Dudhwa National Park

                                                            The Sal Trees

During the last six years I have been to many national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the northern and central India. Some, like Bandhavgarh and Tadoba , are my favorites where I go every year for wildlife photography .Dudhwa is  another one which got  added to my  favorite list  not because it is endowed, like all others,  with a variety of  wildlife but  because of its amazing natural beauty. Dudhwa is  one of the most beautiful wilderness I have come across so far. . This magnificent and divinely  beautiful forest  mesmerizes me. Its  spell is so strong that I can't resist  visiting Dudhwa again and again.

Dudhwa is located in the district of Lakhimpur-Kheri of Uttar-Pradesh in India and close to Indo-Nepalese border which is about thirty kilometers away at Gauriphanta. Lucknow is the nearest airport and the road distance from there should be around 240 kilometers. The total area of DNP, together with Kishenpur and Katarnia-Ghat Wildlife Sanctuaries , which form part of it , is about 680 square kilometers . River Suheli flows through  Dudhwa and is home of some real huge crocodiles.

                                                          River Suheli

                                                  Crocodiles of River Suheli   
The majestic tall and green Sal trees ( Shorea Robusta ) adorn the entire Dudhwa forest range. Together  with its acres and acres of expansive meadows , glades and tals ( ponds ) Dudhwa presents such a marvelous synthesis of  an ecological  system which is seen to be believed. Come to Banke Tal of  DNP if you want to see the Blue - Necked Crane catching a  heavy Mangur ( a fish species ) or a colony of Otters foraging waters in the company of Crocodiles.

                                                        A Big Catch

Dudhwa is home to a variety of wildlife. It houses about one hundred Royal Bengal Tigers, Leopards , many species of  Deer including the highly endangered Swamp Deer , Antelopes ,Sloth Bear, Wild Boar and Jackal . It is at Dudhawa where, beside Manas and Kaziranga ,  you find the most endangered  One-horned Indian Rhinoceros . Some were brought here in 1984 from Assam and now their numbers have gone up to
thirty - four ; a proof that relocation and conservation is very much possible and must be resorted  in order to save  endangered species of wild life . The success of Rhinoceros rehabilitation program also speaks the good work being done by the park officials.

                                                   Swamp deer at Kishenpur

Dudhwa has a sizable population of wild elephants. Many come from the Bardia National Park of Nepal which is connected with Dudhwa. Herds of wild elephants  can be seen in the  meadows . I had a chance of witnessing a rogue male being chased away by the forest personnel . I happened to be driving towards Salukapur when came the loud calls and shouts of something being chased away. All of a sudden there appeared  an elephant, in front of the jeep , at  a distance of about 100 feet . My driver was terrified . He slammed on the brakes and , hurriedly , put the vehicle in reverse. Since it was an excellent photo opportunity, I told him not to get flustered and to stop and stay on the pathway  after reversing. We had kept the engine running to make a quick escape  in case the rogue turns to us and decides to charge. Fortunately  the elephant ran straight and entered into forest in  front of him.

Dudhwa is great for birding. As a matter of fact it won't be an exaggeration if I call Dudhwa a birders paradise.
Apart from about 450 species of resident birds,  thousands of migratory birds flock Dudhwa between October - February every year. It is home to the near extinct Bengal Florican also. The White-rumped Shama , better known as  the singing Shama, many species of Green Bee Eaters , Crested Serpent Eagles, Rose ringed and Plum- headed Parakeets and  the little jungle owlet can be seen here.Multi - colored Giant Wood Spiders are another attraction.

