Post (er) from recent past ~ Survey of large mammals.

Working on posters recently for the our efforts at Saiha I was reminded of the poster we made for presenting Baghmara efforts. 

The conversation over a not great connection with Anirban who was then at Agraa when we made the final plunge towards participating in the Tropical Ecology Congress at Dehradun and the ensuing discussions. While I don't recall the details the most interesting one was on people's perception on rise in population of wild pigs and as I write I can see an astonished me noting in capital letters on the questionnaires as I sat with Mohanto. He had then returned from administering the questionnaires at Halwa Atong and Gongrot (South Garo Hills Meghalaya); the only two villages he participated in. Wild pigs figured in list of mammals pestering and therefore hunted and despite that people perceived their numbers to be on the rise. This they said was on account of the litter size! And of course the animated talk with Arpan when he called from the Calcutta airport to congratulate on our winning the prize. I was then pacing the corridors of Forest Research Institute hurriedly. The campus has to be the most amazing I have been to and am eager to put in some more time there.

Above all I wish I would have then had the raised (relatively) understanding, awareness and interest levels that I possess today. 

I share the poster (it is not clear but clicking results in enlarging it) and abstract below and take the space to thank Bensen for the information gathering and Dr. M D Madhsudan for putting forth the very idea of the survey. 

Tribals and large mammals: Survey of mammalian fauna and local attitudes towards wildlife in non protected areas in the vicinity of Balpakram National Park, Meghalaya

Anirban Datta Roy, Nimesh Ved (Samrakshan Trust)

Keywords : mammal survey, Meghalaya, conflict,

Theme - Biodiversity: amount, patterns, uses, conservation, and participatory research.

This poster presents the findings of a nine month questionnaire survey conducted in the Garo hills region of Meghalaya state in north east India. The survey collected information on large mammal presence in the landscape, threats to them and sources of human-animal conflict by tapping the knowledge base of the local Garo tribe.

The north-east Indian state of Meghalaya, situated in the Indo Malayan biodiversity hotspot is home to an  enormous diversity of flora and fauna. Within Meghalaya, the Garo hills region is especially biodiverse, but has been poorly documented over the years. Samrakshan Trust has identified the Baghmara Balpakram Community Conservation Landscape (~300 sq.km.) as an area of high priority and initiated a long term community conservation intervention. The landscape is bounded by Bangladesh to its south, the Balpakram NP to its north and east and the Simsang river to its west. Any community conservation initiative needs to understand local attitudes and their relationship with wildlife to form an effective strategy to deal with the challenges.

We thus conducted a survey of mammalian fauna and local people’s attitudes towards wildlife. This was done with two major objectives:

-    the establishment of a comprehensive information base for future conservation efforts as well as recognition of the current wildlife values in the region

-    to understand the attitudes of local people towards presence of large mammals in terms of hunting and the nature and magnitude of human-animal conflict in the landscape.

Questionnaire surveys were conducted in all 33 akings (clan kingdom) of the landscape with a total of 334 respondents over a period of nine months from May 2005 to January 2006. The respondents comprised of farmers, hunters, government servants and others. The questionnaires attempted to document local knowledge on 56 species of large mammal (> 1 kg) presence, fluctuations in relative densities and degree and nature of conflict between local people and large mammals. The initial list of mammals was prepared through discussions with elders and hunters in the Garo hills.

Of the 56 species, all of them were reported to be have been sighted, while the hunters reported no sightings of the Malayan Sun Bear. Rhesus macaque, Wild pig and Indian porcupine were the most common mammals sighted. They were also mentioned as species whose numbers had increased the most within the last five years. Within the respondents, professional hunters mentioned the names of the Capped langur and Barking deer as the most common large mammals in addition to the above three. Sambar, Water buffalo and the Himalayan black bear numbers were perceived to have decreased in the last five years. The biggest reason for this decline was attributed by respondents to increase in hunting activities.

34% of the respondents named the wild pig as mammal causing most damage to crops, followed by the Asian elephant (31%) and the Indian porcupine (9%). Jungle cat (26%) and Leopard cat (25%) caused the most damage to livestock (including poultry).

Hunting and trapping were mainly for domestic consumption (29 akings) while commercial hunting was reported in a few cases (4 akings). Elephant, Sambar, Water buffalo, Barking deer and Wild pig were the animals that were hunted for meat.

The impact of hunting and trapping activities in tropical ecosystems has largely been overshadowed by the stress on habitat loss and fragmentation. This study provides an indication of the dangers of overlooking the long term effects of large mammal removal. Local knowledge itself recognizes hunting as the primary factor in the decrease of certain species. The increase in commensal species such as rhesus macaques also indicates the gradual habitat degradation and land-use change. Although commercial hunting is still restricted to only a few akings, it is disturbing to note its presence in a landscape where hunting for domestic consumption has already made considerable impact. Additional pressure in the form of commercial hunting, especially of large mammals like Asian elephants is a serious threat.