The tiger may be more ancient and distinct than we thought.
Tigers are less closely related to lions, leopards and jaguars than these other big cats are to each other, according to a new comprehensive study.
The genetic analysis also reveals the tiger began evolving 3.2 million years ago, and its closest living relative is the equally endangered snow leopard.
Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh said at a function to release 'A Handbook on Wildlife Law Enforcement in India' on Tuesday that he had made an offer to re-introduce tigers in the Purna sanctuary in Dangs where the big cats ruled the jungles about 25 years back. "I told Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) will work to re-introduce tigers in Dangs as an incentive for the state to part with its lions," he said.
Gujarat has been opposing the Centre's decade-old proposal to relocate Asiatic lions from Gir reserve to a 300 sq km forest at Kuno Palpur in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh. The last census showed 359 lions spread over 1,500 sq km, and this time there are indications of numbers having grown. Ramesh admitted that he has been unable to find a reasonable reply to Gujarat chief minister's contention of community protection of wildlife in the state. The Maldhari community is known to protect the lions even at the cost of their own lives, he noted.
Creating a Gir in Corbett
Amid the court battle, the Centre appears to have learnt a lesson or two on community protection of wildlife and has implemented a similar project in Corbett. A team of 50-60 'van gujjars' has been formed in Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand in a bid to protect the flora and fauna of the bioreserve. "We are trying to replicate the Gir model in Corbett," Ramesh said.
Tiger decline is 'sign of world's failure'
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website
There are now considerably more tigers in captivity than in the wild
Governments need to crack down on illegal tiger trading if the big cats are to be saved, the UN has warned.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting in Doha, Qatar heard that tiger numbers are continuing to fall.
Organised crime rings are playing an increasing part in illegal trading of tiger parts, CITES says, as they are with bears, rhinos and elephants.
The first people to successfully migrate out of Africa, the Jarawas came to the Andaman islands 60,000 years ago, scientists believe.
Essentially hunter-gatherers, the tribespeople have traditionally survived on the raw meat of wild boar.
"Till as late as the 1980s, the Jarawas would kill people if challenged or threatened. But in the 90s, they started to come out of the reserve and now they have developed a taste for cooked rice and sugar," says Govind Raju, editor of The Light of Andamans newspaper.
The Jarawas are just one of the indigenous tribal groups living in the Indian archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar.
Short, with dark skin and curly hair, they resemble African bushmen in appearance. Today, however, the tribe is on the verge of extinction with only about 320 of them left.
?Many of the youngsters have learnt popular Bollywood songs and Hindi slang with which they entertain visitors.
The tribespeople, who used to roam naked in the jungles, have now begun to dress in jeans and T-shirts.
At a recent meeting with senior state administration officials, a Jarawa spokesman asked for schools and mobile phones.
"The older generation does not like mingling with outsiders. But the new generation knows the benefit of mixing with the settlers. And they have become aspirational," says Mr Raju.
The big dilemma for policy makers then is whether there should be total isolation of the Jarawas or not
It is definitely a very ominous sign. Captivity is simply untenable. Studies have shown the average life span of wild animals in captivity is 1/3 rd to 1/2 of life span of in the wild. For example, african elephants in captivity have an average life span of 17 to 19 years as opposed to 57 years in the wild. Captivity deprives the animal of the very drive to live, inspite of all the arrangements. Animals in captivity are on perennial maniac depression, as they are in glorified prisons. Prisons nevertheless. sustained uncertainty and confinement within glorified areas, lead to unfulfilled expressions of natural responses to stimuli (lack of) and physiological complications.Pranay wrote:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8568035.stm
Tiger decline is 'sign of world's failure'
There are now considerably more tigers in captivity than in the wild
they should throw a convicted jehadi in the cage to increase the stimulation - both for man and beast.JwalaMukhi wrote:It is definitely a very ominous sign. Captivity is simply untenable. Studies have shown the average life span of wild animals in captivity is 1/3 rd to 1/2 of life span of in the wild. For example, african elephants in captivity have an average life span of 17 to 19 years as opposed to 57 years in the wild. Captivity deprives the animal of the very drive to live, inspite of all the arrangements. Animals in captivity are on perennial maniac depression, as they are in glorified prisons. Prisons nevertheless. sustained uncertainty and confinement within glorified areas, lead to unfulfilled expressions of natural responses to stimuli (lack of) and physiological complications.
soosai Jehadi Gladiators? That should be interesting...Union minister for environment Jairam Ramesh said most of the tiger reserves in the country are in a bad shape and are going Panna and Sariska reserves way, which have no tigers left.
