Bandipur Night Traffic ban hearing on Nov 4, 2009

Though I had been visiting the high court for the past 7-10 days, I had never had the experience to sit through a case hearing. So, when I got a call from CWS that the Bandipur case hearing was coming up that morning, I rushed to the court. I met Poornesha, from CWS, who had also come to attend the hearing.

The hearing was in Court Hall (CH) 1. This is located on the 2nd floor. We checked the list of cases that was listed outside the hall and noted that our case was listed 75! Wondering how long it would take for the court to reach till 75, we nevertheless took up our seats and got engrossed in the various cases that were being heard. Except for the odd case here and there, most of them were adjourned and our case came up at around 12pm.

It seemed like this was most prestigous case being heard that day. From the respondents, there were 8 advocates and there was our lone petitioner!

Some of the arguments put forth by the respondents were:
- Alternate roads are not good enough and vehicles reaching bangalore were coming in late.
- As per the RTI information from Muthanga, there have been no roadkills in the past 1 year.
- The photos given by the petitioner have no supporting documents to prove their authenticity.
- Convoy system should be allowed so that a win-win situation can be achieved. This can be trialed for at least 1 week to check for its effectiveness.
- The DC cannot implement the ban under Motor Vehicles Act since it is applicable only for public convenience and safety.

Against the above, the 2 judge bench including the Chief Justice Mr. Dinakaran, stated the following:
- The traffic is restricted only from 9pm till 6am. If it were from 6pm-6am, then the court could have considered the request. But the current timings were good and all business can be done before or after that. People have to adjust to these timings
- All impleads are from people point of view. Someone has to consider the point of view of wildlife and the court is doing that.
- The question is not only about roadkills happening at night, but animal behaviour is also affected. Hence, even convoy system is not advisable.
- Under the Motor vehicles Act, traffic is not being prohibited..it is only being restricted.

Further observations and conslusions of the High Court:
- According to information received from FD, animal movement has improved during night.
- The court is not convinced to vacate or modify the ban
- All parties have to submit authorized copies of traffic regulations implemented in protected areas across the world.
- The next hearing will be in 8 weeks time.

Participants:
KANS: Laxmeesha Acharya
CWS: Poornesha H.

-
Laxmeesha Acharya
President
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society

Bandipur Roadkills Campaign - 13/14 June 2009

With the Bandipur traffic restriction plans in the news, we decided to prepone the roadkills awareness campaign by a week. Sunil Gaikwad and I left from Bangalore in the morning in my Thunderbird, with the rest of the gang supposed to leave Bangalore on sat afternoon and meet at Gundlupet by evening. Sunil and I reached Nanjangud by 11 am and deviated to Chamarajnagar to have a word with the District Commissioner Mr. Manoj Kumar Meena regarding the opposition he was facing in implementing the ban. Try as we did, we could not meet him since he was not in office and when we visited his residence, the security did not allow us to meet him. Despondently, we returned to Nanjangud and headed to Gundlupet where we were joined by the rest of the guys by around 7 pm. After finishing our dinner, all of us headed to the Kekkanahalla check-post. Sunil and I retired for the night while the rest gamely took up their duty of stopping the vehicles and advising them about safe driving in the forest.

Since a lot of opposition for the ban had come from businessmen, traders and transporters, KANS did a quick check on the types of vehicles that traverse the forest between 9pm and 6am. The results of the study were:
1. Trucks carrying flowers from Ooty to Banglaore ply at night. They are plucked in the evening and have to be transported over the night to keep the freshness intact.
2. SKS has 2 buses plying every night, one plying from Kerala to Bangalore and other one Bangalore to Kerala.
3. 20 Karnataka Government Buses ply every night: 10 from Bangalore and 10 from other States.
4. 9 Kerala Government Buses ply every night: 5 from Kerala and 4 from Bangalore.
5. 8 Tamil Nadu Government Buses ply every night: 5 from TN and 3 from Bangalore.
6. Thursday and Friday nights experience heavy interstate truck movements carrying Rice, Sugar and Vegetables.
7. Vegetable Trucks on Saturday from Manjari (Kerala) ply towards Hassan travelling in the night to reach morning Sunday market.
8. Trucks squeezed with 1000 of ducks/chickens travel in the night because that causes less stress for the birds and hence less number of deaths.
9. It is tough for the concerned authorities to check these trucks in the night, many travels in the night to avoid payment of Regular Marketing Committee and they can also skip checking of documents in the night.
10. When a road kill of wildlife happens, the guards are generally informed of this by the passing by vehicles. The guard checks the animal and calls the doctor. Postmortem is done and the body is either burned or buried (incase no wood available to burn it). Finally record the road kill in Majjir (we did not get this word; assume some kind of record book). It is very difficult to track the offenders.

