Questionable Intelligence in Wildlife Crime Bureau

The website of the Panna Tiger Reserve greets you with the pug marks of a tiger on its homepage. It carries a nice news ticker about one of the many recent awards it got from the Ministry of Tourism of the Government of India for being the best maintained and tourist-friendly national parks of the country. With over 90 staff managing the Tiger Reserve and being on the tourism circuit, Panna is a fairly small park among the National Parks in the country. A park like Namdapha in remote North-east India has eleven field staff to manage nearly 2000 sq. km of difficult terrain. Even as the project tiger website proclaims 60 tigers in Namdapha Tiger Reserve, India's largest Tiger Reserve, others who have actually worked there have their reservations. A recent paper in fact uses extensive camera-trapping data to estimate a maximum of TWO tigers in this park! But, it is easy to overlook news from such rarely and difficult-to-visit parks such as Namdapha. That is not the case with Panna though. It has been one of the sought after places to see tigers in the country. One would have thought it must be easier to manage a 500 sq. km well connected park in Madhya Pradesh with over seventy field staff and a smattering of IFS officers with sustained tourist presence and some radio-collared tigers. One is obviously wrong!

Last month, the media reported what has been doing rounds in wildlife circles and local villages near Panna Tiger Reserve; that the tiger whose marks the website bears, are not found in the park anymore. Following a survey conducted in December 2008 by the Wildlife Institute of India and several reports in March about the possibility of Panna doing a Sariska, the National Tiger Conservation Authority sent a team to investigate what the State Government had been attributing to natural deaths of tigers (not appearing unnatural to them that scores of tigers could be dying naturally!). All this even while the State Government denied all possibilities of tiger being locally extinct in Panna. It was only in June this year that the tigerlessness of Panna was officialised.

Day before yesterday, an article in the Pioneer enlightened us about the reason for the tiger deaths in Panna - Radio collaring! A report by the Wildlife Crime Bureau attributed the tiger deaths in Panna to radio collaring, the article said. It found that 80 per cent of tigers killed in Panna have met their deadly fate at the hands of poachers after they were radio collared, glossing over the fact that we could know about their fates ONLY because they were radio-collared. The article said that that the report termed itself "interesting". Definitely, I must say - very interesting that the report makes a scapegoat of science. Radio tracking of wildlife is widely used for scientific studies, management and conservation of several species across the world - from birds to camels and from turtles to tigers, of course. In fact, critical questions on behaviour and ecology of large mammals are evident only through such methods. Tracking tigers by radio collaring has given us an understanding on important questions such as home ranges of tigers, carrying capacity of tigers in the continuously shrinking tiger reserves, causes of mortality and dealing with the reasons and consequences of conflict with people, especially so with elephants. These answers are exactly what a wildlife manager of a tiger reserve 'should' be looking for. And recent conservation literature from India has started answering such questions. While it is legitimate to further investigate the type of collars used and safety of tranquilizers used, it is quite an illogical conclusion that the WCB report seems to be coming to. Obviously, each and every tiger was not radio-collared. Shouldn't scientists with experience in radio collaring have been involved in this exercise? Was there a thorough analysis on the equipment and data of radio-collaring in Panna and elsewhere done by the WCB? Of course, not. Irresponsibly declaring radio-collaring as a reason in a report belittles the report as well as the huge body of scientific literature about this technique worldwide.One only wonders if the intention of the report is to investigate the crime or blame the ones detecting and reporting the crime!

Two issues come to my mind as I read the developments at Panna, the lack of an information culture and poor scientific temper in State institutions. Take for example the case of infant mortality reporting in the health sector. It's all a number game - blaming infant deaths on first line health workers results in under-reporting of infant deaths. Who would report infant deaths or tiger numbers truthfully it if retribution rather than help is what you receive from above? The net result of this is that the information reported through the public health system is so poor that if we were to rely purely on health centre data, we would have infant mortality rates of USA or UK! Similar is the case with the tiger numbers - if the usual reaction to smaller tiger numbers reported by scientists outside the system or from watchers on the field is going to be retribution, then we shall always have tiger numbers of the 18th century! Such an attitude in the bureaucracy destroys the innate nature of the field staff to truthfully report information and act on them. Instead, routine institutional data focuses merely on portraying a sense of status-quot or sometimes improvements rather than providing actionable information that should then feed back into management. The other issue of lack of scientific temper is quite evident in the WCB report, which has the audacity to term itself, 'interesting' while drawing vicarious temporal associations between tiger deaths and radio-collaring. Let's face the facts -

Fact 1: Panna lost its tigers - not on the day when the Minister accepted it, but over months (or perhaps years) of poaching.

