Monsoon Magic of Tadoba Buffers & Wildlife Tourism!

 

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-“Some people walk in the rain; others just get wet.”
― Roger Miller

Roger Dean Miller Sr. was an American singer-songwriter, widely known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs and has to his credit many chart-topping country and pop from the mid-1960s Nashville sound era.  This must be probably the most famous quote about rains & in so simple words it makes us understand our (most of ours) attitude towards life as well nature at large, as we all know importance of the rains yet when it’s getting out in the rains, most feel its nuisance as you get wet, while just a few can actually walk in the rains to enjoy it as part of nature! The reason I chose this quote is my monsoon trip to tadoba & let me tell you in advance & frankly that I too doesn’t like rains much especially getting wet  when venturing out & in the forests its more difficult (read as irritating) as the gypsy covered with hood is a pain with camera in your hand, fog on your spects & if in case you sight any activity then to get right angle & ability to click is more stressful, making you more frustrated! And this is exactly what I thought of sharing about visiting wildlife in monsoon, that all these are facts yet you can enjoy the forests which are at their best & can open up many wonderful sights which in other seasons are hidden from us!

First & foremost, a myth that you don’t get to see tigers in the rains as well all parks are closed in the monsoon (rains), out of this both myths are fifty percent true & will explain how that is! Most project tigers are closed in monsoon but it’s the core part which is closed & buffers are open & in the present situation. tiger population in buffer is more i.e., area of forest where human movement with some restrictions is allowed & so of the tigers. Buffers are also rich in diversity, most project tigers have large buffer areas such as Tadoba has got nearly eighteen plus numbers of buffer entry gates, so you can visit forests in rains also. In core i.e., central part of the parks, road conditions may be bad because of heavy rains while in buffers as human movement is allowed so their roads are in better condition, this is why such policy & it has nothing to do with privacy of the animals as many tigers in the core areas keep moving in & out & they do visit buffer forests regularly as these borders are for humans & not for the tigers. In the nutshell, you can visit the parks in rains also. Coming to the second myth, you don’t get to see tigers in rains, well, this also is true but again fifty percent as in the rains also a tiger must hunt to feed itself as well mark his or her territory, rather more frequent & during such moments you can see a tiger even in the rains. Hunting most of us can imagine but marking of territory means defining ownership of certain part of the forest & is a basic characteristic of the tigers & it’s done in many ways few of them is, urinating at certain spots (usually trees) & this scent of individual tiger is different which makes other tigers know whose area is this. And it’s in the rains more frequently this urine marking fades off so the tiger has to move around more to keep its territory marked regularly & thus you can get to see a tiger in the rains. Though in the monsoon the green cover is thicker & denser so unless the tiger comes on road or in low lying grass, it’s difficult to sight it than in summer, this is why the chances of seeing a tiger in the rains are lesser than other seasons, but you do get to see for sure with little bit luck & some driving around!

And then if you are done with your doubts about seeing  tigers in monsoon (what else) then we will go ahead about the main aspect of this sharing i.e., magic of this rainy season in tadoba, especially buffers which are rich with flora & fauna! First of all, when you enter the forest what you notice is, greens & every shade of it along with a fragrance fresh & filled with the greens around & butterflies, lots of them of every size & colour!  This is a sight which you may not be able to see in summers as at this time of the year (I presume) the butterflies blooming time i.e., their journey from caterpillar to butterfly state & everywhere you can see them dancing with fresh coloured wings. Another sight is of bird’s nesting which again is something you won’t be able to see in the summers or winters. Monsoon forests gives you two advantages; first, many birds like Paradise Fly Catcher or Drongos or Woodpeckers, which usually keep continuously moving (read as jumping or flying) & makes it difficult to click them or watch them at length, you get to see them sitting at nest by turn i.e., male & female & second, you get to learn wonderful world of bird’s nests! As a Civil Eng (that too a builder) by myself, I am always fascinated by other specie’s (other than humans) ability to build their homes with so much limited resource & during my this tadoba monsoon trip I get to not only click Paradise Fly Catcher but to study its home i.e., nest! First, what caught my eye is size, it's much smaller in comparison to the long tail of the bird, which is its trademark & then the way it has been built. The nest was whitish in colour & looked water tight & was shiny, when I asked our guide (who was very well informed, Arvind of Alizanza Buffer), he said it’s been made of leaf, small branches & bonded together with spider’s sticky web strings, which gives the shiny look & makes the nest watertight! He told me that the sight of Paradise Fly Catcher sitting on the nest is called, “Miya Muthbhar, Dadhi Haatbhar” i.e., such a small nest with the owner of it having such a long tail as well as the body of the bird is also small! This is so wonderful, as imagine the time required to collect all the building material for such nest & against summer heat, rains, wind as well other birds & enemies like snakes, how much efforts these birds must have been taking to build one small nest!