Our vigil was called off in the morning. After breakfast and some photopgraphy, we headed to Gudalur to visit the farm of our fellow KANS member, Bala, called Jungle Home. After enjoying the hospitality, which included some delicacies made from jack-fruit and a tour of his resort and a round of horse-riding, we decided to leg it back to Bengaluru by around 3pm and reached home eventually by 11 pm after completing hard but satisfying ride of 725 kms over 2 days.

-
Laxmeesha Acharya
President
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society

Participants:
-------------
Soumyajit Nandy
Rakesh Gupta
Vasanth Kumar
Satish Pari
Sunil Gaikwad
Prakash Matada
Balamurugan

Bandipur Roadkills Campaign - 20/21 March 2009

As usual, the 6th Road Awareness Campaign a Bandipur was kick-started from Bangalore on Friday 20th March 2009. As per plan, all of us met near the Deve Gowda Petrol Station in Banashankari at 10pm. This 6th campaign had 3 new volunteers and the volunteers were as follows – Rakesh, Laxmeesha, Soumyajit, Satish, Vasanth, Ananth, Harish, Mani (first-time), Praveen (first-time) and Mohit (Praveen’s 7year old son). As compared to the previous campaigns, we had 5 bikes and 1 car (it is usually 1 or 2 cars).

We headed for the Mysore Road by 10:45pm and had a first tea-break soon. The next pit stop was at Kitty’s Punjabi Dhaba if I’m not wrong, close to Maddur. At the Dhaba, couple of the guys had a late dinner! After a long break, we started again and the next important pit-stop was Café Coffee Day Gundulpet.

Saturday morning started off with breakfast at Jungle Lodges Bandipur. Breakfast was confined to bread toast as other items had finished (we were actually late). Before heading for breakfast, we had our first sighting – a pack of 6 wild dogs, crossing the road not together but in different time intervals. After the wild dog sighting, we were in high spirits and hoped that we could meet “The King” soon!

Soon we started our work – pamphlet distribution and educating the drivers passing through the Kekanahalla check post. As always there were a few guys who thought these rules don’t apply to them, good listeners and a few appreciated the initiative taken by KANS. Lunch at Jungle Lodges soon followed (3 pm) and we were back at the check post by 4pm. At around 5pm a truck driver gave us a ray of hope – “Sir I have been driving on these roads for nearly 10 years but this is the first time I have seen a tiger and it crossed the road majestically”. His words really rejuvenated us as the location was less than half a km ahead from the check post.

Our brief period of joy was about to end. At around 5:40pm, there was a slight drizzle but the pamphlet distribution was going on. All of a sudden, a Maruti Omni (taxi) was speeding towards the check post and even as we lowered it to stop him, he hit the post and halted abruptly. Vasanth and Rakesh had a narrow miss as they were in his path. On closer inspection, the vehicle was already damaged before hitting the post and the driver was in real high spirits!! The impact caused the door to jam and we literally had to pull him out as he didn’t want to come out. The passengers told us “Sir we are going for a relatives death, please leave us”, but we firmly said no and told them that we would be handing over the driver and the van to the police. Meanwhile the forest guard Mr. Madhavappa took the driver to his room and give him a few slaps. The negotiations went on for some time and finally we decided to hand over the van and the driver to the police outpost at Bandipur Reception Center. As the Maruti VAN occupants were totally drunk, I drove the van accompanied by Guru, Vasanth and Mr. Madhavappa to the police outpost. Rakesh and other followed us in the car and bikes. After handing him over, we went to our room at MC Resorts and had our dinner.

At around 10pm we decided to go on a ride on the Ooty highway. Our first encounter was a female elephant and a calf just after crossing the check-post. Rakesh, Soumyajit, I, Ananth and Mani were in the car. Guru and Praveen were following us on a bike. Except for Rakesh and Mani, the others in the car were really sleepy and dozed off even before reaching Kekanahalla check-post. After Rakesh took a u-turn at the check-post, we woke up and were happy to head back to the resort as we were really tired. Just after some 5 minutes, we saw the first tiger crossing the highway at a distance – the feeling was just amazing. Immediately after stopping the car, we saw a second tiger cross and then a third one. Four tigers within a matter of 10 minutes (2 Males and 2 Females including one Alpha Male Tiger) – just sheer luck I guess! Finally our patience paid off with 6 sightings and two very close sightings. As they say sighting a tiger in a South Indian jungle is always special – it sure is!!

Sunday morning there was the usual safari from MC Resorts but a couple of us including me skipped it. After checking out, we had breakfast at Jungle Lodges and then proceeded towards Nugu Wildlife Sanctuary. We climbed a small hill and the bikers it was like off-roading as it was full of stones and loose sand. We could see Kabini far away and had to leave early as we had to be in Bangalore by 9pm. Our very late lunch was at Country Club Mysore (5pm) and after a good lunch, we hit the road back to Bangalore. Overall it was a very eventful trip – wild dogs, drunk driving and of course 4 tigers!!

