When the mountains moved...

The fading light on the western horizon manifested the imminent arrival of the darkness of the night that would soon engulf the jagged mountains. The formidable mountains always stood stark and motionless, as if standing witness to the long chain of events shaping this remote landscape. Sometimes though, it seemed as if the mountains spoke, as if there was a soul hidden deep beneath the rock and shale faces that had jutted out some 70 million years ago when the Indo-Australian and the Eurasian plates collided to give birth to the Himalayas.

 

Twilight in the mountains. A Buddhist prayer flag and a mountain peak visible in the foreground.

When the spring knocks at the door of the mountains, the flowers bloom and a riot of colours commences. The furious wind turns into a warm-gentle breeze, while the butterflies hop from flower to flower in search of the elixir. The blue sheep graze leisurely in the lush green meadows and all life forms seem to enter some idyllic lull, enjoying the fleeting warm weather and a short period of bounty, in an otherwise harsh landscape.

The period of bounty and salubrious climate.

Come winter and the landscape is completely transformed. The greenery vanishes and the white snow covers the mountains and meadows as far as the eye can see. One thing however does not change; the mountains keep nurturing and nourishing a variety of life forms as they have done for millennia.

A lone Blue sheep looks over from the gradual-rolling meadows. The meadows support wild ungulates as well as the livestock of the people.

An hour had passed since the last rays of the fading sun had vanished from the face of the tallest peak; Mount-Kanamo, a beautiful and distinct mountain at approximately 6000 meters.

Mount Kanamo, a beautiful mountain peak located at approximately 6000 meters.

With sun going down, the temperature had plummeted down to 15 below zero. Amitayus (the snow leopard), was still resting in the cliffs inside the Badang nullah soaking up the comforting heat from the warm rock surface. The wind was gradually picking up and the exposed rock surface would soon be bereft of its latent heat and the comfort it provided. After a while, Amitayus felt the incessant, cold wind pounding on his battered, weather beaten face. Being the dominating giant that he was, he had lost his long-thick tail during a skirmish when a younger, somewhat arrogant male had dared to challenge his authority over his mountain kingdom. That furry tail would have provided some respite from the cold wind, but that was not an option now. Deciding that discretion was the better part of the valour, Amitayus moved a bit deeper inside the cave beneath the overhanging cliff.

“A Snow leopard’s tail is as long as the length of its body and provides balance while negotiating treacherous terrain. It is also often wrapped around the face while resting to protect against the wind and cold. Interestingly, local people believe that snow leopards carry their kills over their backs, wrapping it with the tail to keep it from falling”

Ten years had passed since Amitayus was born in these mountains. No one knew where exactly he was born, but Amitayus had faint memories of being chased away rudely and incessantly by the mother without any rhyme or reason. He had travelled miles, hiding from other dominant males, often going hungry for days and occasionally stealing a sheep or goat from an unwary herder. The tiring and dangerous journey had lasted several weeks till he finally settled down and started marking a small 80 square kilometer area as his home.

The snow leopard landscape. Meadows, cliffs, gorges and ridgelines along with the towering peaks form home to the most mysterious cat of the high mountains.

The night was cold and chilly but Amitayus had eaten well and half a carcass of a blue sheep still lay in the cave. There was nothing to be worried about at least for a couple of another days. The only thing that had troubled him today was a restless young chap with big snow boots, a bag slinging on his back and a pair of binoculars stuck perpetually on his face. The fellow had been too close today and kept scanning the mountain slopes with unceasing zeal. To the surprise and relief of Amitayus he appeared to have not a clue that he was lying there, right under his nose. Finally with the onset of the night, the fellow had decided to give up and retreat, but not before building a cairn on the narrow trail that Amitayus would have to use, to walk out of the cliffs and over to the rich meadows of Gete, where blue sheep grazed in plenty.

Having spent the entire day lazing around, the fall of the darkness seemed to nudge Amitayus to take a small stroll on the cliffs. He was also curious to see what business this fellow who did not look like a Buddhist monk had constructing cairns. The cairns and colourful prayer flags were the hallmark of this Buddhist landscape and there was nothing to worry about them.

Buddhist prayer flags with prayers inscribed on them are thought to spread goodwill and well-being in seven cardinal directions.

To the utter surprise of Amitayus, the cairn emitted a gentle red glow the moment he approached it and the glow became more intense, the closer he approached. He had never seen a cairn like this before, but it did not seem to do any harm either. Satisfied with the exploration, Amitayus returned to the relative safety and comfort of the cave, where to his great displeasure, a red fox was making good of his precious food. Chasing it away, he stretched himself, yawned and then sprawled over, gazing at the star studded bright sky. He drifted into the memories of his childhood when he did not have to worry about either food or shelter as there was a mother to provide for all of it. He could hardly remember the face of the mother or that of the other siblings, but one thing he still remembered clearly; the stars were the same then as they were today. Lingering in the sweet thoughts of whatever he remembered of his childhood, he drifted away to sleep.

Night in the Himalayas. Twin mountain peaks, a village nestled within and the starlit sky provide a magical quality to the night.

Meanwhile Thinley despite scanning the mountains all day had not succeeded in even getting a glimpse of a snow leopard. He had returned to the base camp cold, tired and hungry. Next morning he decided to intensify his search for snow leopard signs and scats as he planned to deploy more of those cairn disguised camera traps for better monitoring of snow leopards.

