Jamshedpur, Nov. 23: Villagers can heave a sigh of relief. The state forest and irrigation departments are building bridges to help lost herds find their way instead of straying into hamlets. Around half a dozen people are trampled to death every year and crops worth lakhs are destroyed when elephants …
BEYOND USUAL SUSPECTS A case for neglected species in wildlife research and conservation For most of us wildlife is represented by large mammals like elephant, rhino, lion and tiger, may be birds like hornbill, raptors, peafowl and waterfowl and awe inspiring reptiles like marine turtles, crocodiles, python and king cobra. …
Describe your study and its findings. From 2006 to 2009 over 70 per cent of the forest staff in the reserve, which lies in a protected area in the Eastern Himalayan global biodiversity hotspot, suffered from malaria. Its treatment cost park managers nearly three per cent of their total budget …
WANT to know which migratory birds do your region host? Or perhaps, you want to check on the conservation status of a bird species. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has a website on avian ecology giving exactly this kind of information. The site, set up in collaboration with the …
THE Supreme Court has temporarily stayed an order of the Madras High Court, asking resort owners near Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu to vacate the land. In April, the high court had given resort owners three months to hand over the land with them to the state to pave …
THE Maharashtra government is all set to reduce the area of the only sanctuary for the rare Great Indian Bustard after the Supreme Court allowed its denotification on July 22. The sanctuary in Solapur district will be reduced from its present size of 8,496 sq km to 1,222 sq km. …
In 2008, I shifted from Pune to the green environs of Dehradun to follow my heart. Writing, photography and nature conservation projects followed, making life really interesting. One of the conservation projects I took up involved studying the conflict between monkeys and farmers in Uttarakhand. In many areas of the …
Just mention the large brown-and-white bird and the residents of Mardi village in Solapur burst out in anger. The district in Maharashtra is one of the few refuges for the rare Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps), endemic to the grasslands of India and Pakistan. Of the 30-35 birds remaining in …
If you are a farmer in India, chances of succumbing to a snake bite are greater than anywhere else in the world. While the country is one of the top destinations for medical tourism, in the case of snake bite casualties, we appear to be mired in the Dark Ages. …
RESEARCH suggests that habitat loss, thought to be a major threat to amphibians across the world, might in some cases be protecting them from a deadly fungus. Amphibian species, which include frogs, toads and salamanders, have dwindled at an alarming rate since 1980s; a third of the world’s amphibian species …
If you happen to see a swarm of butterflies flying above the terrace of your office in the crowded Bengaluru city, count yourself lucky. You are witness to the largest annual butterfly migration in southern India. Every year between October and December, swarms of Dark Blue Tiger and Double Branded …
BAN ON the drug diclofenac, administered on domestic animals, has had a positive impact on the vulture population. It had not been quantified till recently. The rate of decline has slowed down—from 40 per cent to 18 per cent. The number of oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis) had dropped drastically …
George and Aruldas, fishermen from near Kanyakumari, were hauling up a catch on a beach in southern Tamil Nadu. It was a warm evening and they were the only fishers on these secluded sands. The catch was special and I was privileged, as an outsider, to be invited to watch …
AN animal’s ability to acclimatise to urban surroundings is believed to depend on its brain size. Evolutionary biologists have for the first time provided evidence of it. Alexei A Maklakov and his team from Evolutionary Biology Center, Uppsala University, Sweden, have found that relative brain size in birds is a …
THE Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) has asked detergent company Nirma to explain why the environmental clearance granted to its cement plant in Gujarat should not be revoked. The ministry issued a show cause notice to the company on May 11 after a report by a group of …
Southeast Asia, with its linkages into the larger Asian market that includes China, Indonesia, and India, is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots as well as one of the world’s hotspots for the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts. Although demand markets for wildlife, including illegally-traded wildlife are present …
Immediately after school, 15-yearold Surendra Kumar rushes to the wheat fields running parallel to the main Chambal canal in Umaidganj village in Rajasthan’s Kota district. He begins his search for a pair of Saras Cranes and their two young ones—the crane family he has been tracking for four years now. …
This draft implementation protocol by the environment ministry details procedures for determining critical wildlife babitats within National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries as required by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The purpose of this Implementation Protocol is to detail the procedure for determining …
The purpose of this Implementation Protocol is to detail the procedure for determining Critical Wildlife Habitats within National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries as required by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. This involves determining and notifying such areas that are to be kept …
INDIA’S tiger habitats may be shrinking but its tiger population has increased, claims the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). On March 28, the ministry announced 295 tigers have been added to the previous estimate—the 2006 count had estimated 1,411 tigers in the wild, spurring corporate-sponsored save-the-tiger campaigns revolving …
