thars,one of the two hardy mountain goats in india whose other relative is found in the Himalayas with a large disjunction between them and the Hills near Valve house and Muthukuzi (in the southern tip of the western ghats )are indeed one of the best places to catch a glimpse of these hardy mountain goats.The hills are also home to the Great pied Hornbill, they though not disjunctive as the thars are equally rare and elusive; hills of Top slip being an exception.

On our recent trip to Valve house, I spotted a solitary male Thar on a hill almost two kilometers apart (encircled) and was also rewarded with generous sightings of Great pied horn bills on six occasions.

the hill where i spottedthe thar.

The thar seemed to be well at home on the hill, resting on a rocky outcrop soaking the sun, the hill so steep that no human must have set foot on it was riddled with green grass, intermixed with Pheonix sp trees and many more rocky areas seemed to be a perfect for the goats. On further exploring, we came on to a rock where we could see the Hope’s lake and lower Kodayar settlement and for the next three hours our noses were drowned in the pungent odour of thar urine!

The scent, so strong, kept lingering long after we left the place.

It dint take much time to realize that we were on the rock which thars use to defecate and there were at least 50 odd dung piles of various sizes and since they all were of different decay conditions we realized that the rock was a common defecation ground for the thars. Having enjoyed the serene atmosphere and making some images, we headed back towards the bike and caught a glimpse of the Rufous bellied hawk eagle, a couple of Pipits and Hornbills!

The Loud harsh call of the bird made us halt on the tracks to see two birds flying out of the forest going past very close to the rock where we earlier sat. While we were observing them, one more came out from the same place and followed the other two; though they were about a kilometer away, we were able to enjoy the sight through good field glasses.

Stopping for a quick brunch of boiled egg, vada and wild mangoes, we continued our walk along the road and sighted four species of butterflies and saw the hornbills on three more occasions.

The clouds no where in sight till then, suddenly built up and seemed as if it would pour in an hour’s time which sent us scurrying to the bikes and reach Kodayar before the rain starts.

March of the monkey brigade

The annual Sorimuthian festival in KMTR on the banks of Tambaraparani , attracts people in large numbers, young and old alike. This attraction has been so strong that it has become a tradition to pay a visit to the temple annually for the people of Alamgulam. They come in large numbers like the annual mass migration towards food resources by the wildebeest in the
Serengeti plains of Africa.


Such resource driven mass migrations though very rare in our country occur at various instances; Be it pigs, dogs and scavenging birds congregating at garbage and offal dumping sites, movement of ant colonies towards food resources and the rising of dark clouds of mosquitoes from paddy fields and moving into villages and cattle sheds.
A similar incidence was observed during the Sorimuthian festival too. There was a sudden increase in the number of house and jungle crows, occurrence of large troupes of bonnet macaques, going up to 60 individuals, wild pigs numbering up to 16 in a herd, and the occurrence of house cockroaches amongst various other road killed forest organisms, around the temple. Camera traps we set up at strategic locations around the temple before and after the festival captured just one or two pigs and no bonnet macaques at all and at the same time, the mammal occupancy surveys showed a low number of the apes and pigs and there were hardly any crows to count before and after the festival where as, during the festival, there was a sudden increase in the number of pigs, bonnet macaques and crows around the temple and they were captured by the camera traps while feeding on garbage and waste food dumped in the forest by pilgrimsThe only way the increase in abundance is possible is by the movement of animals into the temple area from various other parts largely to capitalize on the abundant food resources in the form of waste food and garbage, generated in large quantities but ineffectively disposed. Though the scavenging animals were efficient in clearing some amount of the waste, they face the risk of death as they might feed on the plastic which got in un-noticed, and fall sick due to the consumption of food which they normally not used to eating.
More intensive studies in future may yield information about the origin and the local migration route these opportunistic creatures take to reach the temple, the pressures on the local habitat due to the intrusion in large numbers and the impact on the health of these animals will become clear.