He also hoped that this wandering around might one day bring him close to a snow leopard! With the help of other knowledgeable villagers and livestock herders, who had intimate knowledge of snow leopard movements, Thinley had managed to identify several places where the snow leopard would pass and a covert camera would record its presence. On a similar reconnaissance trip one day, he had spotted a horse in a meadow, lying about 200 meters from an overhanging cliff. He quickly pulled out his binocular from his sling bag and was thrilled to see a snow leopard lying next to the dead horse. Though he had seen snow leopards a couple of times before, this was the first time that the cat with the uncanny reputation of melting away in the mountains, lay right in front of his eyes. Thinley just could not take his eyes off the beautiful cat with the smoky grey coat adorned with dark-grey rosettes. He could no longer resist taking a few more steps to see the cat up and close. Taking one cautious step a time he gradually moved forth. At one point, the snow leopard raised its head and stared at Thinley, but he was undeterred. A few more steps and the cat crouched besides the dead horse, baring its long-sharp canines. This aggression shook Thinley and he decided to retreat his steps, but not before he have had a good look at the snow leopard. The small stump in place of a long thick tail struck him and would remain etched in his memory forever.

Amitayus photographed by an automatic motion sensor camera in the winter of the year 2008.

Throughout their range in Central Asia, which is spread across thirteen countries, there is not even a single instance of a snow leopard killing or injuring a human being. It is astonishing that a cat that can bring down a full grown horse would not harm human beings.

The waning of flowers was signaling a retreating spring and the onset of a short autumn, which would then soon give way to a long-harsh winter. People in the villages were busy harvesting their precious crops of commercial green pea and the traditional barley.

A village in the Trans-Himalayas with its crop of barley. Besides being a nutritious food, barley has high religious-cultural value and is the primary ingredient of the traditional brew.

Thinley and his team were running around in the mountains, deploying camera traps at the strategic locations they had marked out earlier. Thinley was particularly excited as he hoped that these cameras would be a window to the world of that stump tailed cat that had one day left him stunned with its beauty and courage. He and his team would set out early in the morning, maintaining their delicate balance on the ridgelines, while the furious wind threated to uproot them and fling them down into the yawning gorges. Memory cards brought back from cameras far and wide revealed several beautiful cats that had posed in front of the cameras. The team was particularly thrilled to see a female with two playful, cuddly young ones.

Amitayus was ubiquitous and was found to cover a large area which included the area covered by the female with cubs. Probably he had sired those cubs, but one could not be sure. The effort was rewarding enough for the team to continue with for years, and year after year, Amitayus kept gracing the cameras.

While surfing through some of the recent photographs that the team had brought back, Thinley’s keen eye noticed the battered and tired face of Amitayus. Also the camera traps revealed that numbers of places that he often visited and had formed a part of his large kingdom were now reduced to a handful. The entire team was now a worried lot. Thinley’s natural cheeriness seemed to have evaporated into the thin mountain air and the once mischievous eyes now gave out a dull, sad look. Without anyone noticing, he was making four trips a month to each of the cameras instead of the usual one. He found it difficult to express himself and make anyone understand why he would be so worried about one particular snow leopard when there were many others around. The two cubs had again appeared in front of one of the cameras and a faint smile donned his face when he saw that they were growing bigger and more mischievous, this time running after a bewildered adult blue sheep male.

Two of the snow leopard cubs, growing older and bolder. NCF-SLT camera traps have been monitoring these two cubs and their mother since the year 2009.

The report of livestock killings which had surged in the past four months had trickled down substantially. Thinley had made sure that all such killings were swiftly compensated as deep down he worried that it was the now old and weak Amitayus, who was killing livestock. Belonging to the same community, he knew that pushed to the brink, the herders sometimes would not hesitate to take extreme steps to protect their valuable livestock. On such occasions he often tried hard to ascertain the identity of the snow leopard and in his conversations with herders, he would often invoke the great teaching of Lord Buddha and the right of every life form to exist. Deep down, he silently prayed for the well-being of Amitayus and other snow leopards.

Buddhist prayer motifs. Often used in the rituals of the dead, these beautiful mud idols are created in thousands and are left in the natural caves or poured into the streams.

On a bitterly cold winter morning, some monks on their way to a meditation cave found a snow leopard buried deep in the snow. Thinley’s heart missed a beat before he rushed to the spot, running and falling in the knee deep snow. After a while, his limbs refused to move even an inch and the cold mountain air choked his lungs. Never before had he felt so weak and helpless in these mountains. Somehow he managed to drag himself to the last 200 meters before he crashed on his knees just where the beautiful, but now motionless snow leopard lay. The monks’ lips were rolling out silent prayers for what is regarded as the most mysterious creature of the high mountains.

Amitayus graces a camera again in the winter of 2010. This was the last we saw of him before the mountains embraced him in their lap.

In Buddhist culture, such as in the Dolpo region of Nepal, the snow leopards are considered as mountain deities, extending protection to the sacred mountains and the people. Old scriptures believed to be a 1000 years old, mention a great yogi named Drutob Senge Yeshe who arrived on a flying snow leopard to convert a dreaded mountain God to Buddhism. The mountain God resisted and a battle ensued. The snow leopard on seeing the mountain God assisted by snakes, reproduced itself one hundred and eight times and finally helped the yogi overcome the fearsome mountain God. Similarly the great yogi Milarepa to confound his enemies resorted to his black Nyingma-pa Tantra, transforming himself to a snow leopard at Lachi-Kang (Mount Everest).

