Dr. Pabla's articles on conservation

[Rajat]

How can you increase the number when the number existing is dying due to infighting. Secondly in order to increase the number, you need larger area, which is very clear from the fact that the current land allocation is not sufficient.
Secondly, you can increase the number if you lessen poaching, which you have made a point several time in your post. now how can you decrease the poaching.
1. Have good amount of well trained and armed forest guard with infrastructure and means protect them self and animals, which you i guss would be knowing better as to what is the current condition of forest guards. forget being armed well they dont even have decent clothing. The guard post inside the parks reserves is hardly well equipped. In reserves which are in more lime light like ranthambore, jim corbet, pana national park, they are still lil better but in others, its bad.
They are armed with old obsolete weapons, which they can hardly use to fight poachers.
2. Pay the guards better, so that they are better off than poachers and have incentives linked to saving animals.
3. In some areas it impossible but in areas which are flat, have barbs fences, it will introduce some hindrance to animal going out and add hindrance to easy entry.
4. To save abandoned cubs and babies you need good veterinary care centers, inside the reserves. Which i have rarely seen, if its there then there is hardly any staff, if staff is there they dont have equipment, its catch 22 situation. how tigers or lions are getting saved after they have being picked up by the forest officials.

Now for this you need money and money which is accountable not funds. See we have to put a system which is accountable also, in current system, funds come and go, nothing happens on the ground. But when the resource is generated from the park it self and you have both the fund generation and increase in animal as deliverable, i personally believe you are putting check and balance. You issue permit for X amount of animal and you have Y amount of animal added each year.

Secondly you have to realize and when you will legalize the hunting the same poachers will line up to get absorbed to become helpers, this will be legal way of channelizing their skill and for them legal way to earn money.
These tribals are paoching not because they njoi poaching, but thats their skill, they are best at it and they can earn money through it only. You have to give them means of earning, not put them on some monthly monetary scheme and ask them to sit and do nothing, just because you are getting money.



Lastly poaching is much much bigger mafia than killing just for hunting reasons, there is huge amount of money involved, so to fight it just dont need laws you need much more awareness, tighter laws and better vigilance on borders and customs.



I am just sharing my thoughts, not pointing finger to any one

sa_ali this completely makes sense. Rational and unbiased thinking.

You have completely outlined the problem and understood the nature of the challenge we are facing. I appreciate your input here.

Good to have you here with us.

[shashankspectral]

shashankspectral you are entitled to have your own opinions.. and thats exactly the problem! All our so called environmentalists are so vehemently opinionated, they all have such a strong religious conviction that wildlife should be protected and conserved at any cost that they fail to see what is staring them in the face. Sometimes I almost believe that they are just interested in projecting themselves as such because they want to go down in history as glorified protectors of the last bastions of our forests.

Neither me nor any environmentalist i have known or read about is vehemently opposed to sustainable hunting. They want to protect the wildlife or nature parks at any cost because there are not many left. As simple as that.

Wrong! USA and SA jumped into the conservaton band wagon at about the same time India did! But india wanted to show the world that it could come up with a better conservation initiative and came up with exemplary legislation that sought to ban hunting altogether and look where it got us. No you still wont believe that our present system has failed all together would you?? Go for it, support your scientific studies, meanwhile the poachers and tribals who believe that the government is out to take away their only source of livelyhood forever will continue to pillage and plunder what all they can get while it lasts.

I still believe we have far better conservation policy then most of the countries. We have still retained most of our wildlife despite all the problems and a burgeoning population and this can be attributed to the wildlife protection act which allows no hunting. Our wildlife management system and policies has not failed us but the people who are given the job to run this failed. It seems that you blame govt. for all the wrong happening with indian wildlife scenario, which is right to a certain extent, but onus should also be on the tribals or people using the forest. Everything is well if forest is exploited in a sustainable way, like it used to happen earlier, but wildlife has become a commodity for many. Its a billion dollar trade now. A poacher kills a tiger not because its there right to kill it, but they knows the tiger will fetch them tremendous amt of money. And for more money they kill more tigers which eventually leads to its extinction. Since you are from Northeast, you must be aware about the unprecedented amount of illegal crossborder wildlife trade happening there which not only has plundered the northeast environment but also snatched forest from most of its wildlife. And it has not happened because tribes there hunt for there own sustenance but to trade it. And here i guess govt. interference is highly important.

