Bird-watching - A popular pass time activity

Bird watching is the activity connected with the visual observations of the birds in their natural habitat. To be a birder you need to step out of the house with the interest of watching them in your locality, and then if you’re much interested you need to travel for some distance from home to observe the wild birds and identify them.

Birding which was a hobby for some people earlier is now a popular pass time. This got developed mostly in the 20^th century in developed countries in the west and got spread all over the world by the end of the century. The growth of bird watching as a scientific sport was possible due to the increasing availability of the binoculars. The publication of the high quality field guides and bird clubs made it much easier for a common man to watch the birds and start wondering these beautiful creatures of the planet. The final impetus came with the advent of the internet and easy availability of digital cameras in the 21^st Century. 

Birding usually attracts people from the all age classes. Now days all want to know and study about the birds may it be a student or a business man who wants to capture them in their big lenses in different angles. A study of Socio-psychology in humans concluded that initial motivations for birding were largely similar in males and females, but males who participate actively in birding are more motivated by “sharing knowledge” with others, and active female birders are more motivated by their “intellectual” interest in studying birds, and by the challenge of identifying new and rare birds and improving their skills. A study suggests that males leaned towards competitive birding while females preferred recreational birding. (Source: Sali, M., Kuehn, D., & Zhang, L.(2008). “Motivation for male and female Birdwatchers in New York state”. Human dimensions of wildlife).

History of Bird - watching in India.

The people of the India have lived for several thousand years in close proximity to its rich natural life. Observation of birds in India has a long and ancient history. References to birds can be found as early as 1700-1000 BC from the earliest Hindu religious work, the Rig Veda, refers to about 20 birds, whereas Yajur Veda and subsequent Vedas list up to 250, and include an interesting observation of brood parasitism by Asian Koels . Not only poets described birds in their poems but great rulers too were fascinated by birds. In the 16^th century, the Mughal rulers observed local birds and kept meticulous records. Humayun was said to have stopped a hunt to have a painting made of a bird he had never seen before, while emperor Jehangir’s knowledge of the devotion of Sarus crane to their mates, and the behaviour of brood parasites like the Chataka or Jacobin cuckoo, revealed his fascination for ornithology. In fact he even commissioned several artists like Ustad Mansur and Abu’l-Hasan to portray birds with great accuracy.

The scientific documentation of Indian Birds began after arrival of the Europeans to India. At the start of the 18^th century, as the Mughal Empire declined and the British power grew, there were an increasing number of people who were fascinated by the birdlife. It was around this time that Carl linnaeaus of Swedan started the first proper classification of birds, establishing their scientific study worldwide. The earliest book describing birds in India is attributed to Eleanyar Albin in 1738. In 1830’s during his tenure Sykes published Catalogue of birds and mammals of the Deccan in the proceedings of the Zoological Society in 1832, which listed 56 birds new to science, including the Indian Pond heron. His list of birds of the Deccan included 236 species and in A catalogue of the Birds of the Bombay Deccan, he described several new species, naming many after Hindu deities. There after many legendary works from the prominent birders of the time which include Edward Buckley, McClelland, Franklin and Tickell from their work in Northeast and the Bengal peninsula, and Vidal worked on the birds of the Konkan and Travancore. After 1850, there came the magnificent, six volume Birds of Asia. 

Though the contributions of these stalwarts are considerable, the inception of ornithology in India is credited to Capt. Surgeon Thomas, C.Jerdon, Brian Hodgson and Edward Blyth, collectively called founders of Indian ornithology. The next major ornithological advance came with the arrival of Allan Octavius Hume, who is referred to as the ‘Pope of Indian Ornithology’.

 In 1889, Eugene W. Oates and W.T.Blandford produced the first volume of Fauna of British India. This included detailed observation on regions not covered in earlier works, and were the most significant reference works on Indian Ornithology. Baker’s important works included the eight bird volumes of the second edition of the Fauna of British India published between 1922 and 1931.  The first book, which could be used by birders in the field was Hugh Whistler’s Popular Handbook of Indian birds(1928). 