Ramesh, who was in Bhopal for the seventh convocation of IIFM, said condition of only nine, of the 39 Project Tigers Reserves in the country, was good while 12 needed improvement and 18 were akin to Panna and Sariska.
There is no Indira Gandhi anymore.Murugan wrote:Who stops our minister and govt to restart Project Tiger like campaign?
Gujarat, the last abode of the Asiatic lion, has added some more to the big cat pride. Forest officials involved in the lion census in Gir and surrounding areas said an increase of 12-15% has been recorded in the number of lions compared to the 2005 census which had put the count at 359.
"We are putting the number at around 405," said a source. The final count would be declared by senior officials who would take a call on Friday morning before the data is submitted to Chief Minister Narendra Modi by 4 pm.
Sources further said there was much hue and cry over the large number of lions moving out in the fringe areas of Gir. However, according to officials, the count in Gir forest was around 290 lions while another 25-odd lions were spotted in the Girnar and Mityala sanctuaries.
Officials said the three sanctuaries put together would account for around 315 lions, while the remaining were in Khamba, Mahuva, Palitana and parts of Amreli district.
A senior forest official said this was exactly the figure which was derived at during the nine-month exercise which began before the census. Officials said that of the 90-odd lions which venture out of the Gir sanctuary, about 25 are in Mahuva, while another 30 are in Khamba. Interestingly, not a single lion was sighted in the coastal belt from Veraval to Mangrol.
The four-day census exercise, which began on April 24, covered a large area spread over 10,000 sq km. No less than 1,300 forest officials and volunteers were deployed for the exercise using global positioning system and digital photography.
Officials said photographs taken by volunteers had helped forest officials cut down on the time taken previously to complete the census. "We have been able to arrive at the final count in less than 72 hours of the completion of census," said a senior official.
http://asiatic-lion.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... st-of.html"Their numbers have almost doubled since 1979," the chief minister said. "The increase in lion population between 2001 and 2005 was 5-7%. But in the last five years, despite some unfortunate incidents [eight deaths due to poaching], the lion population has increased by over 13%, which is the highest ever rise." He added that this is "a gift to the globe".
The maximum number of lions —297— were sighted in the Gir National Park, sanctuary and adjoining areas.
The second highest sightings (53) were in Savarkundla, Liliya and adjoining areas of Amreli and Bhavnagar districts.
This indicates that lions have now found a new home here and seem to be favouring the grasslands of Bhavnagar. Girnar Sanctuary recorded 25 animals and, interestingly, lions have ventured as far as the coastal areas of Kodinar, Una, Sutrapada and Chhara, which recorded 21 lions.
Amreli is Junagadh's rival as host of lions in Gujarat
04-05-2010
Amreli is Junagadh's rival as host of lions in Gujarat
DNA By Jumana Shah
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_am ... at_1378349
Gujarat's Junagadh district seems to getting tough competition from Amreli, a neighbouring district, as a host of the coveted Asiatic lions. As many as 108 lions have been sighted in Amreli which is second only to Junagadh where 270 have been recorded. Incidentally, the Gir National Park and Sanctuary is located in Junagadh.
While Bhavnagar's grasslands are emerging as a favourite of the
king of the jungle, not a single lion has been recorded in Porbandar district.
The latest census has reported the existence of 77 cubs less than one year old, and 75 cubs aged less than three. "40% of the lion population is 'youth', similar to India's human population," Modi quipped as he announced the census results on Sunday.
Census method Modi said the world should notice the scientific approach used in the lion census by Gujarat this time. "Institutes should conduct a scientific study of this method and get it replicated in other wildlife censuses too," he added.
He said that, earlier, the census was carried out in a rather arbitrary manner, seeking input from passers-by about lion sightings and estimating their population on the basis of attacks made on other animals. But this time, the method used was technologically very robust.
