An endangered lion-tailed macaque lies dead on the road in a rain forest fragment in the Western Ghats. (Photo: Kalyan Varma)

Crunch! Splat! Thud! A daily massacre is occurring under the wheels of our vehicles. Thousands of lives are snuffed out tragically, instantaneously, and yet, we hardly notice.

Around India, as in other parts of the world, millions of animals risk daily encounter with increasingly fast vehicles plying on an expanding meshwork of roads and highways. Roads through our countryside and forests and the people who drive vehicles on these routes cause the highest toll. This is a toll of actual lives—a headcount of animals crushed to death or else greviously injured and mutilated. Even leaving aside domestic dogs and cats, an indiscriminate diversity of wild species from butterflies, squirrels, lizards, and partridges to more threatened species such as leopard cats to tigers and lions, mouse deer to sambar and elephant, lorises to langurs and lion-tailed macaques, and sheildtail snakes to king cobras come to a sticky end.

The scale of the problem is imposing. India boasts of having the second largest road network in the world, second only to the United States. According to India’s National Economic Survey of 2007 ― 08, this is no less than 3.34 million kilometres [1]. Although only around half of this is surfaced and less than 2 percent of this comprises National Highways, the latter alone account for 40% of our total traffic. Like many things in India, the ‘total’ in that expression is a very large number indeed. In 2006, India already had around 86 million registered motor vehicles. A study [2] from IIM, Lucknow, records that the distance travelled in a year by a person in India (averaged across the entire population) soared from 285 km in 1950 — 51 to 3,470 km in 2000 — 01. At the time of writing, even this has nearly doubled. The study also estimates a staggering total motorized traffic volume of around 5,600 billion passenger-kilometres per year, currently. With an annual rate of increase hovering around 7 – 8%, this is poised to skyrocket to nearly 13,000 billion passenger kilometres by 2020.

With such traffic, it would be scarcely surprising if animal kill rates were high, too. Roads passing through forest and other natural areas such as grasslands and wetlands are of greater concern from a conservation point of view. The few studies that are available from Indian forests indicate a grave situation already. Studies have documented kills ranging from dragonflies and butterflies, to many larger mammals and birds including carnivores [3]. Around noon in Nagarahole – Bandipur in southern India, as 50 – 100 vehicles zip past every hour, a study patiently documented around 40 kills of insects such as butterflies and dragonflies for every 10 km every day, doubling over the weekends with increased traffic. A rough calculation indicates that vehicles here kill around 15,000 animals every year in just that 10 km of road [4]. In the Anamalai hills of southern India, a study of road kills of reptiles and amphibians found that around 6 were killed per 10 km of road every day during the monsoon [5]. Conservative extrapolation would suggest that a 100 km stretch of road through forests here witnesses an annual slaughter of around 10,000 amphibians and reptiles. Even this estimation is based on a study carried out 10 years ago when traffic volumes were much lower. Widening of roads and unregulated, ill-planned tourist influx has, if anything, made things worse.

Reptiles, such as this vine snake, and amphibians are among the worst hit in road kills. Photo: Kalyan Varma

Species struggle to survive

Such patterns of death on the highways are a common feature wherever roads traverse our forests, grasslands, and wetlands. Along the Western Ghats alone—a hill range much touted as a centre of amphibian and reptilian diversity with so many new species even now being discovered and described—hundreds of thousands are probably killed every year. These numbers should not make us proud that we have so many animals to subject to such wanton slaughter—that would merely be a dangerous assumption, a form of denial, or sheer ignorant optimism. Neither can we take heart from areas where few deaths are now seen along roads, until we can be certain that this is not due to populations having already been pushed over the brink.

Planners and managers neglect to take the problem seriously. Even when they are aware of the issue, they feel nothing needs to be done because they believe that while many are killed on roads, many others escape and the species can survive. What they fail to understand is that the additional mortality on roads can tilt the demographic scale against a population that already grapples with various natural factors and human-caused disturbances for survival. Studies from elsewhere have revealed that the negative effects of high traffic density can be as serious as direct loss of forest cover for amphibians and traffic needs to be avoided or maintained at low density for up to 2 km around breeding ponds if frog diversity is to be conserved in the landscape [6]. Another study estimates that even if 10% or more of the adults annually risk being killed by vehicles along roads near breeding areas, the population will eventually perish [7].

In most cases, all that the animal is trying to do is, like the proverbial chicken, to get to the other side. The road surface and corridor itself is of little use to most animals. Perhaps a dove or myna would find some fallen scraps of food worth eating, a lizard or snake may be attracted to bask on the hot surface, as to a rock on a sunny day. Dragonflies and mayflies may be attracted to the polarized light emanating from the asphalt, a form of light pollution that fools them into believing that they are over the surface of a water body [8]. As they fly around to feed or defend territories or even try to lay eggs on the water-road, they imperil their own survival. And then the road becomes an ecological death-trap [9], where the very adaptations evolved over millenia to enable these species to locate their food and thrive in their environment now nudge them to their death.