This was then followed by Dr. Salim Ali’s legendary work The Book of Indian Birds (1941). This book stimulated local interests in bird watching and culminated in the publication of the classic 10 volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (Ali & Ripley, 1964-74) which described 1200 birds from the area. The development of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) in 1833 gave a major boost to the growth of interest in birds. Another well-known birder was Zafar Futehally, who founded and edited the newsletter for Birdwatchers in 1959 which encouraged amateur bird watchers. Recently a field guide to Indian birds, Birds of the Indian subcontinent by Grimmet, Inskipp and Inskipp, by three authors turned many people into birders and made them fall in love with these natures colourful beauties. This gave major ecological base to avian habitat conservation and also about the conservation of the wetlands. 

Future of Bird watching in India.

Future of Bird watching in India.

Bird watching in India has gained a strong growth. With the binoculars at affordable price and the peoples liking in photography has made this grow very widespread. There are number of field guides which are available in almost all languages to make people’s interest grow in birding. Even birdwatching is contributing to the economy of India. Based on assumption there is an estimate which says the income from birding was 113 crores in 2009-2010.

Now a days many birding oriented resorts and eco-camps have come up across the country. There are birding tours been conducted all over India by the experts to sensitize people about the beauty of avian fauna in India. Many researchers like Shashank Dalvi are involved in identifying new species and making Indian avian fauna still richer. With the new citizen science initiative now lot many people are actively involved in gathering the data about the birds, which is helping scientist to determine how birds are affected by habitat loss, pollution, and disease. 

They are also able to trace bird migration and document long-term changes in bird numbers continent wide. The results derived have been used to create management guidelines for birds, investigate the effects of acid rain and climate change, and advocate for the protection of declining species. Hence individual’s participation in gathering data and contributing to science can bring a big change. In future this might also boom up as a tourism industry by contributing huge income, because everyone’s pastime is birding and bird photography. It is all meant for deriving people towards wildlife conservation and awaking people about the climate change and its effects through this. We are fortunate to be blessed to live in the country with great wildlife around and conserving this is a change we have in front of us today.

REFERENCE:

BNHS Archives.

Handbook of the Birds of Indian and Pakistan by Salim ali and S.Dillon ripley.

All India Birding tours.

US Fish and Wildlife services.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. 

    

HUMANS - WILDLIFE: CONFLICT OR COEXISTENCE?

HUMANS - WILDLIFE: CONFLICT OR COEXISTENCE?

We admire Tigers, Leopards, Elephants, Wild boars, Cheetals, Gaurs all this to see them in Wildlife Sanctuaries, National Parks and on the screens of our television sets. But when these beautiful creatures start prowling our villages, cities, school or sometimes offices, they become a menace and a potential threat to humans. Wild animals often stray in villages and farms in and protected areas and sanctuaries, having interactions with humans. And now increasingly we are seeing wild animals wandering into urban areas as happened with leopard in Bangalore, a oldest incident were the wild animal going on a rampage in the city of Mysore a couple of years ago. This kind of incidents ends in conflicts between humans and animals with causalities on both sides.  When we question, why is this interaction happening? Researchers say that, when forested areas which are their prey base- are destroyed and corridors of their free movement are encroached upon for the developmental activities cause conflict. Animals are bound to stray into human territory; they are not consolidated for only National parks or Sanctuaries. This is the very small community occupying a smaller space compared to the 1.31 billion human populations what has occupied for their needs.

Looking to the past, even though man worshipped Tiger, Lion Peacock, in the form of religion and art in his culture, he had a serious competition with wildlife all through this period. Our ancestors being a large sized Omnivore they ate the same as any wild animal did. With much advancement in the lifestyle of man, this gave a serious challenge for survival in the ecosystem. Due to agriculture it made man to modify the large scale of land and exclude the animals which were under conflict with him in his habitat. Due to livestock grazing, created competition between the wild herbivores and domesticated animals for food. Later on with the development of fire arms he played a clear dominance on the wild animals.  We always say that wild animals are dangerous and they habitually kill people, but it is not so they always shun humans and flee from them. Wild animals always stayed in close proximity to the humans and also they are so today the reason is only that they avoided human and by not attacking.