…..The Snow Leopard (Peter Matthiessen)

A tear trickled down Thinley’s eyes as he recognized Amitayus, the snow leopard that had once sent him back on his feet, challenged his courage and enthralled him with its grandeur. He looked at the towering mountains around him, as if seeking an answer. But there were no answers; the mountains were silent as they always have been for millennia. With heavy hearts, everyone finally returned to the nearest monastery. Just then a deep rumble rented the frigid mountain air…as a huge avalanche came crashing down and buried Amitayus deeper, much deeper in the snow…

The mountains had moved.

Eyes in the wilderness: glimpses from rooftop of the world

Imagine yourself in a landscape so vast that you feel like a tiny, trivial mass crawling through an unending mosaic of rock, moraine and snow. A place where the mountains kiss the clouds, the sky is truly blue and when the darkness of the night shrouds the mountains, the dazzling stars appear to descend on the earth.

The crisp mountain air and the stunning panoramas can take your breath away; quite literally as low oxygen levels at 4000 meters and above leaves one gasping for air. But the silver lining is that one can see for miles, the view being obstructed only by the mountains themselves and none else. The vista’s that the trans-Himalayan cold desert offers are bewitching. Nature lovers who care to venture beyond the typical hill stations are bound to be rewarded with the delightful visual bounty.

Trans-Himalyan Landscape

When the prospect of being in such a landscape arose for me, I was overjoyed. But the opportunity for me had an added allure, the allure to study one of the most mysterious creatures of the high mountains. Cats had long been my passion and here was an opportunity to study the enigmatic snow leopards, the most beautiful of big cats. The spring was approaching and it was an opportune time to explore the landscape. As I quickly scrambled my most basic of gear, I noticed the old 10 × 42 binoculars lying in one corner. They would be the most useful companions; I pondered and quickly placed them inside a roll of cotton shirts.

When I reached Shimla, a group of people from Kibber village had already arrived to do some shopping for the newly rented house that would serve as office cum base camp. Amongst the group of people was Sushil Dorje a man of immense knowledge and passion for mountains. He would also be my guide and teacher in the mountains for the time to come. After spending a night in Shimla and another night in Rampur, we embarked upon our long jouney to Kaza, a small tourist town that also serves as the district headquarter for Spiti. Sherpa an old hand was on the steering and I could not help but admire his skills as he deftly maneuvered the Tata Sumo over the un-metaled serpentine roads, carved on the flanks of fragile mountain slopes. Even a cursory glance down the gorge was unnerving. After three punctures, a broken suspension and a forced halt at Chango (now famous for its apples) we finally reached our destination at Kaza. Thanks to the barley brew offered generously by a host in the evening, the nerves were soothed and anxieties drifted away, only if momentarily, like clouds carried swiftly by a tempestuous wind. Next day, we reached Kibber village our base camp at 4200 meters and 20 kilometers away from Kaza. After acclimatizing for a few days, I started exploring the landscape around me, accompanied by Sushil and young Chuppel who was my prospective field assistant.

A plateau with gentle terrain of flat meadows and rolling hills. 

The postcard perfect pictures of the landscape create an impression of a gentle rolling terrain; a fine place may be even for a morning jog. But nothing can be further from reality than this. On our first long hike, while Sushil walked non-chalantly, stopping near a rocky outcrop or a cairn to rest and to smoke, I would be invariably trailing behind by a few hundred meters. As we climbed higher, the BSNL network gingerly showed up on my mobile as if apologizing for its inexplicable absence in the heart of village. I called up a few friends and resumed the uphill trek. After a few minutes, we were negotiating a difficult crag. As I moved inch by inch, drops of sweat had formed on my brow, even though it was cold and windy. I resolved to enroll for a mountaineering course and informed Sushil about my intentions. It’s a good idea; he remarked and kept walking. Day after day the magnitude of obstacles would go on increasing as would the length of tracks. Usually quiet on the treks, Sushil would become chirpy the moment a wildlife sign especially that of a snow leopard was discovered. We walked on the very paths that snow leopards walked on. Discerning their pugmarks, scrapes and scent marks on overhanging cliffs, Sushil would estimate their approximate age and the likely direction the snow leopard might have taken while I tried to relate all this to its big brethren, the tiger. We were making good progress, but there was a long way to go.

Placing camera traps in a large area necessitated that we pack our bags and camp out in the mountains for prolonged intervals. Villages close to our area of operations always assisted generously with manpower, accommodation and information on wildlife. Their knowledge of the mountains and the boundless hospitality is remarkable. While camping out in the mountains, Kesang, one of my field assistants would invariably find a flat piece of stone that would serve as a pan to cook thick, but delicious chapattis.

Huddled around the fire with temperatures rapidly dropping to subzero and a fading evening light throwing long shadows of the mountain peaks, we would quickly plan for the next day and then invariable hit the sleeping bags.

Two months had passed by, my skin had tanned, the belt had to be tied an extra inch and we had placed twenty camera traps in locations we suspected snow leopards would pass by. There were just a few more cameras to be deployed. “We made good progress, but not too many sightings of wildlife”, I remarked a bit sadly.

