Nilgiri tahr population in new pockets

K.S. Sudhi, KOCHI,  
The Hindu, September 4, 2015

Nilgiri tahr populations have been recorded from 17 hitherto unrecorded pockets across Kerala and Tamil Nadu, according to a non-governmental organisation. This is the only species of mountain ungulates that exists in southern India.

It was during a four-year-long survey, organised by the WWF and forest officials, that its presence in new and small pockets was identified. The mountain goats, endemic to the Western Ghats regions of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, numbering 131 individuals, were counted, according to the WWF.

In Kerala, the populations were confirmed at nine locations, including Pathrakadavu, Atumudi, Koomban, Madumudi, and Chokramudi. The eight locations in Tamil Nadu included Nagamalai, Marakkal Malai, and Vasakku Malai.

The total population of the species in the region was estimated at 3,122. The single largest population of the species is in the Eravikulam National Park in Kerala. Though many unknown populations were believed to exist in small pockets throughout its range, they had not been surveyed due to the rugged and inaccessible terrain. Inclement weather also limited the understanding of the status and the distribution of the tahr across its range, according to the report.

The population status and distribution of the tahr across its entire distribution range were observed for four years from 2008The population of the species is believed to be declining due to “uncontrolled hunting, conflict with livestock grazing, and habitat loss,” according to the report, which will be released shortly.

The field surveys were carried out by Paul Peter Predit and Varun Prasath.

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ESA demarcation: State to bank on population density argument

T. Nandakumar, Thiruvananthapuram,  
The Hindu, September 3, 2015
he State government went into a huddle on Wednesday following the clarifications sought by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) on the demarcation of ESAs (Ecologically Sensitive Areas) in Kerala.

Ministers and senior officials participated in a series of meetings convened through the day to prepare the State’s response to the letter from the MoEFCC Secretary to the Chief Secretary, seeking details of Kerala’s shapefile (a GIS data format), explanation on management of fragmented ESAs, and geographic coordinates of the ESA boundaries.

Officials said a note providing the details sought by the Ministry had been prepared and submitted to the Principal Secretary, Environment, by evening.

Sources said Kerala had sought to project the high population density in the State to justify the exclusion of human settlements and plantations from the ESAs and the fragmentation of ESAs.

According to the data provided in the note, Kerala had a much higher population density than the five other States bordering the Western Ghats. While the average village level population in Gujarat is 3,265, it is 2,557 in Maharashtra, 3,683 in Goa, 2,068 in Karnataka, and 4,402 in Tamil Nadu, while in Kerala, the figure is as high as 20,052.

The figures are a clear indication of the critical importance of people’s participation in conservation programmes in Kerala, says an official.

Pointing out that Kerala has a forest cover of 29.1 per cent, higher than India’s forest cover of 21.5 per cent, the official said any effort to increase the green cover would be totally dependent on community involvement.

Sources said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was scheduled to hand over the State’s response to Union Minister for Environment and Forests Prakash Javadekar in New Delhi on September 4. Mr. Chandy will be accompanied by Environment Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Principal Secretary, Environment, Mara Pandian and chairman of Kerala State Biodiversity Board Oommen V. Oommen.

The final notification on the recommendations of the Kasturirangan committee for protection of the Western Ghats is expected to be issued on September 9.

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New hope for Wayanad’s vultures

E.M. Manoj, Kalpetta
The Hindu, September 1, 2015

Wayanad’s majestic vultures may yet live on. Vulture conservationists in the State are upbeat over the curbs on Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug acknowledged to have caused the decimation of vultures in the Indian subcontinent. It had cast its pall over Wayanad too.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had recently restricted human formulations of injectable Diclofenac to single, 3 ml dose packs. The larger multi-dose vials that used to deluge the market have been the main source of Diclofenac for veterinary use, being more convenient for illegally treating cattle, which requires much larger doses than humans, than using several small vials. So the government restriction is now hoped to reduce the misuse of Diclofenac, says C. Sasikumar, ornithologist and vulture conservationist working in the Western Ghats.

Diclofenac for veterinary use was banned in the country in 2006, but was available in 30ml vial even as late as last year in areas adjacent to the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, says C.K. Vishnudas, a field ornithologist who conducted a study on the impact of post-ban availability of the drug recently, as part of a vulture conservation programme in South India. As many as 35 White-rumped vultures, five Red-headed vultures and two Indian vultures were sighted during a recent survey in the sanctuary.