Next attraction in monsoon wilderness is, reptiles which otherwise you hardly get to see in abundance as in summer due to heat most reptiles (snakes, lizards) go deep into earth to maintain their body temperature & in winters they usually prefer to eat & take long sleep to keep themselves warm. Rains bring lots of food as well fill their homes (usually gaps in earth or hollows) with water, both reasons making the reptiles come out from their cover & expose themselves to our eyes. We saw many monitor lizards of all sizes, even juveniles & climbing on trees to hunt the insects below the barks of these trees! Many tourists will say what’s big deal & what’s there to see lizards & snakes & many women even hate sight of these creatures but reptiles are very much an important link in nature keeping balance by eating insects & rodents! And then, if you don’t get to see a tiger in your city life, do you get to see a monitor lizard ever in the city, answer is No, right? Rather it's in monsoon you can observe & learn so many things which otherwise are either hidden from you because of the seasons or in pursuit of our tiger quest we ignore them!  Though, the monsoon outings of the snakes make increase in the numbers of snakebites significantly as people working in the fields & women who must go out in early morning or late evening for their natural call (a sad practice continues in rural India especially around the forests) succumbs to snake’s bite more because of these things in rains! This one thing I will repeatedly put forward from my sharing is poor or badly managed public toilets for women in the villages nearby forests. There are public toilets built by govt in the villages around buffers but no water supply to flush them nor any system to clean the sapric tanks which is a must periodically as well at many places doors have been stolen or broken making it impossible for women to use it & we must find a solution for this!! We have adopted a public toilet right in the centre of Pune at Nal Stop, karve road, we must find such solution & I will be giving proposal to forest dept for the same for one such model in any village in Tadoba Buffer, other companies & NGOs also can think of this or come-up with a solution, is my appeal to all readers!

While I was writing this piece, I came across a news report about alert given by the Wildlife Crime Prevention Wing of forest Dept, it's about probable poaching attempts at 13 Project tigers which are on the radar of poachers, mainly a gang named as Baveria Gang of a tribe from MP. And then on the WhatsApp group of some wild lifers there was a circular about rate hike in park entry fees for monsoon period, making wildlife tourism more costly for the wild lifers as well for visitors to the forests of tadoba! Guys, high-time the forest dept, so called wildlife conservationists, NGO’s, Govt system & Hon PM Mr Modi sir must open their minds about wildlife tourism (make it affordable) & open all the parks as well non-tourism zones for tourists, as only this way we can keep an eye on all the tigers (and other wildlife), which forest dept alone won’t be ever able to do! As well this can be a source of earning for every person associated with forests & lives around such as guides, staff working in resorts & many as these are eyes, ears & nose of the forests actually in the human form! In regions around Tadoba the only crop is rice & baring four months of its cultivation, the remaining eight months there is no work to people here, which we can use as licenced wildlife operators to show the wildlife outside of gate areas of these parks. This will help in keeping an eye on all illegal activities even outside of the parks as well keep all parks open even in rains as it is in this season as the poachers know that there will be no tourists watching the tigers, they increase their bad activities. One such news (whispers) around the forests is about trade of live tiger cubs, which are in great demand & many locals off the record said the cubs are being stolen & sold at a very high rate (Crore & above) in international markets & this is serious! All such aspects can be taken care of & we need to act fast as the clock is already running against wildlife at large. At the same time, we can open the world of rain magic in the wilds for thousands of tourists who have never witnessed it. And yes, I got to see wonderful display of tiger cub’s (in the rains) & their mom’s relationship as we witnessed how obedient the cubs are about instructions from the mom when she is not around! We saw three sub adult cubs of a tigress named Babli, she must have gone for hunting & has kept the cubs in a small patch of grass which has shrubs around. We could se the cubs playing behind the shrubs but not once in nearly two hours the cubs crossed the line of shrubs & came in open in front of us, as their mom must have told them not to do so, that’s how you survive in the forests, by following the rules of the jungle!

So go ahead guys, build pressure on the system for opening-up all the forests for everybody & till then do visit the forests which are open in monsoon to experience the rains in the wilderness of our country, adios, with this note!

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Sanjay Deshpande 

Sanjeevani Dev.

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