A herd of blue sheep in a meadow

They would begin to increase now onwards remarked Sushil, in his usual nonchalant manner. But why would it improve now that we are returning to the base camp and will be making only occasional forays in the mountains for monitoring these cameras and a few surveys for the wild prey of snow leopards, I questioned. Now you have a set of thirty eyes spread across the length and breadth of this landscape. No one else ever had that. It was metaphorical, but it was a profound statement and I had not then imagined the wonders that these secret eyes in the wilderness will bring back to us. The camera traps allowed us an unprecedented opportunity to have a glimpse into the life of the wildlife of the mountains; a glimpse unhindered and natural. 

The rendezvous began with the first monitoring of cameras and continued till winters when snowfall coupled with the risk of avalanches began hindering our access to some of the study sites. Camera traps provided us remarkable documentation of some of the rare creatures and equally rare events in nature.

The first was a sequence of photographs of a female snow leopard and her two grown up cubs chasing a blue sheep. The first cub was followed by the mother who in turn was followed by another cub. Perhaps she was teaching the cubs one skill they would need the most once they were independent; the skill of being a successful hunter.

Biologists often rely heavily on scats to estimate snow leopard diet and their numbers using the molecular genetic techniques. But scats that were thought to be that of a snow leopard would often turn out to be that of a canid. This was puzzling and the puzzle was resolved when one of the cameras recorded a red fox relieving herself on the very spot where a snow leopard had deposited its scat a few days ago. Seems like the fox wanted to challenge the mighty snow leopards and mock the researchers who claimed to understand their biology!

The funniest creatures however were the sturdy yaks with their thick shaggy coats. Often they would spend hours in front of a camera trap munching and nibbling on some invisible blades of grass around camera traps. I would curse the yaks for draining the precious batteries and filling the valuable space of the memory cards with their constant munching.

To add to my woes, one of them would often decide to spend the night in front of the camera. With cameras programmed to take pictures without cease and every second, I would have to wade through thousands of pictures of yaks. I could not afford not to look at each of them for the fear that one of them might have recorded a snow leopard as well. With their use in ploughing, transporting goods and as a source of meat, yaks are valued by the local people. The cursing didn’t go well with yaks and they extracted revenge by dislodging one of my cameras and bringing down the stone cairn that hosted it. Thankfully the camera on the other side was left untouched and that’s how we knew the culprits.

The cameras also secretly photographed a marten out on perhaps a dinner date on a romantic moonlit night while we lead a frugal existence huddled in the tents.

The majestic Ibex seemed to refuse to fear snow leopards and were often recorded treading the same path as that of a snow leopard.

Blue sheep seemed wiser spending most of their time in the lush green meadows, though never far from a cliff in case the need for a quick escape would arise.

A golden eagle once landed in front of a camera, recording a splendid self-portrait, while another camera trap recorded a young wolf rolling in the snow.

Wolves are very rare in this landscape and finding one in one of our camera traps was a sure surprise.

Village dogs have become a conservation problem in this landscape as dogs not only kill the livestock of local people resulting in economic losses, but also kill blue sheep, the primary prey of snow leopard. Till recently, it was difficult to determine how far from the village, these dogs were ranging.

Camera traps have now revealed that the dogs range far and wide in this landscape which is a cause for concern. One day while I was having a conversation with one of my local friend in a village, I discovered another advantage to conservation from camera traps. My friend told me that the camera traps have deterred a few mischievous people from capturing blue sheep. The fear of being captured in hidden camera traps had kept them at bay.

The camera trap eyes were neutral observers, recording whatever came their way without favour or prejudice. Children and elders would be equally curious when they encountered a camera trap and gradually they are learning more about this work through the conservation outreach and education programs of the Nature Conservation Foundation.

The cameras however recorded a beautiful portrait of one man along with his two gorgeous horses. That was the man who had monitored a few of them through the summers and the winters ensuring that they worked flawlessly. He was the camera trap guardian. 

Note: An edited version of this article was published in GEO. May 2013. Pages: 26-29

A few more miles to go

It was a pleasantly warm day in October in Spiti Valley. The sky was clear and deep blue and a gentle breeze carried with it the subtle aroma of rosebush flowers. Flocks of mountain finches hopped from bush to bush, gorging on sea-buckthorn fruits. I was driving through the winding-uneven mountain roads towards the Ullah gorge in the newly acquired field vehicle, a Mahindra Scorpio. The visibility was good and I was soaking in the beautiful vistas with mount Manerang at a distance towering over the undulating valley glittering in the morning sun. I was going to drop Sushil and Tenzin, two very capable field assistants to Keuling village, a base for Ullah gorge. The work entailed setting up two camera traps, one at the mouth of the gorge and another six kilometers inside the gorge.

View of a typical gorge in the Trans-Himalayas

Ullah is an extremely tough gorge to traverse through by any standards. The gushing and freezing cold water in the stream that flows through it forces one to keep away from the narrow base, while the steep slopes above offer scarce foothold. The gorge is largely narrow with slopes becoming almost vertical at a few places. Any mistakes while you are trudging slowly at a height of 100-200 meters over the stream with nothing but boulders and rocks to fall upon can be fatal. The mountains look beautiful and charming, but they are also unforgiving, the mistakes rarely go unpunished.