Even quick-footed species, such as this leopard cat, get killed with the increasingly faster traffic. Photo: Kalyan Varma

Deadly break in tree cover

The roadkill threat is not something only ground-dwelling face. The threat of roadkills is particularly acute for many tree-dwelling species that do not normally cross on the ground. With roads mercilessly slicing through our forests and government departments and road contractors recklessly widening roads and slashing all vegetation, including regenerating trees and saplings on either side, the tree cover breaks over the road. Besides loss of natural vegetation and native species typical to each area, this causes increased soil erosion and landslides. This leads to further expenditure in road maintenance—providing further opportunity for ecological damage. All of this adds to wastage of public money, while also wrecking the tree cover that would have allowed many species to safely cross the road overhead.

Unable to cross overhead using the overlapping branches of intact forest canopies, the animals now face a permanent problem—a serious, life-threatening challenge—of a gap caused by the break in tree cover over the road. That crossing, even if takes only a few seconds or minutes, can be an agonisingly long and threatening one for an animal trying to cross even a moderately busy road. In the absence of tree cover, arboreal animals are sometimes forced to use electric wires of powerlines to cross, leading to the double jeopardy of electrocution deaths for species such as lorises and lion-tailed macaques [10]. The roads and powerlines through our forests are increasingly turning into graveyards of tree-dwelling species such as monkeys, lorises, civets, squirrels, and tree shrews.

Animals may also be seriously stressed or change their behaviour in the vicinity of roads. Studies from Africa on elephants and chimpanzees, have shown how they tend to avoid roads and change their behaviour, due to the associated risks as one would expect from such highly intelligent species [11].

An elephant mother uses her body to shield her calf from an approaching vehicle as they cross the road. Photo: Kalyan Varma

Other factors may compound the road problem. The building of culverts, fencerails, barricades, chain-link and barbed-wire fences, and other concrete and metal structures along roads makes the crossing even more difficult. Parapet-like walls running without a break for hundreds of metres or kilometres along roads, especially on hill roads, become insurmountable obstacles for species such as porcupines, pangolins, turtles, young birds and mammals, to name just a few. On hill slopes disfigured by such roads, even large animals such as sambar and elephants have to negotiate the upper slope, cross the road, and try to somehow step or jump over roadside walls and culverts to step or land safely on the steep lower slope. Another compounding factor is the attraction of animals to road-killed carcasses, which may lead to further deaths from speeding vehicles until the carcass is safely disposed away from the road.

As roads become wider and busier, the number of animals crossing and the rate of roadkill usually increases, but beyond a point it may actually begin to decrease [12]. This usually happens when roads become four-laned highways or expressways catering to tens of thousands of vehicles every day. The reduction may be due to the decimation of wildlife populations along the road as well as a ‘barrier’ effect, where many animals actively avoid the road and avoid crossing it [13]. A road like this passing through a forest or key natural habitat essentially cleaves it into two pieces. For many species, this is an added fragmentation of an already fragmented habitat [14].

Impact of ecological changes

In addition, roads are now well known to cause various ecological changes, leading to a wide range of impacts including many, often unnoticed, detrimental effects on wildlife [15]. The disturbance associated with roads and the opening created by the road corridor does favour some species; unfortunately, these are mostly undesirable ones. Alien weeds spread along roads using them as highways to invade into ecosystems [16]. The exposure along the road dessicates and dries vegetation, making it more prone to fires. Trees are more exposed, too, and may fall due to high wind speeds along the road or suffer from stress related to altered ecology. All of these contribute to permanent and chronic changes in the environment and habitat, thereby affecting wildlife and ecosystem health.

Yet, this is only a small part of the story. No study has yet comprehensively addressed all animal taxa from invertebrates such as snails and ants to large creatures such as peafowl and elephants. Even the studies carried out so far may underestimate the true damage. Many animals are struck and badly wounded by vehicles along roads but manage to flee or drag themselves away from the road corridor to die unseen and unrecorded by researchers some distance away. It is not unusual for road-killed animals to be removed off the road or consumed by scavengers, including people, and thereby the kills go unrecorded. Even when dead animals on the road are noticed, other pervasive problems related to the road within forest areas are overlooked. This includes animals killed during road construction, earthwork and annual maintenance operations, particularly slow-moving and burrowing species such as turtles, snakes, and soil fauna.

Poor data on forest roads

No study has yet even catalogued the extent of roads through natural areas, especially forests, across India or the loss of forest cover due to roads. A notable exception, from Garo Hills in Meghalaya, showed that just in this region the 456 ha of biodiversity-rich forest was lost to roads between 1971 and 1991 [17]. Another long-term aspect is the issue of increased access: people moving in and settling or polluting otherwise remote areas.

While more studies on road ecology are required in India, there is also urgent need to use existing information and experiences from other countries to begin to reduce and avoid this carnage [18]. This requires the immediate attention and close coordination of ministries and departments related to roads and forests (or other natural ecosystems). Most important, it requires the attention of the citizen, the casual driver, the tourist—particularly the vehicle-based ‘eco-tourist’—whose individual initiative, sensitivity, and care could save thousands of animal lives.