                                                        Green Bee Eater

                                                       Crested Serpent Eagle

                                                    Jungle Owlet

                                                      Coot at Jhadi Tal

However , despite of all these pluses, Dudhwa remains relatively an unknown and a less visited place by the tourists and wildlife aficionados. Perhaps the successive Uttar Pradesh Governments and the Forest Department didn't care to popularize it. Similarly more tourist facilities need to be created. Though the Forest Department has constructed about fourteen Tharu Huts recently but their upkeep needs  lots of improvement. These huts display the  typical government attitude and style of functioning  which believes more at creating   but less at cleanliness, upkeep and maintenance.  Similarly the booking system is horribly outdated and unprofessional in this age of internet and e- commerce.
Dudhwa has many unanswered conservation issues also. For example it still doesn't have the Special Tiger Protection Force . Incidentally the Indo-Nepal border or the Terai area is notorious for poaching and cross border smuggling of wildlife body parts. Similarly the Kishenpur sanctuary is  badly encroached. It houses a big village also inside. The Government, which cares more for votes than saving forests from human encroachment , has granted the status of Ambedkar  Village to the offending villages thus pardoning and condoning the encroachment. Under the circumstances I doubt if Kishenpur survives for another two decades.

                                              Sunset at Kishenpur Sanctuary

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Tiger,Tiger

I am faced with many questions and inquiries after the recent release of my book "The Tigress of Achanakmar and Other Jungle Tales". Someone has asked me about the future of tiger in India. Will it survive ultimately or become a Dodo in  future? There is another gentleman who wants to know my views about the commitment of the new Indian Government to Tiger conservation and whether the new P.M. Mr. Modi is a wild life aficionado or not?
Well, I find these questions tough for me. I can not say anything about new Government's commitment to tiger conservation.No official statement about it has come so far. I only hope that the new Government will maintain a pragmatic balance while speeding up environment clearances to industries and ensure that tiger habitats do not shrink or converted to mines and poachers are dealt with severely. Also I will not hazard any guess on Mr. Modi's love for wild life. Admitted that the tiger is facing tough times in India but being an optimist, I feel that it will survive in the long run.
Some suggestions have come in too. There are suggestions that I should write a book on tiger and it should have good photographs.Well its early to say anything about it today. But I am not rejecting the idea also. Given time I may do it.In the meanwhile, for tiger lovers and enthusiast,I am going to create a group on my FB page< Jai Mohan> named "Tiger Trails". The Tiger Trails group will exchange photographs, member's experiences of their tiger safaris, trip reports or just anything relevant to tiger. All interested are invited to join, contribute and enjoy. It will be a good initiative towards tiger conservation also.

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How to Get Published in India:Experiences of a First Time Author.

I write this when my book,"The Tigress of Achanakmar and other Jungle Tales", is due for release sometime this month. The book is about true real life incidents of man-wildlife encounters.The publisher is a traditional one. Though not a big name, he is business like and welcomes newcomers, on merits, to the world of publishing which,in India and in my experience, is dotted with three varieties namely, the genuine, the arrogant and lastly the devious. I have had the experience of dealing with all of them and that is what I am here to share you with.

The first category, the genuine,are the real professional ones. They reply to you promptly informing about their decision on your manuscript. They do not require any reminder or follow up from you.

The second category, the arrogant, are real arrogant in true sense. They inform you beforehand that in order to publish with them, you need to be a celebrity or to have a past record of publications from so and so elite publication houses. They make you realize that, in absence of their set qualifiers,you matter a little to them and hence can't be permitted to waste their time. They are the high flyers of the trade with a hot head and a matching language.

It is the third category, the devious,which are the most interesting. They wear a double cloak, of a traditional publisher as well as that of a vanity one. In order to sound  genuine, they send you a preliminary letter of intent sometimes after  MS submission. You are very happy but not for long as they tell you that they are deluged  with manuscripts and if the choice is made for the  traditional one, the waiting period may stretch to infinity. However to expedite the book, you may partner with them by sharing the production and marketing costs. You fall for the bait if you are desperate after successive rejections and eager to see your maiden book soon in the market.