Seabuckthorn laden with fruits. Villagers in Spiti valley have refused to use it commercially because they believe it will deprive many birds of their natural food.

A survey I conducted in this gorge searching for snow leopard signs in the year 2010 had revealed the difficulties one has to face in this gorge. Though I was able to go upto 5 kilometers inside, the going was tough. There was hardly any place to camp, the snow leopard signs were scarce and just for covering 5 kilometers, I had to cross the water six times. In the late afternoon the water level rose higher, making it impossible to cross the water any further, which meant one had to carry camping gear and provisions for at least one night. When I returned the next morning, I had bruised my knees, my limbs were numb after crossing the waist deep chilly stream water and my spirits were low as I found few snow leopard signs in this gorge despite the tremendous effort. As I crossed the last one of the water channels, all of my team members had already crossed over and were putting back their socks and shoes to get rid of the biting cold.

A wide river bed with turquoise waters. The water is often bone chilling cold and serene flow deceptive of the actual force of such rivulets

Broken physically and mentally, I was slowly wading through the water without caring for the cold anymore. I was despaired at this unsuccessful exploration. This right bank of the Spiti river was important to cover as the left bank was covered nicely with camera traps whereas cameras on the right bank were sparse. But the left bank was also hopelessly difficult to access, only the gorges offering some access while presenting unique challenges of their own.

These thoughts were running through my head when the typical thatched flat roof houses of Keuling village started appearing signaling the arrival of our destination. Despite all the limitations, it was important that we placed camera traps in this gorge. Once we reached Keuling village, the rucksacks were checked for the essentials (torch, batteries, chocolates, dry fruits and noodles). The old and worn out sleeping bags, the most trustworthy companions on such trips were taken out and Sushil and Tenzin were ready to go. I briefed both of them, primarily about ensuring that they do not engage in any overzealous adventure inside the treacherous gorge. Based on my previous experience, I was confident that both would return by 9:00 am the next morning. Faring them goodbye, I returned to drop another team of two at another location.

A panoramic view of the beautiful Trans-Himalayas

Next day I reached Keuling at the scheduled pick up time of 9:00 am and was confident that they would have already reached. However there was no sign of either of them, and knowing their adventurous nature, I mused that they would have tried exploring the gorge further and might get delayed by another hour or two. Now it was 11:00 am, the sun was shining brightly over the valley and yet there was no sign of either of them. I was starting to get a bit nervous and decided to go to the mouth of the gorge, hoping that they would be on the way. One also gets the BSNL cellular signal upto about a kilometer inside the gorge. I kept trying their cellphones and eventually reached the mouth of the gorge, but Sushil and Tenzin were nowhere in sight. It was 12:15 pm and time was running out fast. I was worried that one of them might have been injured badly and the other one might not be ready to leave the person alone and come out. Several such gloomy thoughts were running through my head simultaneously. I called up Thinley at base camp at kibber (30 km away), told him what was happening and asked him to be ready with a few men, ropes and other gear. Then I ran to the car and sped away to Kibber to get other people of our NCF team to plan and mount a search operation. I was now genuinely worried about the safety of these two as morbid thoughts kept crossing my mind and I tried hard to ward them off with positive thoughts. I was also very hungry as I did not have had breakfast thinking that three of us will have it together at Kaza, the small tourist town and administrative headquarters for Spiti valley. I reached Kibber in about 45 minutes and promised myself that I would never drive as fast on these roads again. Ranjini my colleague, offered to come along, but I requested her to stay back at the base camp as she was to leave for Bangalore the very next day and we needed someone to be at the base if things went wrong and we needed more co-ordination and help. While Thinley and team were loading their gear in the field vehicle, I quickly grabbed some lunch and we rushed back to Keuling. It was beginning to get dark when we started our trek to the Ullah gorge in earnest.

Sunset in the Trans-Himalayas. A Buddhist prayer flag is visible in the foreground.

No sooner had we reached the mouth when two silhouettes appeared on the cliffs on the right and the distinct rucksacks gave away the identity of the silhouettes. All of us shouted with joy and rushed towards them. Both of them were perfectly all right but I was perplexed about what took them so long. Both these guys are very capable trekkers and I was expecting them to make it before time.
I asked Tenzin and he told me that they had reached almost the glacier point beyond which Pin valley begins. What was the need to go that far I asked, a bit annoyed now. Both of them pointed to the GPS device and told me that something was wrong with the device. I took it from their hands and was shocked to see that someone had changed the units from metric system and the GPS was reading miles instead of the expected kilometers. They had walked six miles, instead of six kilometers and that explained everything.

Tenzin then added ‘we walked on and on, but the distance reading on the GPS would barely change’ and I was wondering if something was wrong, but Sushil kept cheering me up with it might be just a few more miles to go.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

A violent forest. Conservation and livelihoods in Sundarban mangroves.

After three hours of slow but steady cruise through the network of meandering river channels, the research boat finally reached its first destination of the day. The crew dropped the small anchor and prepared for the temporary halt. By the time I disembarked from the boat, the tide had receded, laying bare the brownish slope called mudflat. The low tide meant that I would have to slog through knee deep muck for about 15 meters before I could reach the relatively hard ground. As I crawled through the mud, the ubiquitous mud-skippers hopped around vigorously while the fiddler crabs in a distance scampered for cover to their underground dwellings. Maintaining the precarious balance with camera trap equipment in one hand and a stick in other, I had only occasionally looked back.