A range of measures could help remedy the situation. Some are merely engineered quick-fixes that can help in certain locations or in the short-term, such as artificial ‘canopy bridges’ for movement of arboreal mammals [19]. Other measures include proper deployment of speed breakers in roads through forests, creation of underpasses and overpasses that are well-designed keeping in mind the ecology and behaviour of the species whose mortality rate is sought to be mitigated. Signboards informing people to look out for and allow wildlife to cross and measures to check overspeeding may also be implemented. Such short-term measures, if implemented based on research that has identified roadkill ‘hotspots’ can have very positive effects. For example, the installation of just four speed-bumps along 1.5 km of highway passing through a forest in Zanzibar, helped reduced the mortality of threatened red colobus monkeys by 85% in first nine months itself. Prior to this, every year, vehicles used to kill 15% of the colobus monkey population living near the road [20]. Slowing down vehicles at key locations is a very crucial aspect that reduces likelihood of road kill while providing greater reaction time for drivers and animals to evade a collision.

Longer-term and more sustained measures require a deeper understanding of the landscape through which roads pass and a greater sensitivity to the species we share this world with. The number, extent, and width of roads passing through forests and wetlands should be strictly regulated. Improvements to the quality of the road surface and adequate signages should be the emphasis for driver comfort and safety, not increasing the number of lanes or width of the road or the speed with which vehicles can traverse these crucial stretches. As there is virtually no understanding of these issues among planners, land managers, and the wider public, despairing conservationists today regard narrow, bad roads as a great boon, one that is surpassed only by the complete absence of roads.

Encourage vegetation growth

A key long-term measure is to encourage natural vegetation on either side of the road. Currently, vast amounts of public money is wasted in slashing all vegetation on either side of thousands of kilometres of road, with the spurious claim that this improves visibility or makes the road safer. In fact, dense weed growth rapidly chokes up the opened spaces on roadsides, replacing more pleasing and open, natural, native vegetation. In forest areas where tree cover would have naturally shaded out weed growth—performing a public service at no cost and with considerable aesthetic benefits—the opened spaces with obnoxious weed growth now represent a wasteful annual cost of repeated slashing in the guise of road maintenance. The lack of any understanding that good, stable, and safe roads really need consideration of ecological aspects as well, is one of the glaring failings of the government and road construction companies.

An example of a good forest road, used even by trucks and buses, with unbroken canopy over the road. Photo: NCF

The design and adoption of regulations is urgently needed. Forest roads should mandatorily retain and maintain tree canopy connectivity over the road. Where such connectivity has been lost, at a minimum, for every 200 metres of road, a 50-m-wide stretch needs to be marked off with signs and speed breakers and the tree canopy with overlapping branches re-established overhead. Efforts to establish and maintain such stretches should begin as a top priority along all roads through our wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, tiger reserves, reserved forests, and their buffer zones.

Guidelines need to be involved keeping specific species and landscape considerations in mind. For instance, in tropical forests of equatorial Africa, the home of the highly endangered great apes (gorillas and chimpanzees), the IUCN has prepared best-practice guidelines on a range of issues, including road planning [21]. This includes recommendations to plan roads at least 5 km away from protected area boundaries, reduce road width of primary roads to less than 7.5 m (less than 12.5 m including graded portion and shoulders) and width of secondary roads to less than 4.5 m (8.5 m including shoulders), avoiding road construction in closed-canopy forests, minimising the number of secondary roads, and re-using old roads rather than build new roads. There has been some effort to develop such guidelines in India [22], but there is much more to be done.

Forest areas around the world, including in India, are transected by a large number of old, unused, and unnecessary roads (e.g., old logging coupe roads, roads built during dam construction, or as ‘game’ roads for hunting). It is time to undo the damage wrought by these roads by actively removing these roads and ecologically restoring natural vegetation. Although the methods available for road removal may cause some short-term disturbance, research has clearly established the conservation benefits in the medium- and long-term [23].

An overarching need, although perhaps the most difficult one, is the sensitisation and involvement of individual drivers. A vast majority of drivers probably have no deliberate will to kill animals. They presumably have no wish to cause lasting harm to the environment or to the public exchequer by insisting on roads made and managed by ecologically illiterate and insensitive agencies. When individuals become aware and begin to care it can have two useful effects. As drivers, they can adopt more responsible driving practices, watch out for and respect animal crossings, and avoid other unsavoury practices such as feeding animals by roadsides. This, as a direct contribution, can help save hundreds to thousands of animal lives over an average driver’s lifetime. Second, by example, by persuasion, or ultimately by their vote in a ballot box, they can indirectly influence others to save thousands of lives, minimise ecological damage, help to improve roads, and make the driving experience along roads through natural areas infinitely more pleasant. When the paths of people and animals cross, each can then go their own way, leaving behind not a flattened carcass but the memory of a pleasant encounter.

Footnotes

[1] Economic Survey 2007-2008, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Link accessed 17 April 2009.

[2] Singh, S. K. (2008) CO2 emissions from passenger transport in India: 1950-51 to 2020-21. Proceedings of the Better Air Quality 2008 Workshop, Bangkok, Thailand. Link accessed 17 April 2009.

[3] Chhangani, A. K. (2004) Frequency of avian road-kills in Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India. Forktail 20: 110-111.

Kumara, H. N., Sharma, A. K., Kumar, M. A., and Singh, M. (2000) Roadkills of wild fauna in Indira Gandhi wildlife sanctuary, Western Ghats, India: implications for management. Biosphere Conservation 3: 41-47.

Sundar, K. S. G. (2004). Mortality of herpetofauna, birds and mammals due to vehicular traffic in Etawah district, Uttar Pradesh, India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 101: 392-398.