Vanity and "print on demand" publishing in India are advertised a lot now days. But it is full of unscrupulous players who make a fast buck on authors cost. They sell multi tier plans with promise to make your book a real success.Do not ever fall to these kind of promise.Your book may not see the market at all and your happiness may be confined to the few complimentary copies which you may receive from them.
After many rejections I also tried a vanity publisher which happens to be a wing of a very reputed publishing house. But soon I realized that they are most unscrupulous and their practices blatantly unfair bordering to cheating.

My advice to new authors is not to get dejected by rejections and keep approaching as many publishers as one can. It is time taking but the good ones exist and you may find one.
Best of Luck.

Imperatives for Tiger Conservation in India

There was a time when India had lost nearly all of its tiger population which stood at about forty thosand heads at the beginning of the19th century. The Royalty , both British and local , and the British Army officers in India had made tiger hunting  their favorite pastime. They hunted this magnificent animal with such a wild passion that it reached to the brinks of near extinction. Awareness came in 1973 , when under the leadership of late Prime Minister Mrs . Indira Gandhi "Project Tiger" was launched by the Government of India , to ensure a viable tiger population in the country in its natural habitat and protect the animal from extinction. Since then the Project Tiger and conservation activities have made a notable progress. The Central Government formed apex body - the National Tiger Conservation Authority now looks after the entire management of tiger conservation efforts in the country. India has fifty five tiger reserves now and some more are under consideration. Tiger reserves like Tadoba Andhari , Bandhavgarh , Dudhwa and Corbett can be cited as shining examples of the success story and models of best conservation practices. The tiger population is also on the increase. A total of 1706 tigers are said to be in Indian jungles as per 2011 tiger census report. The latest tiger census is going on presently and we will have to wait for sometime for the new tiger population figures. There is increasing public awareness also. The Global Tiger Day is celebrated in the country every July with lot of fanfare . Many NGO's , film stars and media houses have committed their support to the cause of tiger conservation . This all is very heart warming . But there are serious challenges too to be met otherwise the tiger may face a near extinction situation again in about two decades from now.

Areas of Concern : I think there are two most crucial ares which need serious thought and urgent action if we want tiger to prosper in India. The first is the preservation of tiger habitat from shrinkage and fragmentation . The sad news is that the tiger habitat is shrinking very fast and forest corridors facilitating tiger transit and movement are vanishing . As per Wildlife Institution of India report country's tiger habitat lost twelve thousand kilometers in four years between 2006 to 2010. It shrunk to 82000 sq.kilometers from 94000 sq.kilometers. Wild life experts say that a mature tiger needs about fifty square kilometers of contiguous area for movement . If so then the current available area seems to to be just enough for the present tiger population.

This habitat loss has many dangerous implications . It means less living space for the tiger population  which is recovering gradually , overcrowding , more territorial fights and resulting deaths , increased man-animal conflict , shrinkage of natural prey base forcing tigers wander out in buffer areas and human habitations and then falling prey to poacher's snare , poison or bullet.

As if this was not enough , India is set to lose a further of ten thousand square kilometers of tiger habitat in next ten years in Central India where pressure to release prime forest land to coal mining is gaining momentum. Its coal versus tiger situation. Let's see who wins the tussle.

The second crucial area of concern is poaching which unfortunately continues unabated. And unless poaching is contained effectively , tiger has a bleak future in India notwithstanding all current efforts at its conservation.

Tiger mortality due to poaching is very high. In 2012 seventy two tiger deaths were reported by the National Tiger Conservation Authority. The majority of deaths were due to poaching and less by natural cause or forced elimination by the forest department. The 2013 data is still more alarming. The NTCA report says that India lost sixty three tigers in 2013. Forty eight or seventy six percent of them were poached.

The tentacles of poaching are very widely spread in the Central and Noth India which include the states of M.P. , Rajastahn , Uttar Pradesh and Uttrakhand. Last year a poacher was arrested near Nagpur who admitted having poached nine tigers from M P and Maharashtra forests. Upon identifiaction of tiger skins revoceved from his possession it was revealed that he had  paoched one  from Pench Tiger Reserve also. Fifty Two leopards were paoched in Uttrakhand alone in the year 2012.