Covered with sharp pneumatophores and buzzing with mosquitoes, the hard ground offered little respite, but the dark and dense mangroves a few meters ahead were mesmerizing. I was expecting my recently recruited field assistants to be on close pursuit, but when I finally felt at ease and looked back, they were still on the boat. It had taken a lot of convincing and coaxing to make them understand that a large part of work needs to be and will have to be done on foot and out of the relative safety of the boat. A few days ago, when I had told the curious locals at the small tea shop that I had come to conduct long term research on tigers, I was regaled with stories surrounding the life of people and tigers. The people were nice, chatty and friendly and conversation flowed effortlessly as did the several cups of lemon tea. After the light chatter, the conversation had drifted to man-eating behavior of tigers. I was unusually tense today. This was the first day in field and having heard just too many incidents of man eating, narrated vividly during the first few days I had spent in Sajnekhali, all my senses were working in overdrive mode. 

Tiger pugmarks on a mudflat. 

As I looked imploringly towards the boat again, my assistants disembarked, a bit grudgingly and I let go a sigh of relief having some company eventually. I could understand their sentiment to some extent. For me it was an exciting opportunity to conduct research on tigers inhabiting a unique mangrove ecosystem and the chance to earn a PhD degree. I do not know if the prospect of earning a few thousand rupees in an unforgiving forest created an equal amount of excitement in their minds. We then walked towards the forest, slowly and cautiously, searched for tiger signs and were soon rewarded with plenty of pugmarks on the soft mud. The initial grudge of the field assistants seemed to be slowly diffusing away into the thick and humid mangrove air. We deployed our first camera trap and returned to the boat, washed the mud off our limbs and continued to our next destination. For that one moment in time, we shared our enthusiasm, excitement, fear and a sense of brotherhood and achievement.

MV ‘Maa Sumitra’, the boat assigned to me by the forest department became my home and soon after Probash and Dileep babu, two experienced and courageous forest guards started assisting me with the work. Having had spent about six month with my boat crew and assistants, I had no doubt left in the exceptional courage and hardworking nature of these people. But entering the forest always brought an eerie tension and excitement.  Probash and Dileep were experienced forest guards, and would stand on guard with their old and rusted 303 rifles, while I conducted the work at hand. The forest looked beautiful from the safety of the boat, step inside the mangrove and the tension on every face was barely concealed. I remembered my own nervousness on the first day when I had disembarked from the boat. If a week of listening to a captivating storytelling full of myths with the protagonist; a cunning tiger that could even change his stripes at will had unnerved me, I wondered what effect it would carry on the psyche of people who have been brought up in a tradition that views tiger as a God requiring worship and complete subjugation to keep him happy and at bay. In most of other forests of India, tigers might be looked at with awe and admiration and as the vehicles of the Goddess Durga by the devout ones. But in the mangrove forests of Sundarbans, the tigers were Gods in their own right. One would expect people to hate the tigers, but on the contrary, in the tradition and folklore in Sundarbans, tigers often shift roles from being greedy forest Gods to that of being brothers who have shared their fate with people and with whom one have to share the resources of the forest. Poorly thought about conservation efforts have not only failed to capitalize on a rich tradition, but have actually alienated the very people who could have been the best allies for conservation.

Wildlife biologists depend heavily on local traditional knowledge to successfully plan and execute their research. In the villages across India, invariably there will be a few people who will have the intimate knowledge of the jungle, a tradition fast disappearing now. Could I rely on this local knowledge of tigers to inform my research? Was there an element of truth in the local description of tigers? Unfortunately, we will never know unless we allow science to work untethered and free from shackles of bureaucracy.

The Sundarban tigers have been made infamous due to incessant propagation of their perceived mysterious and almost supernatural capabilities. This has affected the psyche of the locals so much that some of them were clearly annoyed when I tried drawing a comparison between the tigers in Sundarbans and tigers in other forests of India. To them the Sundarban tigers were superior to their counterparts elsewhere, even if the consequences of that so called superiority were tragic to them. I was however bewildered when a friend from Kolkata called me to find out if Sundarban tigers were really smaller than their counterparts in Central India and elsewhere. She was furious at the findings of a study that used the measurements of skulls of dead tigers to conclude that tigers in Sundarbans were smaller.

A misty sunrise. The sunsets in Sundarbans are often enchantingly beautiful.

Accounts of man eating incidents are told and retold many times over, each account in turn getting laced with more and more of the orphic abilities of tigers.  An unfortunate and probably unintended ramification of this self-propagating mysticism is the fact that Sundarbans owes more of its fame to its “man-eaters” than its natural beauty, the meandering river channels, the dense mangroves and a rich and unique marine and terrestrial diversity. The hoopla created around tigers often results in visitors being disappointed at not seeing the “Sundarban tigers” touted as the embodiment of sheer power, guile and deceit, unlike its lazy, harmless and almost domesticated counterpart in most of the terrestrial forests of India. It seems as if we already know what we need to know about tigers and man-eating is as natural a phenomenon as is the cycle of tides.

In an intriguing article titled “Why not the best? How science failed the florida panther” author Liza Gross questioned the quality of science used by United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to evaluate the Panther habitat requirement which had consequences for Panther survival and land use policy. While the world is debating the quality of science determining the fate of a carnivore, we have not yet even started grappling with the basics with all sincerity. 