Radhakrishna,S. Goswami, A. B. and Sinha , A. (2006) Distribution and Conservation of Nycticebus bengalensis in Northeastern India. International Journal of Primatology 27: 971-982.

Areendran, G. and Pasha, M. K. S. (2000) Gaur Ecology Project, Report, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.

Johnsingh, A. J. T., Sankar, K. and Mukherjee, S. (1997) Saving prime tiger habitat in Sariska Tiger Reserve. Cat News 27: 3-4.

[4] Rao, R. S. P. and Girish, M. K. S. (2007) Road kills: Assessing insect casualties using flagship taxon. Current Science 92: 830-837.

[5] Vijayakumar, S. P., Vasudevan, K. and Ishwar, N. M. (2001) Herpetofaunal mortality on roads in the Anamalai Hills, southern Western Ghats. Hamadryad 26: 265–272.

[6] Eigenbroda, F. Hecnarb, S. J., Fahrig , L. (2008) The relative effects of road traffic and forest cover on anuran populations. Biological Conservation 141: 35–46.

[7] Gibbs, J. P. and Shriver, W. G. (2005) Can road mortality limit populations of pool-breeding amphibians? Wetlands Ecology and Management 13: 281–289 .

[8] Horváth, G., Kriska, G., Malik, P. and Robertson , B. (2009) Polarized light pollution: a new kind of ecological photopollution. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7; doi:10.1890/080129.

[9] Robertson, B. A. and Hutto, R. L. (2006) A framework for understanding ecological traps and an evaluation of existing evidence. Ecology 87: 1075-1085.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_traps

[10] Radhakrishnan, S. and Singh, M. (2002) Conserving the Slender Loris (Loris lydekkerianus lydekkerianus). Pages 227-231, National Seminar on Conservation of Eastern Ghats, March 24- 26, 2002, held at Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh; personal observations.

[11] Hockings, K. J., Anderson, J. R., Matsuzawa, T. (2006). Road crossing in chimpanzees: A risky business. Current Biology 16: R668-670. Watch movie here.

Blake, S., Deem, S. L., Strindberg, S., Maisels, F., Momont, L. Isia, I., Douglas-Hamilton, I.,Karesh, W. B., Kock, M. D. (2008) Roadless wilderness area determines forest elephant movements in the Congo Basin. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3546. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003546

[12] Seiler, A. (2003) The toll of the automobile: wildlife and roads in Sweden. PhD thesis. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala. Link accessed 11 Feb 2009.

[13] Laurance, S. G. and Gomez, M. S. (2005) Clearing width and movements of understory rainforest birds. Biotropica 37: 149–152.

Laurance, S. G., Stouffer, P. C. and Laurance, W. F. (2004) Effects of road clearings on movement patterns of understory rainforest birds in Central Amazonia. Conservation Biology 18: 1099–1109.

Goosem, M. (2001) Effects of tropical rainforest roads on small mammals: inhibition of crossing movements. Wildlife Research 28: 351–364.

[14] Goosem, M. (2007) Fragmentation impacts caused by roads through rainforests. Current Science 93: 1587-1595.

See also this article by Rhett Butler on roads as enablers of rainforest destruction.

[15] Noss, R. The ecological effects of roads. Link accessed 17 April 2009;

Spellerberg , I. F. (1998) Ecological effects of roads and traffic: a literature review. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 7: 317-333;

Forman, R. T. T. and Alexander, L. E. (1998) Roads and their major ecological effects. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 29:207-231;

Trombulak, S. C. and Frissell, C. A. (2000) Review of ecological effects of roads on terrestrial and aquatic communities. Conservation Biology 14: 18-30;

Donaldson A. and Bennett A. (2004) Ecological effects of roads: implications for the internal fragmentation of Australian parks and reserves. Parks Victoria Technical Series No. 12. Parks Victoria, Melbourne.

Fahrig, L., and Rytwinski, T. (2009) Effects of roads on animal abundance: an empirical review and synthesis. Ecology and Society 14(1): 21.

[16] Gelbard, J. L. and Belnap, J. (2003) Roads as conduits for exotic plant invasions in a semiarid landscape. Conservation Biology 17: 420–432.

[17] Bera, S. K., Basumatary, S. K., Agarwal, A. and Ahmed, M. (2006) Conversion of forest land in Garo Hills, Meghalaya for construction of roads: a threat to the environment and biodiversity. Current Science 91: 281–284.

[18] Forman, R. T. T., Sperling, D., Bissonette, J., Clevenger, A., Cutshall, C., Dale, V., Fahrig, L., France, R., Goldman, C., Heanue, K., Jones, J., Swanson, F., Turrentine, T., Winter, T. (2002) Road Ecology: Science and Solutions. Island Press, Washington, D. C. Read review here.

http://www.wildlifeandroads.org

http://www.peopleandwildlife.org.uk/biblio.shtml#road

[19] Weston, N. (2002) Why did the ringtail cross the road? Using Rainforest Research, Cooperative ResearchCentre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management, Australia.

Goosem, M., Izumi, Y. and Turton, S. (2001) Will underpasses below roads restore habitat connectivity for tropical rainforest fauna? Ecological Management and Restoration 2: 196–202. See also this article about faunal underpasses.

Laurance, W. F., Goosem, M. and Laurance, S. G. W. (in press) Impacts of roads and linear clearings on tropical forests. Trends in Ecology and Evolution in press.

