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