The biggest tragedy of Sundarbans is people viewing the deaths of the common masses as something inevitable and the natural consequence of living off a hostile forest. Annu Jalias notes in her very well researched book the wry remark of an inhabitant of Sundarbans “For the civilized and rich of the Kolkata, we are but tiger food”. A journey from Canning port to inside Sundarbans will remove any doubts that a person might have in this statement. Not even fifty kilometers as the crow flies, the Sundarbans feels like some ancient, undiscovered world hidden right under the nose of the uber metropolitan Kolkata. Marked by abject poverty, lack of the most basic amenities and a non-existent health service, the region is a testimony to the hypocrisy of those singing the success stories of India’s economic might.

During a regular research foray inside the Sajnekhali, the wireless set of range officer Shankar Dutta accompanying us crackled and from conversation that ensued in Bengali, I could make out that someone had been killed by a tiger somewhere. Shankar directed the boatman to change course and then told me that a fisherman had been killed by a tiger the previous day and he needs to go and inspect the spot. There was hardly any conversation in the boat for next two hours. Once we reached the spot, a small forest boat and the dinghy with a few fishermen on it was already there. A fisherman pointed towards the forest, but there was nothing that could be seen inside the thick and dense mangroves. Scanning the edge of the forest, my eyes fell on a pugmark trail and as my gaze followed the trail,   a brown woolen cap stuck on a branch caught my eye. The fishermen from the dinghy boarded our larger boat and an animated conversation between them and Shankar followed. Shankar later told me that they were the blood relatives of the person who had been killed on the mudflat and then dragged inside the mangrove by the tiger while they were searching for crabs. The morose cap stuck on a protruding branch was the only sign left of a man who was up and alive just a day before. The relatives were unwilling to try and retrieve the body, even when the forest staff offered help. When I asked one of the men why wouldn’t they want to at least retrieve the body, he looked straight in my eyes and remarked “do you want to sacrifice some more at the altar of the tiger”. 

A tiger photographed using a camera trap.

Lack of scientific studies has not helped the issue and even when a few studies have been conducted, the problem of man-eating has been mostly overlooked and has not received the rigorous treatment that science demands. A dilettante approach has not only hampered the formulation of a practical solution, but has served to further mystify, romanticize and in some instances glorify the problem. The very people entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring the well-being of people and the forests shy away from any serious attempts to find a solution. In a paper published in Oryx in1976, Seidensticker and colleagues lament the lack of scientific knowledge while they grapple with the relocation of a problem tiger. The ground realities have not changed much since then. A recent book by Sudipt Dutta titled ‘Conservation by murder’ debunks the ‘man-eater’ myth drawing data from a myriad of sources and highlights the need to use a rational and science based approach to conservation.

Unless hard research is used, we will always struggle for answers to such questions. Attempts at research are mostly met with red tape and sheer apathy. Instead of coming together to deal with the crucial conservation issues, we find our bureaucrats and scientists locking horns over tiger numbers. Tiger are caught in a funny battle, with bureaucrats, scientists and conservationists fighting for an exclusive right to be their custodians. The local communities who share the habitat with tigers are often nowhere in this equation. The problems facing Sundarbans are not just conservation problems; it is almost a humanitarian crisis. When the only choice of livelihood takes one straight into the jaws of tigers, I guess the inevitable consequence is a high human toll. Despite that it is surprising to see that the tradition and folklore of Sundarbans weaves a brotherhood between people and tigers, finding common roots in a shared history and use of natural resources. 

Both people and tigers are a victim of an apathy that has plagued and hindered the resolution of some of the most basic and fundamental issues in this landscape, the very issues that concern the life and future of its denizens.

Shouldn’t we take a few leaves from the existing (and free) wisdom and ensure that our science does not fail the tigers, the people and the unique mangrove ecosystem that entwines them all together.

All photographs except the tiger image are by I.P. Bopanna
An edited version of this article appeared in Down to Earth

Shadows in the dusk: an eerie encounter with the mountain ghost

It was freezing cold inside the tent when Takpa opened the outer zipper. As I looked out of the sleeping bag, a blast of cold air hit me and I resolved to huddle back again. Whistling gleefully, he shoved in a mug of steaming black tea and went away. He knew my weakness for tea and knew that I would not deny a cup even at 4:30 AM. Within ten minutes our camp was buzzing with activity and by 5:30 AM two of our teams consisting of three people each were all set to leave after a quick breakfast of unsavory noodles and packed lunch of vegetable sandwich.

Spiti river with its turquoise, crisp water

We had a long day ahead and it made perfect sense to leave early to be able to return back to the camp before nightfall.  Each of the team had to find and deploy camera traps at three to four good locations with a direct distance of at least 6 kilometers between any two. Sushil and Tenzin accompanied me and we had a good head-start. The soft light of the morning sun brought much needed warmth and the marvelous mountain peaks emerged from the shadows, providing a scenic splendor that can only be experienced. Getting up early in the morning had its own little rewards I mused, as nature unfolded one treasure after the other. 

We started encountering snow leopards signs soon as we trudged along on a ridgeline. Full of scats, scrapes and scent marks, it was a good location to deploy a camera trap.