Thats just it! Without any rhyme or reason you just don't want to loose the tiger whatever the cost.. Right? This is not a good enough reason for the tribals and villagers who are face to face with the Tigers and Sambhars every day of their life. They want the Sambhar, they want the tigers as long as harm does not befall them and they can profit from it. The way they see it, if anyone benefits from the forests and animals, they should! And not some city dwelling high handed forest official who signs them off to some logger at his whim.

no reason to save the tiger ? Do you need any reason to believe in god or to follow a particular tradition ? I have no problem if someone kills a tiger to defend his/her family or kill a sambhar to feed there family but i have a huge problem if a tiger is killed and its part traded to china to make tiger bone wine or a sambhar is killed to trade its meat on such a scale that it ends up threatening there existence. It earns them a profit but it also puts a price on tiger or sambhar head so that every one can get some profit out of it and this greed for profit will eventually kill our wildlife. And if you think sustainable hunting can prevent it you are mistaken. If a poacher can get 1lac rs for killing a tiger illegally without even paying any tax he will not wait for govt. to fix some quota to kill it.

You think you are out of the food chain but in a country like india where we have a majority population of tribals and villagers who live off the forest and ARE definetly a part of the foodchain, our ecology cannot be equated with europe. Looks like you already have half a mind to let things be since the Forests and wildlife does not affect your food source in any matter whatsoever. Have you ever thought about depletion of water table, climate change and drought? They all affect farming and our food source thus even city dwellers are part of the food chain.

If someone is part of foodchain let it be, if someone wants to change it to suits its own need then its a problem. I have been screaming throughout the thread that i am not averse to hunting but i am averse to unsustainable exploitation. If you think tribals and villagers do less harm to environment then say govt. or huge city bred kid like me, then you are living in ignorance. Tribal or village population doesnt remain constant thruout and it does grows, if it grows it put more and more pressure on forest and its resources, and if they start thinking about making "profits" out of it then the problem become huge and unmanageble and thats what i have been screaming throughout.

[shashankspectral]

How can you increase the number when the number existing is dying due to infighting. Secondly in order to increase the number, you need larger area, which is very clear from the fact that the current land allocation is not sufficient.

So you want them to be killed by license hunters before they kill each other in infighting? Animal can survive is small areas provided better protection and food availability. Land allocation is sufficent but improvement are needed. There is proposal to tranfer some lion to kuno sanctuary in MP so that excess population of lion can be shifted there and so that they can reclaim old territories. Removing of one male from a territory by killing will make room for another male which eventually kill the cub of former male, and hence neither you hav increasing population of lion but you are also jeopardising the future generation of lions too.

Secondly, you can increase the number if you lessen poaching, which you have made a point several time in your post. now how can you decrease the poaching.
1. Have good amount of well trained and armed forest guard with infrastructure and means protect them self and animals, which you i guss would be knowing better as to what is the current condition of forest guards. forget being armed well they dont even have decent clothing. The guard post inside the parks reserves is hardly well equipped. In reserves which are in more lime light like ranthambore, jim corbet, pana national park, they are still lil better but in others, its bad.
They are armed with old obsolete weapons, which they can hardly use to fight poachers.
2. Pay the guards better, so that they are better off than poachers and have incentives linked to saving animals.
3. In some areas it impossible but in areas which are flat, have barbs fences, it will introduce some hindrance to animal going out and add hindrance to easy entry.
4. To save abandoned cubs and babies you need good veterinary care centers, inside the reserves. Which i have rarely seen, if its there then there is hardly any staff, if staff is there they dont have equipment, its catch 22 situation. how tigers or lions are getting saved after they have being picked up by the forest officials.

Now for this you need money and money which is accountable not funds. See we have to put a system which is accountable also, in current system, funds come and go, nothing happens on the ground. But when the resource is generated from the park it self and you have both the fund generation and increase in animal as deliverable, i personally believe you are putting check and balance. You issue permit for X amount of animal and you have Y amount of animal added each year.

You dont know but govt. actually allocates huge amt of fund for wildlife conservation but that fund actually goes to either buying jeeps or improving forest officer bungalow. Better utilisation of gotv. funds can solve half of the problem. moreover a huge chunk of money generated from wildlife tourism can be diverted to the betterment of forest dwelling community and also to improve the existing facility which is hardly done. We need wildlife cooperations to manage wildlife. Neither our gaurds need modern weapon to fight poaching. A tiger can be killed with somthing as naive as clutch wire, infact most of the snares and traps are made from clutch wires.

Secondly you have to realize and when you will legalize the hunting the same poachers will line up to get absorbed to become helpers, this will be legal way of channelizing their skill and for them legal way to earn money.
These tribals are paoching not because they njoi poaching, but thats their skill, they are best at it and they can earn money through it only. You have to give them means of earning, not put them on some monthly monetary scheme and ask them to sit and do nothing, just because you are getting money.