[20] The Zanzibar Red Colobus Monkey: behavior, ecology, and conservation. DVD documentary, T. T. Struhsaker, Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, USA.

[21] Morgan, D. and Sanz, C. (2007) Best practice guidelines for reducing the impact of commercial logging on great apes in Western Equatorial Africa. IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group (PSG), Gland, Switzerland. 32 pp.

[22] Rajvanshi, A., Mathur, V. B., Teleki, G. C., Mukherjee, S. K. (2001) Roads, sensitive habitats and wildlife: environmental guidelines for India and South Asia. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.

[23] Switalski, T. A., Bissonette, J. A., DeLuca, T. H., Luce, C. H. and Madej, M. A. (2004) Benefits and impacts of road removal. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2: 21-28.

Map Lingti valley

‘Lingti’ is an instrument that cuts rock, as it literally means in Spitian. The rapidly flowing white water of the glacial melt has carved a deep gorge through an otherwise rolling steppe landscape, thus probably the name. The river cuts a narrow gorge with towering rock faces along both banks. These rocky steep banks rise up, almost near vertical, until it reaches the edge of the plateau. Here the valley suddenly opens up into a flat dish of rolling hills. The plateau stretches in all directions until it approaches the ridge-line fence created by the mountains all around the valley. Here the rolling hills immediately start rising and turn into massive rock and ice slopes leading to the top of the various mountains peaks and ridges.

The sharp walls of the Lingti gorge

Lingti valley is surely a mountaineers paradise. But due to the remoteness of this valley few mountaineers venture here. The first outsiders to visit this valley was an expedition led by Harish Kapadia in 1983. They managed to penetrate the valley halfway and then turned their attention towards Cho-cho Khang Nilda and surrounding peaks. The same expedition returned in 1987 and managed to reach the source of Lingti and even climb Parilungbi. Since then hardly any expeditions have come this way. Recently Gya was climbed from this side by another Indian expedition, but overall very few have made it this far.

At the same time Lingti is a geologist’s goldmine too. It is a living museum that has preserved over 250 million years of geological history in the form of shales and fossils. The ammonite and belemnite fossils from here are known world over. Many theories are based on the geological studies carried out here. Fossils collected by Dr. Richard Hey in 1955 are still preserved at the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge. But, little was know about the wildlife of this remote valley until very recently. Till the last decade most of our knowledge about the wildlife of this valley came from the anecdotes reported by adventurers and mountaineers who visited this area. In mid 1980’s this valley was notified as part of the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary.

This region is so remote that there is not a single village in about 400 km2 of the upper habitable part of this valley. Historically there was a village called ‘Uhlshikpo’ within this valley, which moved out due to its remoteness around 80-100 years ago. Now only the ruins of ‘Uhlshikpo remain inside the valley. Although this valley is along the border with Tibet there are no passes crossing from Lingti to Tibet and so this region has received relatively little attention from Army or the Border Police Force, except for some routine patrols.

The ruins of Uhlshikpo

Last year, I got the opportunity to survey this hidden valley and prepare a plan for the management of this valley for the conservation of its wildlife wealth. This exercise was a part of the collaborative effort between Himachal Pradesh Forest Department and Nature Conservation Foundation on Management planning of the region. The task had to begin from documenting what wildlife existed inside Lingti, then assessing its status and recommending suitable interventions for its long-term survival. This survey was to be a tough challenge. Along with difficult terrain there was also the thunderous rock cutting river torrent. To get into Lingti one requires crossing the river many times. It meant that for any kind of survey we had to wait till the water was at its lowest. I decided to attempt this in late autumn and early winter. At the beginning of winter the water level in the river goes down and ice bridges are formed all across the river making the river crossing relatively easier. But, the early winter cold makes camping in the open a miserable experience.

Crossing the Lingti

I needed a tough team for this kind of a survey. The members not only had to be physically extremely fit but also knowledgeable about conducting wildlife surveys. They had to be able to identify animals based on their signs such as droppings and spoors (footprints in soft soil or snow) and be able to use technical equipment such as Global Positioning System (GPS). I found such knowledgeable and fit people in the Kibber Youth Council. The Kibber Youth Council had been helping us (Nature Conservation Foundation) with wildlife conservation programs in the main Spiti valley for over ten years. The team members were Sushil, Kalzang, Thillay, Kalzang Pulzor, Chudim, Rinchen, Sheru, Thukten and myself.

We began our survey from Lalung (3776m); a village located very close to the confluence of Lingti and Spiti. With a population of about 370 people and 55 houses Lalung is a largish village by Spitian Standard. I wasn’t surprised to know that very few people from this village had ever been inside the Lingti Valley. As metal roads and electricity penetrated deep into the mountains and reached this village, their lifestyle changed dramatically. People became more market dependent; selling their crop of pea and buying the grocery from stores in Kaza (the administrative headquarter of Spiti) became the norm of life. No more is there a need for them to go deep inside Lingti valley to graze their livestock or find wood to make the plough or building. While we heard tales of snow leopards and blue sheep from the valley we got little credible information.