The Wayanad sanctuary is the only region where vultures thrive in the State. The breeding population of White-rumped vultures, Red-headed vultures, and Indian vultures in the sanctuary depends entirely on wild carcasses for food. The availability of Diclofenac in the vicinity had posed a serious threat to the surviving vulture population, he adds. There is a large cattle population in the tribal settlements near the sanctuary.

“The pharmacies in the area should be monitored strictly to ensure that they are not selling higher volumes of Diclofenac. The carcasses of cattle in the habitats must also be watched regularly to identify the level of Diclofenac residue in them,’’ Mr. Sasikumar added.

As the three species of South Asian vultures have declined nearly 97 per cent in the country, the restrictions on Diclofenac will have far reaching effects, says Mr. Chris Bowden, programme officer, SAVE, a global platform for Saving Asia's Vultures from Extinction.

A White-rumped vulture sighted inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary.

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Wetland authority set to begin functioning next month

K.S. Sudhi, KOCHI,  
The Hindu, August 25, 2015

The State Wetland Authority, Kerala, (SWAK), which will decide on the conservation and management of over 1,300 wetlands of the State, will get its act together next month.

Though the State government had issued an order constituting SWAK in June, the Memorandum of Association (MoA) were not finalised and expert members were not appointed. It is after a long delay that the State has come forward for forming the authority. At present, there is no exclusive system for the conservation, management, and protection of wetlands in the State.

Ponds, lakes, rivers, and other water bodies will come within the ambit of the authority.

Going by the government order, the Minister for Environment will be the chairman of the authority and the Principal Secretary (Environment) will be its convener. The 11-member panel will have four expert members, including an expert in limnology, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecology. The authority has been formed as instructed by the Central legislation concerned. P. Mara Pandyan, Principal Secretary (Environment), said the draft MoA had been prepared. The document would be finalised by September-end. The expert committee members, mostly scientists, will be picked up shortly.

Ashker Khader, a lawyer specialising in environmental issues, said that SWAK would end up as another wasteful expenditure unless it was given statutory powers to initiate action against violation of rules under the Environment Protection Act. The Central Wetland Management Rules prescribe formation of a State nodal agency such as the Central Wetland Authority for regulation and enforcement of rules. However, in the case of the SWAK, it was registered as a government-owned society under the Travancore-Cochin Literary, Scientific, and Charitable Societies Act, he said.

However, Mr. Mara Pandyan said the authority, which has statutory powers, could act effectively on the conservation and management of wetlands. It would have a decisive say in checking unauthorised reclamation and pollution of wetlands. It would chart out programmes for the protection of wetlands, he said.

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Taxonomists reclassify Indian bird species

K. S. Sudhi, Kochi
The Hindu, August 23, 2015

The majestic Asian Paradise Flycatcher found in many parts of the country is becoming more Indian these days.

The bird, which is present in South Asian countries — Afghanistan to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka — will henceforth be known as Indian Paradise Flycatcher, following a new taxonomic assessment.

Though the common name of the species has been modified, it will retain its scientific name Terpsiphone paradisi and remain the parent species.

Bird taxonomists have separated the subspecies found in the Nicobars.

The new subspecies has been rechristened as Blyth’s Paradise Flycatcher and assigned a new scientific name Terpsiphone affinis nicobarica.

Besides the Indian Paradise Flycatcher, a few more bird species found in India and other parts of the world have been renamed this month as part of an annual exercise.

The renaming of birds and associated “changes are inevitable as new techniques and better understanding of taxonomy cause a rearrangement — even in a relatively well-studied group of creatures like birds,” according to eBird India, a online platform of ornithologists and birders.

Each year, the bird taxonomists release the updated list in August and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has taken up the responsibility of “maintaining the ever-changing list of species, subspecies, English names, and approximate distributions,” it has been pointed out.

Molecular taxonomy is the tool for identifying species. If two individuals of a species show genetic differences or exhibit genetic distances in its DNA analysis, such individuals can be considered as belonging to two different species. This is the case with the Purple Swamphen and other species which have been reclassified. The erstwhile Purple Swamphen has been split into six species in the process, explained an ornithologist.