According to the information given by the department, the special features of the latest census were the use of GIS, GPS and wireless technologies for effective coordination. Proper documentation was done for each observation. Through
direct sighting, the animals were identified by distinct body-marks.
Each team involved in the census was to record these body-marks, and other details such as time of the sighting, to and fro directional movement, etc, on a form prepared by the forest department. Digital pictures were also taken for the records.
Summer is the best time to conduct this exercise as the number of water resources gets restricted. Lions and other wild animals need to drink at least once in 24 hours. This makes it comparatively easy to decide the places in the jungle where the animals could collect. The available water sources and probable places where the lions could visit were surveyed during the forest department's nine-month-long pre-census exercise.
"Long ranging animals like lions are not confined to man-made ecological boundaries. Keeping this in mind, a beat was decided as the smallest geographical unit inside the Gir protected area and a village was taken as the smallest unit outside Gir," chief wildlife warden RV Asari said.
The exercise to record the numbers and movement of the lions had begun nine months back. Based on the observations made during this period, 641 probable sites were identified where the chances of finding the lions were the highest. Also, data of the hunts of the last 10 years were analysed. Gir and the adjoining areas were divided into seven regions, 28 zones, and 100 sub-zones for the census.
At the last count, 135 officers, 450 enumerators, 900 assistants, 134 volunteers, 49 photographers, 13 doctors and 12 researchers were part of the census team.
Modi claimed that effective conservation methods adopted by the state forest department had resulted in the significant rise in lion population. "After the unfortunate incident (poaching cases of 2007), we recruited 400 new people, trained them for better guarding of the forest, brought in motorcycles and all kinds of new technology. The results can be seen in the census data this time," Modi said. Gujarat is very proud of its heritage and population of all wildlife has increased in the last thirty years, he added.
Last but not the least is the people's participation that was given credit for the spectacular increase in the population. "We got the maximum of people's participation in the census process this time. Lots and lots of volunteers had joined the exercise," the forest department stated.
Be that as it may, the main functionaries in lion conservation are the residents of the surrounding villages, who do not flinch when a lion kills their livestock. How possessive the villagers are about the lions is evident from this incident of 2007.
Soon after the poaching incidents in 2007, the forest department was seeking help from the villagers for better protection of the lions. The villagers said they would help the department only if it promised that it would not take away any of the lions (meaning, the relocation proposal of the central government).
"'You do not worry about the lions preying on our livestock, that is our internal issue. The lions are part of our family; we can deal with them. But don't take them away,' the villagers told me. I was totally impressed by their humane legacy," Modi said.
Much as the king of the jungle gets the lion's share of attention, one should not overlook the other wildlife which keep the ecosystem robust. Principal secretary, department of environment and forests, Gujarat, SK Nanda said all volunteers had reported sighting large numbers of sambars, retells and porcupines. "The population of Sambar is estimated to be around 48,000, there are 250 leopards in the Gir forests and 1,070 all over Gujarat," he said.
.FOR the three endangered species of Gyps vultures in India, 2009 was a year of mild optimism. Hornbill, the magazine of The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), reported that the first-ever captive-bred nestlings of the Slender-billed vulture (Gyps tenuirostris) had “fledged successfully”; that three pairs of Oriental White-rumped vultures (Gyps bengalensis) had bred successfully; and that two White-rumped vulture nestlings born in 2007-08 were also doing well. Apart from all this heartening activity at the Society’s Vulture Conservation Breeding Centres in Pinjore, Haryana, and Rajabhatkhawa, West Bengal, there was the good news that another centre would soon become operational in Rani, Assam, and that land for a fourth centre had been acquired in Madhya Pradesh
Until two decades ago, there were about 40 million vultures in India and the bird was said to be as common as the crow. Now it is believed that there are around 60,000 of them. Ironically, the very density of the bird’s population disguised its decline. The loss was noticed only in 1997 when a BNHS team noticed fewer birds in a colony of White-rumped vultures in the Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
The urgency of the situation can be assessed by a simple statistic. In the 1990s, the White-rumped vulture was considered the world’s commonest large bird of prey. By 2000 there were no breeding pairs of the White-rumped left in the colony in Bharatpur. Between 1996 and 2006 there was a 97 per cent decline in the vulture population. Considered to be the fastest fall in numbers of any one species, the phenomenon came to be called the Asian vulture population crash. From being among the commonest birds of prey, all three resident species of Indian Gyps vultures were put on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species – a status given to critically endangered species or species marked for extinction unless drastic measures are taken to save them.
