Down in Jungleland: How to lose a sanctuary

We were lucky: at first, we saw a single bird, striding over the tussocky terrain on muscular legs, a superbly supercilious expression on its face. It was rather like a miniature ostrich, minus the flouncy plumes and pansy sashaying, more like a marathon power walker. It strode away, and then did a running take-off with mighty steady wing beats. In the following two days, we saw several more in groups of two or three.

That was the last time I set eyes on the bird, and, probably, the last time I ever will. A few years later, the bustard vanished for good from Karera, and some years after that, the sanctuary itself was denotified. The logic was implacable: the sanctuary had been declared because of the bustard; once the bustard disappeared, there was no reason for it to remain a sanctuary. Of course, no one was really bothered as to why this had happened and whether it could have been prevented (it could) and whether it would have been worth a shot restocking the sanctuary with the bird. The black buck is also equally protected, but well, who cared what happened to it? It got what was coming for eating up all the dal and gram in the fields.

The great Indian bustard, like others of its kind, likes undisturbed habitat, especially for breeding and when you’re cheek by jowl with 36,000 head of clumsy livestock and their herders – that is hard to find. Though it was once in the running for the title of the national bird (fear of a disastrous typo in official documents did it in), dressed in its homespun brown, black and white livery, it never had the dazzling glamour of the victor, the peacock. So, few seem to be even aware of it (except hunters and poachers) and fewer cared.

What’s dangerous here is the logic applied: no bustards, ergo, no sanctuary. So, what a wonderful (if slimy) way to help development! First, get rid of the animal which is supposed to be protected, by making conditions impossible for it and then declare, “Hey, they’re all gone and not coming back, so let’s built condos and resorts here now!”

You might say, but the same thing happened in the Sariska Tiger Reserve. It did, but with a different result. For a long while, there were, of course, only imaginary tigers in Sariska, and then when the (big) cat was really out of the bag, a hue and cry went up and it was decided to restock the reserve with animals from elsewhere. No one said, well, let’s denotify the reserve and turn the Kankwari Fort into a five-star hotel.

The same is true for Bharatpur: the Siberian or great white crane no longer visits the Keoladeo National Park, but there’s been no move to shut the place down (I believe there have been attempts).

So what’s the worry? Well, the tiger and the Siberian crane both have a charisma quotient that the poor bustard (and many other animals and birds) did not. We’re world famous for tigers and it was our great boast that rare Siberian cranes spent their winters with us. That they stopped coming was not our fault really; see, they were being shot to pieces by our neighbours while on their way here. As for tigers, well, with all the hoo-hah over Project Tiger, we would have had egg on our faces, internationally, if we had dared to shut down Sariska (which a lot of vested interests would have loved to do). But the writing is on the wall, and it seems only a matter of time before this sort of thing starts to happen; the tide has already begun to turn.

Build highways through national parks, flood vast areas of them in hare-brained river-linking projects, allow mining and quarrying and blasting and the animals will melt away and die out. And after a while, it will be pointed out: “No tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos, no wild animals at all have been seen in this sanctuary for years, so why is it still one, making life difficult for everyone living in and around it and preventing them from building factories and mining diamonds and marble, which can ‘devlope’ them (and us) and make us all rich?”

The great Indian bustard is now critically endangered and, if things go on the way they are, it is not expected to recover. In its surviving habitats, it has to contend with wind-farms (and death by dicing), encroachment by people and animals and habitat destruction, apart from poaching. Unlike the tiger, it is a slow-breeder and cannot bounce back from a calamity like the big cat when conditions improve.

And, of that happening, there doesn’t seem to be much of a chance. It looks very much that the poor bustards have had it.

Ranjit Lal is an author, environmentalist and birdwatcher