The Purple Swamphen found in India has been reclassified as Grey-headed Swamphen and it will carry the scientific name Porhyrio poliocephalus. The literal meaning of poliocephalus is grey-headed. Interestingly, the Purple Swamphen was renamed so a few years ago. Originally, it was called Purple Moorhen.

Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) has now got a new species. The buzzard, found in the Himalayas, will from now be known as Buteo buteo burmanicus.

Taxonomists have split the Scaly Thrush into four species. “Two of the new species are found in India, the Nilgiri Thrush (Zoothera neilgherriensis) of the Western Ghats and the Scaly Thrush (Zoothera dauma) of central, northern and north-eastern India. A close neighbour is the Sri Lanka Thrush (Zoothera imbricata), which is endemic to Sri Lanka,” according to the website.

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State sabotaging Western Ghats protection: greens

The Hindu, August 18, 2015 
PATHANAMTHITTA,

People as well as elected governments are bound to ensure the protection of Western Ghats for the existence of life, Kerala River Protection Council (KRPC) president V.N. Gopinatha Pillai and secretary S. Seetharaman have said.

In a joint statement issued here on Monday, Mr. Pillai and Dr. Seetharaman accused the State government of making anti-environment decisions in the name of development, eyeing certain vote banks.

They alleged that the government was sabotaging the protection of the Western Ghats, disregarding its environmental importance.

Rich in biodiversity

The Western Ghats was the origin of many river systems and the abode of a rich biodiversity and eco-system.

Corporate companies were plundering the natural resources, biodiversity, and drinking water with the backing of the government, they alleged.

‘Comply with rules’

It was of prime importance to strictly comply with the Western Ghats protection, Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act-2008, coastal land conservation, they said.

The council leaders further called upon the government to withdraw the bill of 2015 that justified paddy land conversions.

‘Take over quarries’

The government should take over all granite quarries and adopt a ‘tree policy’ to protect the trees standing on the wayside from indiscriminate felling.

The council would stage a dharna in front of the Secretariat to press its various demands on Wednesday.

Poet to inaugurate

Social activist and poet Sugathakumari will inaugurate the dharna at 11 a.m.

Environmentalists R.V.G. Menon, V.S. Vijayan, C.R. Neelakantan, John Peruvanthanam, Usha S., R. Sreedhar, Geetha Nazeer, Sobheendran, S. Ramachandran, and Jayakumar will address the dharna.

T.N. Prathapan, MLA, will also be present.

 

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New species of scorpion identified

Jabir Mushthari, Kozhikode
The Hindu, August 18, 2015  

A new species of scorpion has been identified from the surrounding areas of Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the Western Ghats in Idukki district, by a group of scientists, including from the Western Ghat Regional Centre (Kozhikode) of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). The new species has been named Buthoscorpio chinnarensis, and the finding has been published in the August issue of Taprobanica, a science journal published by the University of Indonesia.

The species, mostly found in the Chunalippetty forest area neighbouring the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, are black in colour and have a length of 3 to 4 cm. They are hard to recognise since they keep their fat tail folded back to their abdomen and appear like a breed of beetle, said a description of the genus by the scientists

Detailed examination of the specimens indicated that they showed close affinity with the Indian species Buthoscorpio politus, but also showed distinct characters that clearly suggested a new species, they said.

Scorpions in the Buthoscorpio genus are found very rarely in India.

They have been spotted earlier in parts of Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

It’s a major discovery after a team of scientists from the ZSI’s Kozhikode and Pune centres identified a rare species of scorpion, Rugosentus, from the Malayattur forests in the State in 2005, said P.M. Sureshan, senior scientist of the ZSI Kozhikode Centre, one of the scientists in the team.

There are around 2,000 known species of scorpions in the world, of which 113 are from India. In Kerala, they are limited to 22 species. “Most of the scorpions seen in India are venomous; however, they are not venomous enough to put the lives of humans in danger,” said Dr. Sureshan. According to him, the scorpions, which feed on different pests and small creatures in the soil, do no harm to human beings. “However, uncontrolled construction activities, deforestation and environment pollution threaten their existence,” he said. K. Aswathi, a research scholar at the Kozhikode centre of the ZSI and Wilson R. Lourenco of the Natural History Society Museum, Paris, are the other members of the team.

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