The poaching net work in India is run and controlled by the international poaching syndicates with the help of local associates and operators who are mostly nomads (Baheliya or Kanjar communities ). The men folk of these tribes are traditional hunters expert in the art of tracking and trapping. They peg their camps at secluded places and reconnoiter area carefully locating pug marks and then set up snares ( spring shut metal clamp traps called Khatka   locally ) or place poison laced carcass . The money they get is good. I was told that a poacher gets around six-seven lakhs for a tiger which includes full skin , bones and nails. This commodity is then smuggled to Tibet via Laddakh or to Myanmar via Kolkata for bigger profits.

I strongly feel that an all out war need to be waged to contain the menace of poaching . A multipronged strategy begining with legislative changes , an amendment in the Wild Life Protection Act 1972 to make it real deterrent to wild life crimes, is required. It is suggested that tiger poaching , trading and possession of tiger body parts and all repeated wid life offenses must be made non-bailable and invite mandatorty sentence of life impriosonment. Similarly wild life offense cases must be disposed off with in a given time frame. There are many such cases pending in the courts for the last two-three decades.

Certain other measures are required at the State and local reserve levels. The vacant posts of Forest Guards must be filled immediately and their service conditions must be improved. They are the cadre who protect wild life by risking their lives. They must be given weapons, SLR's , to match the poachers. Regular patrolling around buffer areas and a strong intelligence network at the local level needs to be established so that any ouside or suspetecd movement could be reported to forest authorities. Poaching must be made a very difficult activity to pursue.

One may differ with me. But I am sounding the warning bell . Time to save the tiger is running out fast . So let's act while there is still some to preserve tiger habitat and contain poaching  otherwise it will be too late.

                                                                          

J R Mohan.

Meeting the Tigress P-2 of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve

The tigress P-2 or the "Pandharpavni", as called popularly, is the most photographed celebrity feline of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve these days. She is the progeny of famous Pandharpavni tigress which died of a suspected snake bite in October 2012. The Pandharpavni area in the TATR is famous for its pond and the adjacent some thirty five acres of open grassland which offers many opportunities to shutterbugs for photographing beautiful wild life and avian, especially the Green Bee Eaters (Merops Orientalis) which abound in this area.
I was lucky to spot the P-2 on fifth December 2013 early morning. At Jamni road quadrangle my guide spotted fresh pug marks of a female tiger . The pug mark pattern revealed tigress's movement towards Jamun Bodi road. We also followed the  route and saw some jeeps standstill on the road at about hundred meters from us. Anticipating some action we sped to find four jeeps stopped in the road their engines shut off. A tourist, in the jeep in front of us, pointed to the left and there I saw the P-2 walking leisurely in the fire line parallel to the jeeps standing  in the road. After a minute or so she turned to the right stepping on the main road and started walking ahead in front of the first jeep.

 

She continued her walk for about two -three minutes casting some occasional glances to her left and right and then veered to left in a grass land patch which merged with bushes some five hundred meters ahead. There she stopped for a while looking back as if saying - Oh you tourists . Why are you pursuing me? Why don't you leave me alone?

By this time the P-2 was hungry perhaps. Camouflaged in the tall dry grass she started stalking her prey.

 There was lot of excitement in the air. We all waited for the next. The tigress didn't disappoint us. All of a     sudden we heard a "Whoosh", the sharp rustling sound made by the charging rush of the tigress in the tall dry grass, and then the cry of a fawn . It was the death cry and most pathetic. The P-2 had made a kill.

The tourists in the jeeps, about ten vehicles by this time, kept waiting there on the road for quite some time hoping that the tigress may emerge from the grass cover with her kill. But that didn't happen. Then the jeeps made a bee line for the Panchdhara area anticipating to find the tigress somewhere there around the stream for a drink after having finished her breakfast, but the tigress didn't oblige. We also waited there up to 9.30 a.m . and then moved towards Tadoba Lake.