Though the discovery that vultures were dying at a catastrophic rate was realised first in Bharatpur, the reason for the deaths was discovered in Pakistan by a team of the United States-based Peregrine Fund. The team recovered more than 1,600 dead vultures from field sites in Pakistan and carried out post-mortem inspections on carcasses in good condition. The results showed that 85 per cent of the deaths were because of renal failure followed by visceral gout. The gout was identifiable by a white paste-like substance that clung to the internal organs.
Further scientific studies by the BNHS, the RSPB and the Zoological Society of London narrowed down the cause to the use of an anti-inflammatory veterinary drug called diclofenac. When a vulture ingested the carcass of an animal treated with diclofenac it had a disastrous effect on the viscera of the birds. Uric acid accumulated rapidly within tissues and on the surfaces of internal organs, causing visceral gout and rapid death from renal failure. Birds have been known to die within 72 hours of eating carcasses that had the remains of diclofenac.
the famous Malihabadi Dussehri mango bagged the prestigious Geographical Index (GI) status, bringing it international recognition and protection of its distinct identity. As if on cue, the flowering this year turned out to be the best in several decades
Did some googling...Sachin’s Mango Debut
The Mango Maharaja of Malihabad, Kalimullah, has developed a new hybrid variety of mango this season which he has named after master blaster Sachin Tendulkar. It is a hybrid of two of India’s finest mango varieties—Gudad Shah and Chausa. As he shows us the rather inconspicuous Sachin Tree in his sprawling orchard, Kalimullah promises that the Sachin Mango, when it ripens, will be beautiful to look at—soft, with a shiny skin—and taste sweet, creamy and juicy. Sachin Mangoes will be sold to the public only next year, but the first fruits from the tree will be delivered to—who else?—Sachin, as soon as they ripen.
Is anyone aware if other distinct Indian mangoes (Ratnagiri Alphonso, etc.) have the GI status?Three varieties of Malda mangoes Lakshman Bhog, Khirsapati ( Himsagar) and Fazli have succeeded in earning Geographical Indicator Index from the Intellectual Property Rights, Union commerce and Industry minister.
NEW DELHI: African cheetahs could be brought to India within the next three years, says Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.
He has just returned from a trip to South Africa, one of the potential source-habitats of cheetahs to be moved to India.
“We have zeroed in on South Africa, Namibia and Kenya and we are talking to all of them…So I took this opportunity to visit the Cheetah Outreach near Cape Town,” Mr. Ramesh said.
“The South Africans have the best technical expertise,” he added.
The cheetah is the only large mammal to become extinct in India in the last millennium, according to Mr. Ramesh, who is on a mission to reintroduce the big cat to central India — even against the wishes of a tiger lobby which is reportedly sceptical.
“They say ‘if you can't look after the tiger, how will you protect the cheetah?',” Mr. Ramesh said. “I believe that just as the tiger is a symbol of the forest habitat, the cheetah symbolises our vanishing grasslands…It's a valuable icon.”
The Wildlife Institute of India is spearheading the project, and will unveil a road map and destination for the African cheetahs — possible options are in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat — by May-end.
This is what is unfortunately needed across the country if India is serious in saving its endangered wildlife...GUWAHATI: Kaziranga National Park forest guards foiled a poaching attempt on rhinos by gunning down four poachers in a fierce gun-battle early on Friday. The four were part of a six-member gang of hunters. The encounter, which started at 1.55 am, came four days after park authorities busted a racket of rhino horn suppliers and facilitators following the arrest of seven persons, including a former forest guard of Kaziranga, on Tuesday.
The gun-battle took place barely two km inside the park from Mihimukh, the most sought-after entry point for tourists in the Kohra range of Kaziranga. Though the poachers are yet to be identified, park authorities suspect they were either to Nagaland or Manipur.