Fact 2: Radio-collaring as a technique for conservation and management with well-established safety guidelines is widely accepted.


Viewing the tiger extinction in Panna as yet another isolated event with simple reasons like an errant forest guard or radio collaring rather than understanding the socio-political, economic and biological reasons is the most illogical thing to do. For a tiger to survive in Panna like in most of India's tiger reserves is the result of a complex inter-play between protection, human-animal conflict, irresponsible tourism, poverty and access to eduction, employment and health care in the villages around and not the least of all, political will. Transferring forest officers, suspending guards and blaming radio-collaring are non-solutions. Responsible tourism and conservation research in additon to bringing in revenue, awareness and greater understanding of conservation are also a way of having more eyes and ears in the forests. As long as we continue to produce poor quality data within the Government, it is only logical for the Government – be it health or forest, to encourage applied research and act quickly on the issues that the scientific community brings up. Unfortunately, the forest department is much more closed to science and research than any other department today. Permissions to work in protected areas on important conservation activities is rarely based on the merit of the proposal but on whether it will report poor tiger numbers or dwindling of habitat. And where researchers have been candid with their findings, they have only been faced with cancellation of permits! I am still waiting for the day when a young forest officer in a protected area is empowered enough to publicly discuss issues in his park and network strongly with the scientific community, rather than play hide-and-seek with numbers till there is no other option. We saw this with Sariska and now with Panna. And these are the parks we know about due to the reporting in media, not because they came up in any Government report where we should ideally have been reading about them.

Delhibirding at Okhla

I was in Delhi over the weekend on work and I was able to catch up on some Sunday birding with Delhibird members. Just thought of sharing my experience with them, this being my first birding outing in Delhi. Due thanks to Gopi Sundar, Anshu, KB Singh and a diverse group of members from Delhibird well represented in age, gender and profession!

A particularly hot Sunday morning, the stench of the Yamuna and the recent disquiet from yesterday's tragic blasts did not deter the Sunday outing of Delhibird to Okhla Bird Sanctuary, geographically in Uttar Pradesh, but only about half hour drive from the national capital.

A chance meeting with Gopi Sundar who studies Sarus Cranes and a co-incidental phone call from Anshu of Delhibirds regarding the outing made it possible for me to join the group to Okhla. We left Delhi at 5.40 AM and reached Okhla at 6 AM. The twitching of the Lesser Whitethroat and the ammoniacal odours of the Yamuna welcomed us (For those who think I am overstenching the Yamuna, see quote of the day below). We parked within Okhla and walked down the trail with agricultural fields on one side and dry marsh land with tall grass on the other with the 'pie' of male bushchats every few metres apart. A lone Common Babbler on the trail ahead excited me quite a bit, we southerners not having this 'common' cousin of our babblers.
We reached the end of the trail overlooks the Yamuna waters with tall grass, a few settlements and stray cattle separating us from the water. Somebody pointed out a large bird perched at a distance and the day started. Even as the scope was being set up, several binocs went up and a tentative diagnosis of a hepatic female cuckoo was announced. The barring on the upper tail, its
large size and the very fine nature of the barring on the underparts was bringing Eurasian Cuckoo in my mind. The scope brought some clarity - the yellowish bill and the plumage indicated that it was a juvenile. The throat had relatively lesser streaking and the underparts were also quite dark with the fine barring. With a lingering doubt in everyone's mind, we settled for juv. Greybellied Cuckoo. A few record shots from the photgrapher friends will settle the id soon perhaps.

A courageous group of delhibirders turned waders and waded through some water, vegetation and whatnot to reach the water. They were rewarded with Blacktailed Godwits, Ruffs and several other waterbirds. Just then, we all had seen a female Marsh Harrier and even as I was about to mention Migrantwatch, KB Singh informed me that he would be logging it into MW
today! The other group which stayed put were witness to an Rufousbacked Shrikes, an oriole in flight, red munias and black drongos. On the other bank, meanwhile were over a hundred terns, mostly whiskered with some river terns fishing. As we returned, Gopi scoped a few Spotted Owlets roosting in a Banyan tree nearby. A Greater Spotted Eagle and a Pariah kite circling
together as we walked back was another highlight of the morning.