The team:(from left to right) Thukten II, Kalzang, Thukten, Kulbhushan, Kalzang Pulzor, Chudim, Rinchen, Thillay, Sheru

It was time for the actual survey. Thukten II the herder from Lalung was hired as our guide. The trek to Phiphuk, the center of the valley, was arduous; we kept walking over the frozen bed of the Lingti but occasionally the ice sheet under our feet became too thin for comfort and we had to hop from one boulder to another. At the same time, all of us were top heavy, carrying ration for 15 days of stay and thus progress was extremely slow. The first day we camped at Kibri. Before the last light of the day our spirits were rejuvenated as we spotted a herd of 20 blue sheep grazing on the steep banks nearby. The second day of trek was full of excitement as we kept encountering fresh snow leopard pugmarks all along the trail. We kept expecting a surprise at every bend in the trail. That evening we reached ‘Phiphuk’ (4005m). We decided to make this our base camp due to its central location in the valley. This was to be our home for the next two weeks. The prospects seemed very promising; we had seen many snow leopard signs around the base-camp itself and even sighted a few blue sheep nearby.

Over the next few days we split into three teams of three each and systematically surveyed every side valley and plateau. The first couple of days our team comprising of Sushil, Kalzang Pulzor and myself surveyed the areas around Lakshithang (4560m) and Saktichen (4530m). During these days we would cross the Kuli la (4880m) every day to reach the survey area but it was worth the effort as we encountered over 100 blue sheep in this region. We surveyed the area up to Chaksachen La (5230m) beyond this we knew that the habitat was not very conducive for any mammal. While our team toiled up to Kuli la-Saktichen and back every day other teams fought their way to high pastures of Sheru (4500m), ‘Uhlshipo ruins’ and Syarma la (4767m). During the day all three teams would head out with GPS and notebook in hand but come evening we would huddle together in the tiny camp and share the days experience. The tiny camp and the huddling helped us stay warm.

The last area to be surveyed was the Syarma nala. We decided to survey it on our way back. The day we wrapped up from Phiphuk our team broke camp early and headed for Syarma nala. We had the huge task of covering the whole Syarma nala in one day. Effectively it meant walking over 35 km in a day. The distance felt even longer in the thin air and cold at that altitude. By evening we were proud of what we had done. We had surveyed the whole area and confirmed the presence of at least 108 blue sheep in that area. But the biggest prize of the day was to encounter pugmarks of a mother and cub snow leopard.

Blue sheep

Late evening the three of us reached the place that the others had chosen for the days camp. It was a tiny cave along the frozen river and a little sand bank separating the river from the cave mouth. Tired with a hard days work Sushil, Kalzang and me were the first to get into our sleeping bags. But soon the tiny cave became suffocating and claustrophobic; partly because there were ten of us trying to squeeze inside the tiny cave. Finally Sushil and I gave up; we picked up our sleeping bags and came under the stars on the sand bank. The sky was clear and the night extremely cold. We spread our sleeping bags next to the frozen river and tried to sleep. It was the coldest night of my life. I dozed on and off but couldn’t sleep. I watched the stars drift by softly. ‘Cygnus’ – The Swan, ‘Pegasus’, ‘Andromeda’, ‘Taurus’-The Bull, ‘Orion’-the Hunter all the star constellations passed by slowly. I kept wishing that a snow leopard would pass by but even if it did I wouldn’t have seen it in the dark. And then there was a faint glow in the eastern sky. While it was still soft glow Kalzang brew some tea. We all sat around the cooking fire huddled together discussing the night. When suddenly we heard a movement. All of strained our eye to see what made the sound; secretly wishing it to be a snow leopard. It was a stone marten, a great sighting nevertheless. In fact all of us had seen the snow leopard more number of times than a stone marten. Although stone martens are common in other parts of the world they are relatively rare here. It was only my second time. A great farewell from Lingti. The next day we came back to Lalung.

'Orion'-The Hunter

During the survey, together we encountered hundreds of snow leopard pugmarks, scrapes and feces. Based on the signs, we cannot estimate the number of snow leopards but we could conclusively say that there was a healthy population of snow leopards in the valley. Also there seemed to be a healthy prey base for the snow leopard based on the good population of the blue sheep. We encountered over 350 blue sheep (counted without repetition). We also came across more than 10 carcasses of blue sheep killed by snow leopards. Throughout the survey we never encountered signs of Tibetan wolves. Although a few people from Lalung said that they had, in the past, seen wolves inside the Lingti Valley, I was skeptical of these reports as the habitat in much of Lingti is not suitable for an open country species such as wolf. Apart from a healthy prey-predator system (snow leopard-blue sheep) we also encountered other smaller mammals such as the red fox, woolly hare, pika and the very rare stone marten.

Woolly hare

The survey information and our interaction with the villagers of Lalung formed the core of the management plan for this region. Lingti promises to be the long-term future for the survival of the snow leopard and other rare wildlife of the high Himalaya. The villagers of Lalung also take pride in being the guardians of Lingti. All throughout it was a satisfying experience to unfold the mysteries of the Lingti Valley.

Sushil and Thukten II with evidence of blue sheep presence

by Rishi Kumar Sharma

(Rishi is in field at the moment with little access to email and I am posting this on his behalf)

It was a usual summer morning at Spiti; the first rays of the sun were illuminating the tops of the lofty mountain peaks as if pouring vermillion over the ridgelines. Still cuddled in my sleeping bag with a chilly breeze slapping my face, I was not sure if I wanted to leave the cozy warmth and start out for the day. However the increasing brightness at the eastern horizon seemed to be making a silent promise for a warm, bright and sunny day. Oblivious of these human dilemmas a snow leopard had been slowly and deftly stalking its prey somewhere in the mountains. In an hour I was out in the mountains with my team of the high altitude program at NCF. Soon we sighted an all male group of 36 blue sheep on a ridgeline basking and enjoying the warmth of the morning sun.