   The conflicts which involve are crop raiding, livestock depredation; predation and killing of people which are always coined as human-wildlife conflict without finding the actual cause for it.  Today you pick up any daily newspaper you will get to see the news highlighted on Human-Animal interaction which always seems to be one sided story. Whereas no one reports poaching or any illegal activities going on, some get highlighted but the majority of it goes unreported and undetected. I wander that if animals had a source for reporting there would be piles of reporting’s from them. Let us see in particular about the interactions caused.

Human-Herbivore interaction:

The common interaction we can find in herbivores is the crop raiding, which has given significant rise to conflict between local communities. This has gained a considerable attention, and the animals involved in this are the Wild boar, Spotted dear, Sambar, Gaur, and Elephants. The issue of human-elephant interactions has become increasingly in the district of Hasan, Uttara Kannada and many other where the human population has been expanded into elephant habitat and also the elephant population is been recovered from the conservation efforts. Since it is the large majestic animal with larger requirements it tries to find the space for itself and comes with serious conflict with people around. But if we compare the economic losses of crop raiding with the losses from pests, diseases and drought it is nothing major. Declaring the animal as vermin and allow mass hunting of these animals is not the solution. 

By mass hunting its range gets collapsed and the animal may go extinct in future. Instead we can practice some traditional methods of mitigation and allow them some space to survive. There are several techniques practiced in many states and are proved to be successful for some extent. 

Human-Carnivore Interaction:

It is commonly said that carnivore are dangerous and they attack on livestock and humans to prey on, which causes a significant economic impact on farmers and mankind. They kill livestock but it is said that they are always scared from the humans and always avoid their presence. As Dr. Ullas Karanth says a” tiger or leopard does not look at a human being and a cow as the same”, we need to understand the ecology and behavior of carnivores. Researchers categorize the attacks of carnivores as provoked attacks and unprovoked attacks. Provoked attacks include when a person enters an animal’s personnel space or purposefully tries to touch, injure or kill the animal and the animal attacks, or the human food or garbage attractants that bought the animal nearby and in return the animal reacts to the presence of the humans. 

Animal may be aggressive particularly due to the presence of offspring which require defending, and obtain food due to hunger, thus becoming less tolerant and more aggressive once food is detected. The unprovoked attacks are the when the animal attacks the person thinking as prey. These attacks are the consequence of diseases, or involve an animal wanting right of way as a form of interference competition between carnivores and people. In such instances, the animal and the person are intent on using the same space and the animal attacks when it is not given the right of way and the person is not able to scare off the attacking animal.

Find the co-existence

Human-Wildlife conflict is a major issue in conservation. As long people encroach into natural habitats, and modify it as they require, the contact between people and wild animals will stay long. We have hardly 4% of the land left for wildlife conservation in the form of protected area or reserves, but animals are present even outside these areas. Co-existence in this environment is a biggest challenge in this developing world with threats of mining, roads, making the land fragmented each day.  People die of with cancer, road accidents; do we shun those things which cause this? No, then why we need to shun the wildlife which cause little harm and provide in numerable benefits to us, can’t we provide some space for them rather than getting into serious conflict with this creatures. We use wildlife for our recreational, ecological and many other needs, but when it comes to providing a space and living with them they are problem for us and want to shun them.

First and the principle threat which needs to be addressed are habitat fragmentation and degradation of forested lands. Secondly, illegal hunting of wild herbivores, which is depleting the herbivore populations and driving carnivore out in search of food. Thirdly to minimize the use of forest for grazing and collection of the forest products, this will facilitate food for wild herbivores. Fourthly in case of leopards, due to large amount of garbage disposal which increases the population of feral animals feeding on it, this attracts it. This must be addressed and effectively managed to avoid interactions further with humans. Fifth is the illegal trade in wildlife which needs to be addressed and abolished from the system which is taking away our wildlife. And lastly people need to recognize the importance of wildlife for the survival in this planet earth which can be achieved with the goodwill of the people.