It was a great opportunity to meet some birders from Delhi. It's amazing how many of them have heard so much about BR Hills. The recent photographs from BR Hills had made it even more of a top destination for many of them. Between the harriers and the munias, the conversation moved from Migrantwatch to the top-ten photographers announced by Kolkatabirds and slowly strayed away to idlis and dosas, and at some point, we all dispersed
to Sagar restaurant in Noida, where I gulped down the most expensive idlis of my life. As all breakfast convos go, this one too was unmatched in its width of topics - conservation policy, judiciary, ethics, choice of 'spirits' and what not!

A morning well spent with delhibird members and I look forward to birding again with them whenever I visit Delhi.

Quote of the day (Heard over breakfast :)

"I saw a Small Blue Kingfisher once. It dived into the Yamuna.....it then turned Pied"

List of birds seen

1) Grey Francolin - Francolinus pondicerianus
2) Lesser Whistling Duck - Dendrocygna javanica
3) Spotbilled Duck - Anas poecilorhyncha - Hundreds!
4) Northern Shoveler - A. clypeata - 2 females among the spotbilled ducks
5) Green Bee-eater - Merops orientalis
6) Juv. Cuckoo - Possibly Greybellied?
7) Greater Coucal - Centropus sinensis
8) Roseringed Parakeet - Psittacula kramerii
9) Spotted Owlet - Athene brama
10) Laughing Dove - Streptopelia senegalensis
11) Eurasian Collored Dove - Streptopelia decaocto
12) Yellowfooted Green Pigeon - Treron phoenicoptera 3 different flocks of
approx 12-15 pigeons
13) Whitebreasted Waterhen - Amaurornis phoenicurus - heard only
14) Purple Moorhen - Porphyrio porphyrio
15) Ruff - Philomachus pugnax - 4 in flight
16) River Tern - Sterna aurantia
17) Whiskered Tern - Chlidonias hybridus
18) Pariah Kite - Milvus migrans
19) Marsh Harrier - Circus a. aeruginosus
20) Greater Spotted Eagle - Aquila clanga
21) Little Cormorant - Phalacrocorax niger
22) Little Egret - Egretta garzetta
23) Cattle Egret - Bubulcus ibis
24) Grey Heron - Ardea cinerea
25) Purple Heron - Ardea purpurea
26) Night Heron - Nycticorax nycticorax
27) Painted Stork - Mycteria leucocephala
28) Rufousbacked Shrike - Lanius schach
29) Rufous Treepie - Dendrocitta vagabunda
30) House Crow - Corvus splendens
31) Eurasian Golden Oriole - Oriolus oriolus - seen in flight
32) Black Drongo - Dicrurus macrocercus
33) Whirring call of Common Iora?? Aegithina tiphia - Not confirmed
34) Redvented Bulbul - Pycnonotus cafer - outnumbered its whiskered cousin
35) Redwhiskered Bulbul - P. jocosus
36) Ashy Prinia - Prinia socialis
37) Lesser Whitethroat - Sylvia curruca
38) Tailorbird - Orthotomus sutorius
39) Common Babbler - Turdoides caudatus
40) Purple Sunbird - Nectarinia asiatica
41) Red Munia - Amandava amandava
42) Silverbill - Lonchura malabarica
43) Scalybreasted Munia - L. punctulata

Healthy forests and healthy people – A problem of First among equals

Aphu was a young man in his twenties when he passed away. In the hinterland of India's largest tiger reserve, few people keep track of their age, for nobody here registers them for social welfare, nor do they have a doctor who asks them their age to fill up a column on a case sheet. Aphu's home was in Gandhigram, a remote tribal village in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in North-east India, where he lived a little more than 20 years. His village is surrounded on one side by one of India's largest tiger reserves, Namdapha Tiger Reserve, and on the other are vast stretches of Myanmar's Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve, perhaps the world's largest protected area spanning close to 6000 square kilometers.

Late last year, Aphu died. A healthy young man, he was among the people hired to carry luggage and supplies for a group of people. We were visiting the village to see how we could address their health care needs. Cystic fibrosis did not dry up his lungs. Neither was it any of those eponymous autosomal diseases that strike the young, of which we learn so much in medical school. These diseases were very interesting, with articles about them in journals describing correlations to genes with numbers like the latest version of MS Windows. They all had their "Disability adjusted Life Years"(DALYs) that were screaming out their importance to be taken up in any of the new programs that the State might decide to launch. But, these rare and publishable afflictions were not among those that Aphu was ever afflicted with. He died, quite simply, of malaria. Quite ironic, that a country with nuclear power still has anaemic mothers and malaria deaths!