A few males had very large re-curved horns and Sushil (our field coordinator) took no time in passing the verdict that they would not survive the winters as they were too old and weak and would soon find themselves on the plate of a hungry snow leopard.  We watched the group for half an hour; the males were very content with their present activity and did not appear to give any importance to our presence. I moved a bit closer and took a picture; a beautiful moment in the mountainous canvass of nature was now captured forever in my camera. Moving on we came across another small group of blue sheep, two females, this time perched on a steep slope much above us. I had always envious of the ability of my field assistants to spot animals that to me look like mere specks without the aid of binoculars. Since we were in a rugged terrain, we were hopeful of seeing a few Ibex as well. Another hour of search did not lead us to any Ibex, but suddenly I spotted a few vultures (Himalayan griffons) in the mountains about a mile away. Vultures are almost a sure sign of a snow leopard kill and thus filled with excitement and expectation, we headed in their direction. Soon we reached a flat mountain base which had a few “dongri’s” (summer camps for agriculture) scattered around. From here we could gain a clear view of the hillside that seemed to be bustling with vultures mainly Himalayan Griffons.

From our binoculars we could see a kill, but could not clearly make out what exactly it was. Sushil was soon out of the group, chatting with the people at the “dongri” and he signaled to me to come over. The young lad there was eloquently narrating interesting anecdotes. He and his father had arrived at the fields early in the morning and the boy had seen a snow leopard sitting very close to a dead horse. Excited, he called up his father and both of them climbed up to the area to where the snow leopard was. The snow leopard however refused to budge from his place until these people reached very close and made a lot of noise, shouting and screaming at the beautiful cat. At this, the cat retreated slowly and unwillingly and vanished into the mountains.

However, I must point out that these people did not mean any harm to the cat. Even the people who have lived all their life in the mountains seldom get to see this mysterious cat. Hence they were probably very excited at having seen one at such a close distance and could not resist the temptation to get closer. I could also see from their expressions that they were probably a little scared to having moved in so close to the cat and since they explained everything to me in such a detail I had little reasons to doubt them. When I was told that the animal had only a short stump instead of a full grown tail, I knew it was “Cut tail” and this area was a part of his large home range. Only a few days back I had captures of “Cut tail” in one of my camera traps. There were some cliffs about 500 meters from the kill site and I was sure that the cat might be hiding somewhere there watching us and its prey which the vultures were now gorging upon. I took out my binoculars and Sushil and I set out to scan the mountains.

There was no sign of the cat. The cliffs though were good as a vantage point, they afforded little protection or hiding place for the snow leopard and we concluded that the cat would have moved to the other side of the mountains due to constant presence of humans. By now a group of labourers had also arrived to repair a water channel and with that my hope of the cat returning to the kill in broad daylight faded away. I decided to go and inspect the kill and climbed up to the site. It was a young horse in prime health and must have been 3-4 years old.

There was no hiding place or cover from the kill to the cliffs and I began wondering how much time and energy the cat would have invested in stealthily approaching close enough to its quarry to make the kill in such an open space. From here I could put the pieces of the puzzle together. The snow leopard would have had to spent a lot of time and energy first to come close enough to the horse and then to bring it down. The neck bite of two neat canines was fairly clear and a bone had been pulled out of the throat. Tired and exhausted the snow leopard must have been resting before it could start feeding, when it got disturbed by people and had to leave. There were no signs of feeding by the snow leopard and its unwillingness to leave even when approached at a close distance by people were a clear indication of the fact that it had not managed to eat the horse it would have struggled to bring down.

I decided to return to the field camp to fetch my camera traps. I was sure that a hungry snow leopard would return to its kill if not in broad daylight, then definitely in the dark of the night. When I returned with the cameras four hours later, the vultures had finished the kill and only bones remained with a few thin layers of meat still clinging to them. After setting up a few cameras; camouflaged and strategically placed, we returned to the mountain base, requesting the people there not to make too much of a noise and not to light up fires outside the hutments. The next morning I went up to check my camera traps.

There was no sign of snow leopard, no pugmarks, nothing. One set of tracks revealed that a red fox might have visited the kill. On returning to the base camp I hurriedly punched in the memory cards of the cameras into my computer and ran through some 3000 pictures that the camera had managed to record. I was still hoping that one of these three thousand must be a snow leopard. However that was not the case. A red fox had turned up at the kill sharp at 8:00 pm and stayed at the kill till 4:30 am, followed by the arrival of a Lammergeier vulture at 5:40 am which retreated with a big bone in its beak after probably being harassed by Red Billed Choughs. The cat that made the kill however did not return, hungry as it might have been, now forced to kill another prey, wild or domestic we do not know.

I saw them for the first time as I was moving into my base camp. Very excited, I focused my binocular and observed them for some time. They seemed to be wondering around; not searching for anything specific. Soon they were gone and I was back setting up my camp which was to be home for the next five months. Little I knew that this red fox couple were to be my neighbours for this time.

