Though not always granted their due by the high priests lording over forest and wildlife departments of the states, Class 4 employees in the guise of the humble guard, boatman and driver render sterling contributions at the cutting-edge of wildlife conservation and field observation.
For instance, the veteran boatmen who steer the perilous stretches of the Sutlej/Beas upstream from Harike headworks have evolved into standard reference guides on migratory birds and the wetland’s ins and outs.
Vijay Kumar, a boatman at the Pong Dam (HP), has gone a step further in his sheer zest for birds. Since 2015, Kumar has been recording sightings of bar-headed geese tagged with neck collars for the purpose of migration research. Bereft of a camera, Kumar used binoculars to sight tagged geese in remote areas and entered dates and tag numbers in his personal diary. Unfortunately, his contribution languished in his fraying diary all these years. However, of late, sightings by Kumar and by others of tagged birds are being systematically entered to fill gaps in official data maintained at Pong’s bird-ringing station.
“Ground-level staff are also vital for ecotourism as they know each nook and cranny of a complex wilderness. I remember a guard, whom the BNHS trained at Solapur, Maharashtra, and he maintained a register for 20 years of the arrivals and departure of the critically-endangered Great Indian bustard. Unfortunately, his valuable register was somehow ‘lost’ by the department. A driver of officers’ vehicles at Dudhwa National park had an incredible eye for photography. We got Sanctuary-Asia to bestow an award on the driver for his unique photographs. Departments need to encourage such outstanding contributions beyond the call of duty by granting out-of-turn promotions,” Dr Asad Rahmani, former BNHS Director and ex-member, National Board for Wildlife, told this writer.
{{/usCountry}}“Ground-level staff are also vital for ecotourism as they know each nook and cranny of a complex wilderness. I remember a guard, whom the BNHS trained at Solapur, Maharashtra, and he maintained a register for 20 years of the arrivals and departure of the critically-endangered Great Indian bustard. Unfortunately, his valuable register was somehow ‘lost’ by the department. A driver of officers’ vehicles at Dudhwa National park had an incredible eye for photography. We got Sanctuary-Asia to bestow an award on the driver for his unique photographs. Departments need to encourage such outstanding contributions beyond the call of duty by granting out-of-turn promotions,” Dr Asad Rahmani, former BNHS Director and ex-member, National Board for Wildlife, told this writer.
{{/usCountry}}Hisses of a golden heart
Their whitish faces and underbelly feathers as they fly overhead on a moonlit night, coupled with the rasping, screeching and serpent-like hisses emitted by these nocturnal hunters, have led to barn owls being branded as an evil omen in varied cultures.These quaint, heart-faced owls were labelled as ‘demon owls’, ‘death owls’, ‘ghost owls’ and ‘corpse owls and killed wantonly. But the fact is, this species is peerless as a destroyer of rodents that multiply around homes due to fermenting mounds of waste and faulty disposal practices. The owl is comfortable with intense human presence and adapts well to urbanisation.
Some householders can’t get themselves to kill a trapped rodent and they quietly free the nuisance away from their homes and along roadsides, unfettered by the thought that the pesky fellow could infiltrate elsewhere and trouble someone else! But a family of owls – understood rationally for their sterling role in nature’s food chain and tolerated in the neighbourhood – offer a viable solution. Owls would deliver the coup de grace naturally and free the householder of the conscience pricking ‘’paaps of killing a chuha, kyon ke hai to veh ek jeev hi’.
The most widely distributed of the owl species across the globe, the Barn owl is consciously promoted to breed and develop colonies via provision of nest boxes in vineyards, orchards and farms in the US, Israel, Malaysia, south east Asia and Australia. A research study conducted at a Californian vineyard concluded that a promoted colony of 102 owls consumed 30,000 rodents over three years! There are no costs of maintenance of such owl colonies and they are far less expensive than a resort to trapping, poisons and other invasive methods. Where chemicals are used to control rodents, these leach into the environment and the water table rendering great harm to humans and biodiversity. Naturally effective owl colonies also help in plague control as a side benefit.
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