It is highly unlikely becoz poachers turn to poaching at first place becoz of high monetary returns and less risk in poaching. While becoming a guide, i am sure they wont be able to get that much amt of money. A poacher gets almost a lakh rs for killing a tiger, he can earn almost 10 lac rs a yr by illegally killing a tiger rather then few thousand by legal hunting. Several schemes have been undertaken before to educate poaching tribe or to rehabilitate them, but they eventually return to poaching becoz of easy money involved.

When you will have hunters in forest with legal permit, poaching will come down for sure.

how ?

i think we are also deviating from the main topic, the main focus of these article is balance the conservation and highlight the fact that the current system is not working, we have to find some other means, as in the current system you are loosing both crops, animals and forest. Am i wrong in saying this ?. We have to relook at it and present better approach. We cant have general rule of thumb applied across without doing re check if its working or not.

exactly but should we make wildlife a scapegoat in all this??

Lastly poaching is much much bigger mafia than killing just for hunting reasons, there is huge amount of money involved, so to fight it just dont need laws you need much more awareness, tighter laws and better vigilance on borders and customs.

Right, thats y i dont think legalising hunting will have any effect on poaching. It will continue even if u make more and more stricter laws. The returns are just too tempting.

If the legalised hunting has worked under the banner of United nation in other countries, then there has to be some reason to it. We cant say the whole africa has failed in conservation. Look at Bustard conservation program in UK, that bird was totally gone, but they have being able to re introduce it back, they got the species back from other countries, which were not so concerned with the same

We havnt failed either. We brought tiger from the brink of extinction in 1972. If you think present is worse for tigers, past was even terrible. not many guys arnd give any chance to tiger in 1960s before project tiger startd, but we managed to save them so far, what we need a little revamp for the project. Look into rhino conservation in assam and also there are several species which came out from the face of extinction in india. We need little dedication and some active involvment frm the govt as well as its people.

[prashantsingh]

Spent half an hour writing a long reply in the middle of the night. Pressed one wrong button and everything got deleted.

Just a few points before going to sleep.
When a new male comes he kills the cubs of the previous male.
True. But only half the truth.
Why does he kill the cubs?
So that he can spread his own genes.
When he kills the cubs the females come into "heat" and he breeds with them to produce his own litters.

When Johnapach talks about hunting he is not talking about the complete extinction of the species due to hunting he is talking about "sustainable hunting".
Old animals which are not going to breed further can be hunted to generate funds for the Reserve. At the expense of few you save many more. There is no doubt that funds raised by a single animal hunted will be more than funds raised by a thousand fellows taking a joy ride through the jungle.

Loss of habitat is the greatest threat to wildlife in India.
Recently 4 tiger cubs were burnt alive in a man made forest fire near Hempur. The villagers living near the jungles had set the dry jungle on fire so that there would be fresh fodder for their cattle to feed on with the onset of monsoon.


Lions being moved to M.P. and Cheetahs being re-introduced into India is something I have been hearing for decades. When and how it will be done is anyones guess.

[jonahpach]

shankarspectral you are trying to pick holes in my replies without trying to understand the gist of it.. too bad! I see that you revel in your 'living on the edge' kind of lifestyle when it comes to conservation, I bet the saving Tigers and Rhinos from the brink of disaster gives you a rush! Yes, enjoy it while it lasts.

[shashankspectral]

Just a few points before going to sleep.
When a new male comes he kills the cubs of the previous male.
True. But only half the truth.
Why does he kill the cubs?
So that he can spread his own genes.
When he kills the cubs the females come into "heat" and he breeds with them to produce his own litters.

Agree and its fine untill and unless it happens naturally, a new male arrives in the territory, defeat or kill the present male, but the natural balance shakes if the dominant male is removed by hunting, another male arrives into its territory and kill the cubs of previous male which could have saved them from the new male.

When Johnapach talks about hunting he is not talking about the complete extinction of the species due to hunting he is talking about "sustainable hunting".
Old animals which are not going to breed further can be hunted to generate funds for the Reserve. At the expense of few you save many more. There is no doubt that funds raised by a single animal hunted will be more than funds raised by a thousand fellows taking a joy ride through the jungle.

