Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Saswad Grass Lands; Howling in Fading!

“Tree is a soldier, forest is an army! And let us wish that all the battles against this army are lost!”… Mehmet Murat ildan.

So many times I have used words from Mehmet & every time he surprise me with the ease of expressing wisdom in so less words & especially when the subject is nature. Its winter in our country, at least calendar months says so though the December is as warm as summer start & I was missing forests sure. I have booked for Kanha but work load is something which we may forget but it won’t allow us to forget & so got Kanha canceled but the mind was searching opportunity to get out of concrete jungle & then I realize, forests are not just project tigers but around Pune so many small habitats are there & I haven’t visited few of them for long & one such was Saswad grass lands. A place on east of Pune some 60 odd kilometers & ideal habitat for many birds, chinkaras & yes gray wolves! Unfortunately the place as usual has come in lime light for wrong reasons (sorry all the development backing people) & its new (read as proposed) domestic international air-port of Pune. Yes, it will be located here in these very grass lands around Saswad & obvious with such news the lands here has become like gold mines & humans can afford gold unfortunately not the birds, chinkaras & wolves & many other species that has made these grass lands as their home.

That way, why the air-port, Sasawad stretch is classic example how sheer wilderness survives so near around human settlements as well gets killed ( read as poisoned) slowly with cancer like growth of humans around such habitats which we call as development! As just a decade back entire east side of Pune has this wonderful stretches of farms surrounded by small hills, gorges & miles of grass lands. It’s in these grass lands on the backdrop of hills & shrubs on these hills, Indian wolves have survived for many years.

And the presence of these wolves or any predator itself means lots of biodiversity which is in the form of monitor lizards, heir, chinkaras, rodents, grass birds & many such. Because a predator can survive only if there is ample food & this food doesn’t come to the hunter on platter, mind it. Yet the wolves (yes &the hyenas too) survived because they could get some food till last decade as well there wasn’t any interference from the humans & the ill things which comes with them!

Many will ask what ill things humans can get along, is it wrong to make settlements by humans, indeed nothing is wrong with settlements but problem is the way we the humans makes our settlements. Take example of Saswad & human settlements as till the time its villages & farming, it was fine for the wolves as well chinkaras & hyenas as they had their privacy to kill their prey & to hide & to breed. But now the farms has been converted in to plotted lay -outs for concrete homes as well this whole region is good for agro related business like poultry farming. These poultry farms have mushroomed all around the settlements i.e. villages which are becoming towns & the poultry waste i.e. dead (read deceased) chickens are being thrown around without any proper precaution which now becomes food for the wolves. And then wolves are not the only predators, the domestic dogs (read stray dogs, we have lots of them) also are growing way faster than wolves & they too feed on these carcasses of chickens. They drove away wolves & here wolves have two way threat from the stray dogs, one is they are kept away from the food & ten in the fight these dogs attacks even on wolves & the dog bites can be deadly for the wolves causing death by rabies. At the same time these dogs’ attacks even the chinkaras & make them run away. As well the dead meat of chicken dumped wrongly around these poultrys' also can be bad for the health of the wolves & all these means death or destruction.

And the poultrys' is just one reason as there are many other reasons too, as the wolves are private animal & the development (read as settlements) comes along with roads, vehicles, people which needs homes as well farms & means more machinery & space. Poor wolves along with their entire life supporting chain can do nothing but retreat further deeper in grass lands & hills which are getting throttled from all the sides. The hills are being excavated for stone as well base material for our roads & buildings, so that home is also being taken away from the wolves & this we do with all modern machinery for which wolves are no match. Outcome is just a decade back when packs of wolves can be seen roaming around at any hour of the day on outskirts of Saswad & neighborhood now you have to spend hours & days to sight even single wolf. Being herbivores chinkaras breed much faster than the wolves so they are still seen but their food is also getting vanished fast as grass lands are being converted in to farm land for agriculture & that means fencing & that means lesser land for the chinkaras! If this is story of bigger animals like chinkaras & wolves then even the smaller species like rodents, monitor lizards, heir are also got hit. They have one more threat no more its only the wolves & hyenas eat them but the domestic dogs & the humans also are the hunters for them as these are no protected forests (at least I didn’t saw any such signs) the hunting or call it as poaching has been on rampant & that means lesser food for the predators who are real land lords of these lands!

And yes even the birds (and many of them) are not escaped from the humans as right from prey birds like falcons & eagles which are lucky as they can fly high & fast they can’t be killed by the humans but their prey base also vanishing fast & their homes also i.e. the bigger trees. As most of the lands here are private lands & no proper Urban Planning Authority is in place, tree cutting is at will of the humans & so goes the nesting places for the birds, And again land use like farming or residential takes away the homes of smaller birds like titar or bush chat or munia or lap-wings & hundreds of such as they can’t fly long as well their food in the form of insects is no more available as we dig the land & clear homes of insects also in the process. And all this without even air-port land acquisition has been started so imagine what will happen once the actual air-port & its allied works starts here! And we call this as development & take pride in our achievement while we not just kill or drive away some animals or birds but entire settlement of nearly hundred plus species, forever!

Again I am not against air-ports or poultry farms or human settlements but it’s very very high time to have a wild lifer personality (not just some forest officer as he has IFS tag) in the planning of humans. As one needs not just brain but has to have that heart which can feel the need of wolves howling, chinkaras jumping, falcons hovering & many such things as part of our development. As with such person along only we can make all the species live & grow together as well make air-ports. As usual since the announcement of the air-port there has been protests (by the humans only, of course) acquisition of the lands by the locals for the air-port & we all know what’s the motif behind such protests, it’s nothing but to get more remuneration for their lands & nothing wrong in it! And our “Mai Baap" govt also promptly responded with four times than market value, compensation for every piece of land which will be acquired for the air-port & I appreciate govts’ concern for the land lords which are humans. I only want to ask the govt as well all the human land lords of in & around Saswad, that what package we will be offering to the wolves, chinkaras, muniyas, amour falcons, monitor lizards & hundred other species which we will be making homeless & foodless! Just as they can’t vote, they can’t have their representative or because they can’t protest in media via FB post or they can’t give interviews to press reports about being thrown away from their own home land where they are residing even before any human settlement; the govt is neither caring for their survival nor offering any package for the wolves which are actually representative of all the species which resides in these grass lands around the Saswad! And think what package these residents want, no money or any such thing they just wants some space to live which don’t need any roads or industry or jobs or reservation, all these wolves needs is some grass land, that’s all & we deny them that also, we are worst than the Duryodhan of Mahabharat! We need to make the locals around such habitats for the importance of conservation of wilderness & use it for promoting tourism & this is a job which we the so called developed city’s (smart city actually) citizens must take responsibility of!

And then this is not story of just Saswad grass lands, thousands of such lands across our progressive State which are habitats (read as home) for thousands of species like wolves, are every day giving up under the name of development, we need to strike a balance or at least keep some land free for other species or else the dooms day is not far off for every other specie than human & we will be biggest fools on that day. Guys, in our mythology it’s said that wolves howling is a bad omen & is indication of evil times ahead but the way we are treating Saswad grass land type habitats which is home for wolves & many others, the day is not far ahead where evil time will surely come but there will be no wolves howling to warn us for such times & that will be evilest of all the times, mind it!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

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https://youtu.be/al0NZ-7Zhq0

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http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2018/08/pune-city-no-1.html