I was lucky again to meet the P-2 next day, the sixth of December 2013, also. I was on the last leg of my afternoon safari near Tadoba lake when the guide suggested a drive on Tadoba- Pandharpavni road. We hardly had driven about three hundred yards when we saw the P-2 on our right side walking in the fire line area.

From the fire line she entered the wooded area helping her with mouthful of grass shoots to keep her digestion in order.

 By this time  jungle sentries, the Langurs, had seen her movement . They let out an  alarm call and soon the Spotted Deers also joined them . For a moment the P-2 also looked to the direction of incoming alarm calls and then with out showing any interest moved deep in the jungle.

                                                                            

The P-2 is a magnificent creature.Watching her for two days was a sheer joy.

PS: You can get my book "The Vanishing Stripes"now at a very attractive discounted price from Gumroad.com.

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The Joy of being a Nature and Wildlife Photographer

Yes . I do nature and wildlife photography. And this surprises many. They wonder why did I chose this when many other, profitable and money making , photography genres were available. Didn't I know that in this age of digital photography my chosen line is the most common and full of nature and wildlife photographers.

Well , I tend to agree with them but not fully. I concede that nature and wildlife photography is hardly remunerative. I haven't sold any picture as yet and know that others like wedding , product or fashion photography more lucrative. Above all , at times , I feel as if  there were some animus prevailing towards this branch of photography , a subtle effort to discourage it .Don't believe me . O.K. try entering Dudhwa or TATR with right type of  photography equipment.You will be charged a hefty amount as fee if you happen to carry a DSLR or a zoom or telelens of 250 mm and above.

I tell my critics that I do nature and wildlife photography simply for the joy of it and not for money. And the abundance of same genre photographers  in the line doesn't bother me. After all isn't this earth overpopulated and teeming with humans ? Million and millions of them. So does that mean that I should cease to exist !
I also tell my critics that perhaps they do not understand the challenges and demands of my genre of photography. Dear critics it is the only genre where the subject doesn't go to studio nor can be asked for a pose. More often than not the subject is not a city dweller but of a desolate jungle , some inhospitable desert,  mountain or sea. The photographer has to approach and wait for his subject for hours and days. That means  lot of patience and capacity to cope with inconveniences of all sorts and risks. Also in this genre the photographer doesn't control the elements. The light may be good or may not be good. But the photographer can not complain of it and is supposed to click that prized shot or the deciding moment irrespective. That requires perseverance plus a bit of luck too.
Two years back , while on a safari in the Bandhavgarh National Park , I saw a Crested Serpent Eagle crash diving in the rivulet side thicket and then come up with a four-five long snake gripped in its talons. The snake was alive and writhing , trying to free itself from the death grip. What an excellent photo opportunity that was ! I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time. Excitedly I urged my driver to speed up a bit. And as luck would have it , the eagle , after a short flight , perched with the prey now in its sharp curved beak , on a Mahuwa tree (Bassia Latifola ) branch facing my direction. The light was just right , the sun behind me. Photographing it was a real joy.

I also feel that the true joys of nature and wildlife photography sometimes lie in the unexpected. Last December at TATR , on a cloudy afternoon , my guide spotted a Leopard in the bushes which was sitting looking sideways some two hundred meters from the jungle road . I had some difficulty initially in spotting the leoaprd in the poor light as its skin camouflaged perfectly with the yellowing dull grass . But I could spot it after a while and hurridly focused my cmarea to get the shot. I pressed the shutter and lo ! The leopard got up and disappered in the jungle.
I wasn't very sure  about the shot . I feared that I had missed it . But no . I had succeeded in capturing the image of that illusive fine muscular beast.

I am sure my community of photographers feels and derives pleasure in pursuing nature and wild life photography as I do . It may be non glamorous , pinching on pocket and non remunerative. But it is enormously joyous and satisfying . It is a unique passion. Who can deny.

J R Mohan.
😊

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