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Journalism of Courage
KAILASH Birari carefully picks up a piece of carnivore sh*t and puts it in a plastic pouch. ‘‘Leopards are not far away from here,’’ says the assistant conservator of forests, scanning the vast Sanjay Gandhi National Park on the edge of Mumbai city.
It’s not easy doing an animal census in the forest—creatures of the wild don’t exactly like being head-counted and certainly aren’t going to fill in a surveyor’s questionnaire.
To estimate the populations of various animals in the national park, every year, 24 teams of forest officials and public volunteers fan out across the 103 sq km forest at dawn, looking for pugmarks and droppings.
I examine the leopard scat. The dried poop—blackish-brown and spiral shaped, embedded with undigested fur—is rather different from the doggy-do you encounter on a stroll down Marine Drive. ‘‘The predator’s last meal was definitely a deer,’’ says Dr PN Munde, deputy conservator of forests. He heads the animal census, which registered 27 leopards in the park last year.
For a city slicker (and night owl) like me, though, the animal census seems a daunting task: I had to report to the national park at 5.30 am. But the crisp forest breeze banished all sleep. And besides, counting leopards, deer and civet cats is not at all a bad way to begin your workday.
Dressed in a T-shirt and track pants, Dr Munde briskly covers the wild terrain, followed by a band of khaki-clad forest rangers. ‘‘We have to undertake a ‘fitness walk test’ every year to prove that we can easily cover 15 km at a stretch,’’ says a forest guard.
The rangers mean business—a fortnight ago, the film unit shooting the Salman Khan-starrer Marigold was told to vacate the Kanheri Caves region after they were adjudged to be disturbing animal movement at census time.
At 6.30 am, fresh civet cat pugmarks are reported near the Kanheri Caves checkpoint. Further down, more leopard droppings are found near the old water tunnel, a favourite watering hole for the big cats.
7.30 am, and despite the forest’s cool, filtered air, we are all panting and sweating.
Following the leopard trail isn’t easy at all—there are difficult slopes to scramble over, boulders to squeeze through, and last but not least, giant red ants, seemingly waiting to climb up your pants! But Munde assures me they’re an important part of the food chain: ‘‘Ant colonies in the jungle are soil pulverisers—they clean the forest of decaying leaves and carcasses, turning them back to the earth,’’ he explains.
By 10.30 am, we’re done, with 12 leopard scats and several deer pugmarks clocked up. Despite the gentle birdsong and rustle of trees, and though the leopards remained visually elusive, I couldn’t help the distinct feeling that they were around—watching me closely from treetops, or from behind huge volcanic rocks.
Having covered instances of leopards attacking Mumbaikars over the last two years, the idea of the big cats watching your every move as you walk through their domain can be more than a little eerie.