-
Satish Pari
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society

Bandipur Roadkills Campaign - 21/22 March 2009

As usual, the 6th Road Awareness Campaign a Bandipur was kick-started from Bangalore on Friday 20th March 2009. As per plan, all of us met near the Deve Gowda Petrol Station in Banashankari at 10pm. This 6th campaign had 3 new volunteers and the volunteers were as follows – Rakesh, Laxmeesha, Soumyajit, Satish, Vasanth, Ananth, Guru, Harish, Mani (first-time), Praveen (first-time) and Mohit (Praveen’s 7year old son). As compared to the previous campaigns, we had 5 bikes and 1 car (it is usually 1 or 2 cars).

We headed for the Mysore Road by 10:45pm and had a first tea-break soon. The next pit stop was at Kitty’s Punjabi Dhaba if I’m not wrong, close to Maddur. At the Dhaba, couple of the guys had a late dinner! After a long break, we started again and the next important pit-stop was Café Coffee Day Gundulpet.

Saturday morning started off with breakfast at Jungle Lodges Bandipur. Breakfast was confined to bread toast as other items had finished (we were actually late). Before heading for breakfast, we had our first sighting – a pack of 6 wild dogs, crossing the road not together but in different time intervals. After the wild dog sighting, we were in high spirits and hoped that we could meet “The King” soon!

Soon we started our work – pamphlet distribution and educating the drivers passing through the Kekanahalla check post. As always there were a few guys who thought these rules don’t apply to them, good listeners and a few appreciated the initiative taken by KANS. Lunch at Jungle Lodges soon followed (3 pm) and we were back at the check post by 4pm. At around 5pm a truck driver gave us a ray of hope – “Sir I have been driving on these roads for nearly 10 years but this is the first time I have seen a tiger and it crossed the road majestically”. His words really rejuvenated us as the location was less than half a km ahead from the check post.

Our brief period of joy was about to end. At around 5:40pm, there was a slight drizzle but the pamphlet distribution was going on. All of a sudden, a Maruti Omni (taxi) was speeding towards the check post and even as we lowered it to stop him, he hit the post and halted abruptly. Vasanth and Rakesh had a narrow miss as they were in his path. On closer inspection, the vehicle was already damaged before hitting the post and the driver was in real high spirits!! The impact caused the door to jam and we literally had to pull him out as he didn’t want to come out. The passengers told us “Sir we are going for a relatives death, please leave us”, but we firmly said no and told them that we would be handing over the driver and the van to the police. Meanwhile the forest guard Mr. Madhavappa took the driver to his room and give him a few slaps. The negotiations went on for some time and finally we decided to hand over the van and the driver to the police outpost at Bandipur Reception Center. As the Maruti VAN occupants were totally drunk, I drove the van accompanied by Guru, Vasanth and Mr. Madhavappa to the police outpost. Rakesh and other followed us in the car and bikes. After handing him over, we went to our room at MC Resorts and had our dinner.

At around 10pm we decided to go on a ride on the Ooty highway. Our first encounter was a female elephant and a calf just after crossing the check-post. Rakesh, Soumyajit, I, Ananth and Mani were in the car. Guru and Praveen were following us on a bike. Except for Rakesh and Mani, the others in the car were really sleepy and dozed off even before reaching Kekanahalla check-post. After Rakesh took a u-turn at the check-post, we woke up and were happy to head back to the resort as we were really tired. Just after some 5 minutes, we saw the first tiger crossing the highway at a distance – the feeling was just amazing. Immediately after stopping the car, we saw a second tiger cross and then a third one. Four tigers within a matter of 10 minutes (2 Males and 2 Females including one Alpha Male Tiger) – just sheer luck I guess! Finally our patience paid off with 6 sightings and two very close sightings. As they say sighting a tiger in a South Indian jungle is always special – it sure is!!

Sunday morning there was the usual safari from MC Resorts but a couple of us including me skipped it. After checking out, we had breakfast at Jungle Lodges and then proceeded towards Nugu Wildlife Sanctuary. We climbed a small hill and the bikers it was like off-roading as it was full of stones and loose sand. We could see Kabini far away and had to leave early as we had to be in Bangalore by 9pm. Our very late lunch was at Country Club Mysore (5pm) and after a good lunch, we hit the road back to Bangalore. Overall it was a very eventful trip – wild dogs, drunk driving and of course 4 tigers!!

