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Showing posts from March, 2020
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THE WILDLIFE WHISPERER (PART 4 – Conservation) In my jungle forays I started witnessing that jungles and jungle safaris were managed differently. The rules of entry and exit, the training of naturalists, the involvement / buy-in of local communities, and the comfort of tourists had tremendous variations. Some forests were thriving with species and tourists, while others were thriving with species but had few tourists. My first idea, two years ago, was of floating a naturalist exchange programme, from different forests, for cross-learning purposes. I felt privileged that I get to visit multiple parks, but so many of the excellent naturalist did not have similar kind of opportunity, when they would benefit so much more from these visits. Couple of conversations later I realised that the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) did have a similar programme, challenge as always was in its execution. Two further ideas that I deliberated upon was the provision of basic benefits

The Winged Whisperers

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Winged Whisperer: (Part 3 - The Growth)  A large part of my fascination with forests has centred around the big cats, especially the tiger. With subsequent visits to forests I developed a fondness for leopards, one of the most agile and resilient cats, and the Himalayan Black Bear – a royal and elegant species. Unknown to the wider world, tiger stripes are like fingerprints and no two stripes are same. Same is the case of spots on a leopard. Every leopard has different spots called rosettes, and a black panther is nothing but a regular melanistic leopard whose dark or black coloration hides the spots. The stripes and rosettes on cats’ act as a camouflage and serve a dual purpose, as a defence mechanism and / or as a stalking tool. In my jungle safaris, I met fellow wild-lifers who were fascinated by different species, like birds, macro animals, etc. though I had been content being a cat person. I oc casionally clicked birds, but only in action, and only while waiting for a cat