Even i have been saying this ever since i joined this community. I am all for sustainable hunting but allowing hunting without any scientific study or approach is like walking on cliff edge, one wrong step and you are doomed. We were made to believe that we have over 4000 tigers in india but when actual scientific study took place, it revealed much lesser population. Thats why a proper study is important before you legalize hunting. There is popular notion that animals like nilgai, leopard or boar are exploding, but no data or fact to support it. Animal moves into human dominated space for lack of food and come into conflict with human, this thing need to be studied before we label them vermin and let some trigger happy people loose after them. I just said the viewpoint of Mr. Pabla should not be seen as benchmark to support legalise hunting, but i have been labelled a treehugger, environmentalist and what not.

[Kazim]

dear shashankspectral nilgai and wild boars are really exploding according to a recent article in Cambridge time's lucknow edition uttar pradesh's forest minister in state assembly quoted the number of nilgai about 25lakh 12 thousand +- in the state in answer to question raised by a opposition leader about population of nilgai in state,i think it is more than enough
and now their breeding season is going on

[prashantsingh]

Agree and its fine untill and unless it happens naturally, a new male arrives in the territory, defeat or kill the present male, but the natural balance shakes if the dominant male is removed by hunting, another male arrives into its territory and kill the cubs of previous male which could have saved them from the new male.

Animal moves into human dominated space for lack of food and come into conflict with human, this thing need to be studied before we label them vermin and let some trigger happy people loose after them.

Over the years , I have heard of quite a few cases where tigers have moved out of their natural habitat into human habitation. The maneater of Pilibhit , the tiger which reached the outskirts of Lucknow recently , a tigress which has strayed out of Ranthambore and reached Chambal are just a few of them. Leopards entering sub urban areas in Assam has been in much news lately.
Why are they moving out in the first place?
Simply because there is not enough space for them in the forests.
What do we do?
We catch these animals and ''relocate'' them deep into another forest. No one bothers to find out what happens to the animal thereafter. How does he adjust in the new environment. Are there already any dominant males in the area or not. What is the predator prey ratio and will adding another big cat have an adverse effect on it. No one thinks on those lines.
All we are bothered about is that a leopard/tiger has been 1.Caught . 2.Transported and 3.Set free. Our work is done . Our conscience is clear.

I would also like to point out that not all animals are killed by poachers hunting for money.Many of them are killed due to man animal conflict. A friend who is a Hon. Wildlife Warden told me about a male tiger which had killed 7 buffalos from a Van Gujjar "dera". After the last episode the frustrated Van Gujjars laced the kill with arsenic and as luck would have it a tigress passing by took a bite and died.
How do we solve this problem?
We have to move the Van Gujjars out of Park and give them a better life. But certain NGOs and Netas (for their own vested interests) do not want this to happen.
I visited one of the blocks of Rajaji N P just before the park closed for the season. This block had been almost written off by the Forest Dept. just a decade ago. The permanent Van Gujjar dera there had stripped the land of its last morsel. The place had become barren due to lopping and overgrazing. Finally the Van Gujjars themselves accepted the Govts. proposal to be relocated and moved out.
Today, after almost 10 years the place has bounced back. While driving through the block we saw herds of Sambhar and Cheetal. But the highlight was spotting leopards as well.
An ideal example of how wildlife recovered when human interference is reduced.
We met the forest guards at the post and had a cup of tea with them. Hats off to these guys . This particular range of Rajaji ows much to their dedication and hard work.

Kasim : Frankly speaking. I do not agree there are 25 lac plus Neelgai in U.P.

[Kazim]

Prashant ji it is not my data i was just giving a reference from a news paper even i dont trust these politicians and frankly speaking i myself have spotted about 30+ male blue bulls in a very small area
Sorry it is 24lakh 12 thousand +- i just rechecked it from the news paper my mistake

[shashankspectral]

Prashant ji it is not my data i was just giving a reference from a news paper even i dont trust these politicians and frankly speaking i myself have spotted about 30+ male blue bulls in a very small area
Sorry it is 24lakh 12 thousand +- i just rechecked it from the news paper my mistake

As i have said earlier, more visibility of animal doesnt mean more population. 25lakh is a huge number to be supported by a single state, i dont think there are more then 9-10 lakh nilgai in whole india. Not many nilgai are found in forest, infact neither many crop type support nilgai population, so this allegation that there population is exploding should be backed by a sufficient data, and i would love to see that cambridge study you are talking about.