Signature of the ghost: snow leopard pugmark

Signature of the ghost: Snow leopard scat

Next we encountered a large group of about 70 blue sheep out of which we counted 25 yearlings. The pastures here seemed productive and blue sheep were doing well. Another two hours of walk brought us close to a dongri (a temporary summer settlement used for agricultural work) and another nice location to deploy a camera. All of us could smell the snow leopard scent on the rock and a portion had become dark with the consistent marking at the same site. Finally we reached the dongri and met the owner, an old man and a known face. Two years ago, when Sushil and I had lost our way in the mountains and reached this dongri just before dark, this old man had provided us with much needed shelter and food. He instantly recognized us and invited us in. We chatted for about an hour, sipped several cups of tea and ate barley mixed in butter and sugar. I ate the barley reluctantly as I didn’t like the taste very much. The old man quipped that I should be eating better given my age and the chatting continued. I ate a little more and we finally bid farewell and continued on our long journey. Little did I realize that the same barley would be a life saver that day by delaying the pangs of hunger. The third camera location took a long time to find and as we embarked towards the fourth, it was already 3 pm. 

A village in Spiti with Barley fields in the foreground

The base camp was still far away, but given our pace we were confident to make to the nearest village Demul by 8 pm. The camp was another 4-5 kilometers from the village. When we started encountering snow leopard signs again, I was happy that it would not be long before we found a good location. The narrow animal trail on the mountain slope lead to a deep gorge and the frequency of snow leopard signs increased as we moved further down. We could have deployed a camera trap here and moved back to our camp, but the gorge down looked too tempting and Sushil remarked that the gorge must be having some excellent snow leopard habitat. It was difficult to deny that and then the added allure of the possibility of encountering a snow leopard in a gorge was difficult to resist.

Soon we had left the trail aside and were climbing down the steep slopes of the gorge. With scarce foothold, it took much longer than expected, but we still reached the base of the gorge before it was dark. It was full of cliffs and rocky outcrops and our expectations for a great camera location and potentially a sighting were soaring high. However an hour of search proved futile and we could not find any snow leopard signs leave aside a sighting of a snow leopard. Eventually we decided to return back to the trail and place a camera there. It was already dark now and the steep uphill climb with dense thickets of caragyna was difficult to negotiate. Somewhere on the climb, we lost Tenzin and spent another 30 minutes searching for him. I feared for his safety, even though I knew he was an excellent climber and that I had more chances of tripping or slipping amongst our team members. It was a relief when my strained ears picked up the sound of a whistle coming from top. Tenzin had already reached the top and was waiting for us. The steep uphill climb after a day’s trekking took its toll and I was tired to the core.

Fading rays of the sun

Mount chochokanilta (>6000 meters) with its icy peak glistened in the distance even in the dark and its tall slumbering slopes dominated the broad sleeping valley. The stars twinkled brightly against a deep dark sky and occasionally a meteor would illuminate the sky momentarily leaving a blazing trail behind. It seemed as if nature was weaving some magic around, inducing a dream and a deep torpor, lulling me to stop and rest a while. I wanted to stop there and sleep, but we had a long way to go. We stopped by a stream to drink some water and eat what remained of our packed lunch. We had another fairly steep climb ahead. The biscuits and fresh water re-energized us and we started on the remaining part of the day’s journey. It was now pitch dark and with our headlights on, we trudged on at a slow but steady pace. This last part was proving increasingly difficult; the village was still good 2-3 kilometers of steep incline and my legs were refusing to move an inch. 

I stopped for some rest and Sushil and Tenzin joined soon. I stared at the slippery terrain ahead and across the gorge thinking of Takpa’s steaming mug of black tea and the comforts of a sleeping bag. Suddenly two eyes shone in the darkness and Sushil shouted snow leopard. In an instant we were running along the gorge to get a better view. I had forgotten that I was tired as I jumped recklessly from one ledge to the other. The cat hardly moved and we could not approach closer as it was separated from us by a treacherous gorge. In the combined light of three head torches and strained eyes stuck on binoculars, we could barely make out that it was a snow leopard. We spent about an hour watching the shadow and indistinct outline of the cat. I cursed myself for not having a long beam torch.

Future monarch of the mountains: A snow leopard cub

The excitement and adrenaline rush that the sighting provided was enough to push me up the steep incline and to the Demul village. The lights were off in most of the houses and an occasional incandescent lamp went off every now and then, further deepening the darkness around the sleepy village. Stray dogs barked at our unwelcome intrusion, while a lone donkey left out of the corral brayed loudly.

Surprisingly, a door opened in front of us and a generous villager invited us in for some tea and drinks. There was still another 4-5 kilometers to go and I chose the aarak (a local alcohol made from barley) over the bland milk tea. As I took the first sip, Tenzin remarked that the aarak was a bit sweetish and not the usual bitter and acrid. I did not answer as the strong liquor went down my throat leaving a trail of tingling and warm sensation along its path. But did the aarak actually taste sweeter that day? After our hazy encounter with the splendid snow leopard, I bet it did.

This work benefited greatly through support from Snow Leopard Trust, Snow Leopard Network, Whitley Fund for Nature, BBC Wildlife Fund, Panthera, Association of Zoo's and Aquariums and Himachal Pradesh Forest Department.  Their continued support for saving this magnificent cat, its mountain habitat and improving the livelihoods of communities sharing space with snow leopards is greatly appreciated.