"There have been instances of poachers from Nagaland and Manipur killing rhinos in Kaziranga. This gang could also be involved in killing a rhino in the Agaratoli range recently," Kaziranga divisional officer D D Gogoi said.
Environmental activists say there has been a frightful fall in the water level in the Sasthamkotta lake, which is one of the 25 sites in India included in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance. (The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty that commits member countries “to maintain the ecological character of their wetlands of international importance and to plan for the wise use, or sustainable use, of all of the wetlands in their territories”.)
“Our estimate is that the lake has shrunk by over 40 to 50 acres [one acre is 0.4 hectare] altogether. The depth of the lake is also decreasing drastically,” said Odanavattom Vijayaprakash, the general convener of the district Environmental Protection Coordination Committee. According to the Kerala Water Authority (KWA), there has so far been a decrease of over 30 per cent in “the storage capacity” of the lake this summer.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Sou ... t-I-can-do.Mumbai
The seed of the idea, Satish Vijaykumar recalls, started as something tiny and simple. But quite unexpectedly it has sprouted branches that touch hundreds of people in cities across south India and as far away as Zimbabwe."One day I was just sitting and thinking how the average Indian is always worrying about something, but we don't do anything," he says. As a young adult living in Mumbai (Bombay), he found that one thing that seemed doable was to pool rupees together with friends, buy a few tree saplings, and plant them. "It's the least I can do," Mr. Vijaykumar thought.He told his buddy, Ranjeetsinh Walunjpatil, who suggested they put the idea on a website and give it a voice on Facebook and Twitter. Friends, then friends of friends, became fans and promoted it. Journalists noticed the buzz and wrote stories. Money arrived. Before they knew it, Vijaykumar and Mr. Walunjpatil were taking a van one weekend across Mumbai, dropping off hundreds of trees to strangers.The Sapling Project, as it's now called, is neither flashy, nor grandiose, nor particularly original. But it provides yet more evidence for a basic law in the physics of making a difference: People at rest tend to stay at rest until one person starts things rolling."The world is full of nice people – the only thing is to get them motivated," says Vijaykumar, who reckons that everyone has the potential to nudge along at least 10 people in their life. "If your cause is good, people will go out of the way to help you
It’s an alarming number every wildlife enthusiast knows—1,411, the number of tigers in India according to a 2009 census. To prevent the number from falling, the Union minister of state for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, has initiated a move to hire local tribals as trackers and protectors in the Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve, which at 3,500 square km is the largest in the country. Also, the forest department plans to relocate the primitive Chenchu tribals from the core area of the sanctuary and settle them in the fringes. If the tribals are readily agreeing to do that, it’s because the Centre is offering them Rs 10 lakh for every family member above 18 years. “Some families,” says Thulsi Rao, an assistant conservator at the reserve, “stand to gain as much as Rs 40 lakh.”
The sanctuary is in the Nallamala forests, long a Maoist haven, because of which tiger conservation hasn’t exactly been a priority here since the early nineties. But by 2006, the Maoists were driven out, and since then, efforts are being directed towards saving the tiger. The primitive, hunter-gatherer Chenchus are therefore in the spotlight.
The minister, who recently visited the sanctuary and met some of the tribal youth being trained as tiger protectors, says some 1,000 families living in the core area are being relocated. Similar initiatives are being taken up in other parts of the country, he says, but in Andhra Pradesh it has really taken off.
The Nagarjunasagar reserve is home to 82 tigers. The adjoining Gundla-Brahmeswaram sanctuary is likely to be added to the Nagarjunasagar reserve as an extended core area.
The Kanha Tiger Reserve management has been headed by a succession of brilliant officers who have always striven to inculcate a sense of team spirit, cohesion and harmony in the Kanha family. This has tremendously boosted the morale, especially of the front-line staff who answer the call of duty under difficult living conditions.
Three species of rare vultures in India have been successfully bred in captivity, conservationists say.
Most of the birds were reared in the Indian state of Haryana, but also in the state of West Bengal.
Among the 10 chicks that have fledged this year are four oriental white-backed vultures.
Experts say this species - once found all over India - has been declining at a "rate quicker than the dodo before it became extinct".