[shashankspectral]

Over the years , I have heard of quite a few cases where tigers have moved out of their natural habitat into human habitation. The maneater of Pilibhit , the tiger which reached the outskirts of Lucknow recently , a tigress which has strayed out of Ranthambore and reached Chambal are just a few of them. Leopards entering sub urban areas in Assam has been in much news lately.
Why are they moving out in the first place?
Simply because there is not enough space for them in the forests.
What do we do?
We catch these animals and ''relocate'' them deep into another forest. No one bothers to find out what happens to the animal thereafter. How does he adjust in the new environment. Are there already any dominant males in the area or not. What is the predator prey ratio and will adding another big cat have an adverse effect on it. No one thinks on those lines.
All we are bothered about is that a leopard/tiger has been 1.Caught . 2.Transported and 3.Set free. Our work is done . Our conscience is clear.

Exactly, its natural dispersion of wild tigers, young tigers move to find new territory and often cross park boundries and come in conflict with human. We often think that wild animals will remain in forest forever but like us they need better area with enough food to make there territories. Thats why wildlife corridors are extremly important. It is argued that a poor country like india cant afford wildlife corridors since these corridors have ample quantity of resources for exploitation but this is vague at its best. In these degraded patches of forest which often acts as corridors where maximum human animal conflict takes place and we end up believing that wildlife is excess in designated park so they are moving out and hence should be controlled through hunting which again is vague idea. Dr. Pabla's article does suggest that few species have exploded in number and can be controlled by hunting but failed to explain why it is happening at first place.

[prashantsingh]

It is argued that a poor country like india cant afford wildlife corridors since these corridors have ample quantity of resources for exploitation but this is vague at its best. In these degraded patches of forest which often acts as corridors where maximum human animal conflict .

shashankspectral
How would you deal with the problem shashankspectral?
Not a theoretical but a practical approach........In an overpopulated and poor country like India .

[shashankspectral]

shashankspectral
How would you deal with the problem shashankspectral?
Not a theoretical but a practical approach........In an overpopulated and poor country like India .

Not a simple solution to this for sure. Every species will react differently to different solution. Controlled hunting might not affect wild boar or nilgai, who are prolific breeders but can drastically affect animals like primates, leopards or elephant. Culling of elephant in africa in past bore no result. Make forest corridors inviolate. Its not a theoretical solution but a practical one. Vital forest corridor should be made inaccessible not to forest dwellers but to commercial developers, miners, major infrastructure like railway line or national highways. Limited amount of forest corridor should be allowed to be exploited for NTFPs so that forest dweller themselves take responsibility for these corridors (just like control hunting many here would love to have). But this requires lot of time,money dedication from everyone thats why i said its not a simple solution. So we need to decide the priorities first.

[Kumarnishith]

shashankspectral
How would you deal with the problem shashankspectral?
Not a theoretical but a practical approach........In an overpopulated and poor country like India .

Not a simple solution to this for sure. Every species will react differently to different solution. Controlled hunting might not affect wild boar or nilgai, who are prolific breeders but can drastically affect animals like primates, leopards or elephant. Culling of elephant in africa in past bore no result. Make forest corridors inviolate. Its not a theoretical solution but a practical one. Vital forest corridor should be made inaccessible not to forest dwellers but to commercial developers, miners, major infrastructure like railway line or national highways. Limited amount of forest corridor should be allowed to be exploited for NTFPs so that forest dweller themselves take responsibility for these corridors (just like control hunting many here would love to have). But this requires lot of time,money dedication from everyone thats why i said its not a simple solution. So we need to decide the priorities first.

As you have said that controlled hunting might not affect wild boar or Nilgai! What’s wrong in issuing hunting permit say Rs 10000 for hunting a Nilgai and so on for other animals like wild boar and then using that money for conservation of other endangered species like tigers, rhino etc. Anyways government is issuing permit to kill these animals in certain areas in lieu of crop protection. With issue of hunting permits to interested hunter govt. would be saving the crops from their plunder, generate jobs & revenue at the same time. Thus at the end of it all everybody's will be happy. Farmer as the pest that is ruining their crop is dead, Government as they get the revenue and jobs for the locals, you as the revenue will be spent in conservation activity and last but not the least people like me who get to hunt

-Nishith

[Tango_ Charli]

Dr. Pabla's 2 articles on conservation have been now uploaded as PDF files. I tried to upload them to the knowledge base as "articles" but as Inder & Mack The Knife pointed out, the system was not picking up the HTML tags for the tables properly - producing gibberish instead

To download them, one must be a member - one more reason why I tried to add them to the knowledge base initially, they would have been viewable by all.

Thank you Mack The Knife for interfacing with Dr. Pabla and getting his permission to publish these excellent articles at IFG. Anyone wishing to contact Dr. Pabla is requested to PM Mack The Knife.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

Abhijeet. Thank you very much for such a informative post and a pdf file here