That day onwards I kept seeing them around the camp; playing, sleeping or just strolling around. Although they spent most of their time together, or so it seemed, I never saw them eat together. One day a donkey died in the village, the carcass was left for the vultures and foxes. The carcass seemed enough for all the Himalayan griffons and the fox couple for at least a couple of days. But even then not for a minute were they together at what seemed like a food bonanza. A couple of times I did see them looking for voles together but I am not sure if they shared what they caught.

They must have been long time residents of this locality as all the blue sheep were very familiar with their ways. Often they walked right through the middle of the blue sheep herd and the sheep never raised a brow. When the fox and the sheep met eye to eye it seemed like a regular “Howdy partner” greeting.

Then one day I heard a ruckus outside my camp and I came out to find four foxes in the middle of what seemed like a fight unto death. I could recognize my neighbours as the newcomers had a much lighter coat. Soon it was clear that the local residents had the visitors on the run. The fight lasted over ten minutes and I assumed that it was over territory defence. I was surprised to find the couple defending their territory together when they wouldn’t even share their food.

My five months were soon over and I had to leave. It was the month of April and very soon their pups were to arrive but alas I could not wait to see them raise their young.

For those interested in science: The degree of Polygamy in the red fox decreases with reduced food availability. Along the coast of UK red fox are know to be monogamous during the El Nino years when the sea birds failed to nest (food scarcity). Spiti is likely to be one of the low resource availability areas and thus the red fox here seem to be monogamous.

- Kulbhushan & Karthik

A dialogue that sparked off between us about which dried-meat tastes better; Mithun or Yak, instantly became a meaty confab beyond bovids that revolved around communities in Spiti and Siang valley and their practices. One look at the map followed by finger-pointing at each other’s study sites got us further excited since we had spent a decent amount of time exactly on the opposite flanks of the Himalayas.

The Kee monastery with the frozen Spiti river in the background

Roots: Largely Buddhists, the Spitians of the Mongoloid stock are from Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh at the western end of the Himalayas whereas the Adis are animists (they practice the Donyi-Polo i.e. the Sun-Moon religion) of the Tibeto-Burman stock from Siang valley in Arunachal Pradesh in the Eastern Himalayas. The former are settled agro-pastoralists whereas the latter are hunter-gatherers practicing shifting cultivation over the last few millennia.

The Siang valley with the Siang river seeping within

A typical Spiti / Adi year: While the shifting cultivation practice determines the annual activity pattern of the Adi community, the winter determines that of the Spitians. Spitians have small agricultural fields which are ploughed as the snow starts to melt in early-April, following which the crops are sown. The staple crop is barley, but is rapidly getting replaced by green peas, a cash-crop. After the crop-harvest in Sep-Oct, it is party time for the locals during the long winter from November to March.

The Adis clearfell forests in February, undertake sowing in March and reap harvest in October. In the months of Oct-Nov-Dec, Adis in the Upper Siang district scout into the surrounding forests and higher altitudes for animals to hunt, preferred species being Himalayan musk deer, Takin and Serow. Surprisingly, according to the Adis, one of the reasons they do not hunt during rest of the year or venture far into forest is due to the fear of snakes!

As you sow, so you brew: The staple crops of the Spitians and the Adis are barley and rice, respectively. Besides ensuring food-security throughout the year and seeds for the next year, one of the seemingly fundamental uses of these grains is to keep up their spirits! Chang is the Spitian barley-beer whereas Apong is the Adi rice-beer, the distilled version being called Ara and Nogin, respectively. Bonus points to Adis for also brewing millet-beer! A notable similarity amongst the two communities is that none of the grains cultivated are sold in a market and are reserved for subsistence use.

Bringing home the beef: Whereas Mithun is a ‘domesticated’ Gaur which is also considered as a hybrid between a wild Gaur and a cow, the Yak is a domesticated version of the wild Yak. Yak meat is mainly used for festive occasions and also forms an important part of the diet of the people during winters. Yaks are used for ploughing fields for cultivation, following which the yaks freely graze in herds in distant pastures for the next eight to nine months. Being unable to forage in more than half-a-feet snow, the Yaks are stall-fed during winter. Bringing the Yaks back is often an extremely exhausting exercise involving plowing through deep snow. Once located, the Yaks are rounded up, often done the cowboy way with lassos. This exercise sometimes lasts weeks as finding the Yaks in the snow-clad mountains can be a difficult task.

Lassoing the Yak!

The Mithun is a unit of wealth and plays a significant role in the Adi tradition. Mithun meat is smoke-dried and stays edible for almost two years. The point to note here is that no self-respecting mithun has ever ploughed land, although the main reason for this is that there is little-to-no land available for settled cultivation. During festivals, bringing back home the Mithun is a tiring exercise that men in the village endure since they move singly or in groups of 2-3. All the Mithuns in the village are identified by a combination of ear-clips on the two ears. The men depend on footmarks, hearsay and other signs and often survey the entire home-range of the Mithun which centers around the place it was born. It is quite common to meet men coming back to the village with cane-lassos, empty-handed and empty-stomached!

A young Mithun in a current year slash-and-burn field

We ended the conversation amazed at the similarities amongst the communities that are geographically separated by a beeline distance of more than 800 miles and with mutual promises that when each visits the others’ field site, meat, booze and local treks are on-the-house!