I have been to Aphu's village a few times with the wildlife scientists who work here. His village happens to be surrounded by one of the northernmost primary rainforests in the world. The place teems with biodiversity and the forests of Arunachal Pradesh have witnessed descriptions of a new species of bird and even a new primate, all in the past few years. Although, it is the tiger that has given this area its protected status, it is not for the tiger that this national park and many of the forests in Arunachal Pradesh are known. They are famous for their rich biodiversity including several endemic insects, butterflies, birds and plants. Such rainforests play a central role in wildlife conservation and climate change. However, climate change and global warming are distant issues for the Lisu and other tribal people living in and around these forests. Strangely, tigers aren’t.

In India today, there is a public debate on tiger deaths. Tigers and tribal people are being pitted against each other in conferences and in hallowed policy-making chambers. Co-existence of tigers and tribals is being questioned. In an environment where health care is financed literally out of people's pockets, a tiger's fate and people's health can get intertwined easily. And hunting becomes a means of averting any unplanned and sudden catastrophic expenditure. It is invariably health costs that crop up in the category of unforeseen expenses. With poor access to primary health care or even to community health workers, people in such remote regions often find that hunting can finance their long journeys to towns. And it does not help matters that private providers with expensive secondary level care and irrational practices become the first line health providers for these people. The Lisus travel through about 150 km of thick forests interspersed with rivers often in spate, to reach 'civilization'. From here, they take a 6 hour bus journey to reach a town where they invariably see a private provider. Roads, understandably are a bigger concern than chloroquine.

I work in an NGO in South India, with another indigenous tribal people, called the Soligas. The forests have shrunken around the Soligas, leaving a 540 sq. km area, still remaining, due to its legal protection by the State. The Soligas were semi-nomadic people, until they were forced to settle due in part to the shrinking forests and the legal protection accorded to their forests. They couldn't hunt anymore. However, a doctor who settled in these hills 25 years ago, began to provide health care to them. He went further to education and livelihood, as just providing health care was helping their health! This NGO today provides health care, education and livelihood to these tribal people. Today, the elderly Soligas talk about how climate has changed. They do not question it and do not need evidence. They know it and also see how their forests are getting choked from the outside.

These two glaring examples from South India and Arunachal Pradesh in North-east India typify the problems faced by people living in and around forests in India. However, the key is in access to basic health care and livelihoods. Wildlife scientists today see this connection between people's basic needs and their conservation ethic. In fact, it was a group of wildlife biologists that started a community health care program and an education initiative among the Lisus. I went there to train a group of tribal youth in basic health care. Among other things, I wanted these youth to be able to identify and institute treatment against malaria. It was indeed a satisfying experience for me, to see how wildlife biologists had looked beyond their paradigm of biodiversity conservation, and had looked for solutions outside ‘their box’. We, in health care, sadly are yet to make this connection. A glance at our curricula reveals the level of medicalisation that we undergo. A glance at our policy shows how fragmented and restricted it is.

Shrinking forests are an important reason for climate change, and so are empty forests; forests devoid of their biodiversity. While hunting empties forests in some places, it is firewood needs and fires in other places. It is after all people, who are to blame for this. People living in and around forest areas depend on them for their livelihood and daily needs. And when there are financial pressures for any of their needs, they turn to their resources - forests. Thus, they find themselves being the villains accelerating deforestation and emptying the forests. Isn’t this the same thing that our forefathers did, that we find ourselves in this position today? Can we blame them for being late in destroying their forests, just because, we thought of legal protection for it now, and we have climate change now! As population pressures and urbanization increase in India, rural and tribal India face a different problem; one of access - both physical and financial. It is time for health planners to consider the special needs and contextual factors affecting tribal
people and those living or affected by forests. It would be presumptuous to imagine that national programs for any of the diseases will change the situation with these people. Lisus or Soligas and for that matter any individual is not asking for malaria control programs or early cancer detection programs. They are asking for plain health care - financial and physical access to a person who can cure them of their illness and can help them live a healthier life. A malaria program for them is even lower in priority than a road or a source of livelihood, simply because, they have accepted malaria deaths as their destiny. It is perhaps time to think beyond programs and address health as a need in itself rather than health as a consequence of our programs.

Aphu died of malaria in his early 20s only because he was born in a place where climate change and the biodiversity mattered more than his life. In many areas the world over, where man-wildlife conflicts occur, the situation is similar. How are we going to prioritize between biodiversity conservation and people's needs? Are our politicians and policy-makers even seeing this problem of 'First among equals’? The global health research agenda needs to gear up to answer these difficult questions; questions that matter to people dying of malaria in this age, when in many countries, research is addressing carpal tunnel syndrome.