Group picture taken at Jungle Lodges. Starting from left to right the members are
* Praveen
* Rakesh
* Harish
* Mani (first-timer)
* Guru with Mohit (praveen's son)
* Vasanth
* Ananth
* Satish (me)
* Laxmeesha
* Soumyajit

By,
Satish Pari
Member
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society

Bandipur Roadkills campaign - 21 Dec 2008

Day: 21st December 2008
*Time: 4:15 AM*
Place: Gundulpet "Coffee Day"
2 Cappuccino's and one Assam tea were "washed down" the throat by 4 KANS
members to set the tone for the day. Saying bye-bye to sleep, we set off for
a long and fruitful day. (what a "relief" this one gave!)

*Time: 10:15 AM
*Place: Bandipura Check post (karnataka border)
Officer Names:Prakash, Satish and Chandu-- Trainee KANS Awareness officers
:) and Soumyajit (officer-in-charge)
Task: Stopping vehicles and educating people, while our almost Forest
officer look alike Soumyajit doing the vehicle "census"

Typical Dialogues:
"Excuse me sir/Mam , please drive slow, do not stop anywhere, do not get
down from the vehicle, and please do not honk, no music please"
*Time: 12:00 PM*
(The Probation completed Officers...)
Prakash: "Do you know at what speed you are driving?"
Driver: "No sir, I think 20-30 (in fact he is drining at 50+)"
Prakash: "Do you know what is the speed you are supposed to drive?"
Driver: "No Sir!"
Prakash: "40, you should not cross it and no honking, no music .. go..

On the other end..Satish handling things for KL, TN (the registration
numbers)- "There can be elephants in the forest, don't stop sir. "

Chandu: "Forest department rule says the maximum permitted speed is 40 kms,
do not let anyone, especially kids to get down.. Switch off the music till
you go out of the forest."

*Time: 4:00 PM
*Prakash:(no more questions)... "Oye maximum speed should be 40.., no
stopping , no honking...no getting down.. OK?? .. understood??
go..!"(annoyed with attitudes)

Satish: "There are elephants in the forest, be careful- this is for your
safety, they might attack you if you try to get down or do something silly."

Chandu: "No honking & over speeding, there is a squad few kms down the road
waiting to penalize, you better drive slow. "

~~~~~
Did you perceive the change in tone?? Blame not the amnesia! It came out
after witnessing the attitudes and lack of awareness in the people who drove
through jungle. We realized that just listing/reading the rule won't help
much, you have to show a bigger picture and we tried to sketch the same.
Let's switch over to few more things...

*Some "situations" we were "put in":
*1. One guy: "Sir, from where will the wild animals start ??" (you are in
the wrong place moron..Do you think all animals in the jungle queue up for
you to watch??)

2. Another fella:" Sir, is something happening in the jungle?Any wild life
movement "(what to say?? it happens everyday if only we allow it to happen)

3. (3 drunken fellas in an a/c maruti car):
Satish: "Sir, there might be elephants around, so don't stop,it's risky!!"
Feellas: "We can take care of elefant, no prrroblem, we will take
rishk..."(with half open eyes.... go get "crushed"- wish the jumbos are
around)

4. Few people carried their big egos along, and one impatient fella who had
no time to listen drove over my toes and another one was about to crash into
Satish.(beasts in the forest!!!)

5.Some tourists: "..Oh we know it, we are from Coonoor!"- Another guy-"I
know, I am from Ooty!!"....(Does that make any difference??)

6. One cab Driver: "Sir, I have been driving on these road from past 6
years, but no body told me about these rules !!? "(no surprise, that's why
we are here!)

7. A bunch of guys were stopping on the road in the mid of the forest-
drinking and driving at 4 pm!! But when the forester checked their cars,
they managed to hide all bottles!! (is that what we call "bar-car-di?"?)

8. "Why should we switch off the music???(oops the animals can't understand!
somebody forgot commonsense back at home)..... Where can we see animals??"
(go to zoo man, there is no sighting-guaranteed scheme out there!!)

9. Few people are too generous to offer us money even before we start
explaining things- assuming we are guards creating a "situation"
there.(Corruption, tell me d place u haven't been..!) Couple others promptly
came down with RC book and license!! :)
10. After packing off for the day, on our way back, close to the bandipur
reception, we spotted 2 guys drinking openly stopping their vehicle in the
middle of the forest. Sadly for them, we aborted their joy and made them
move out of the forest. (Is it time, we rename the forest to
B(r)andi-pur???)

*Few appreciations:*
"You guys are doing a great job!!!... "
"I have a suggestion for you.... "
"Where are you based at? Can we have some details about KANS!?"
"Can we join KANS??"

The most surprising thing or rather one of the highlights-- We met a warm
and friendly young couple who happened to be family friends of Donald
Anderson.They told that Don is living in EJIPURA. They are very happy to
know about the group and told us that they would join our group and took
Soumyajit's contact numbers and yahoo group URL. Let's hope something would
materialize soon!!

~~~
Hope, that sums up quickly how we dealt with people and their attitudes.
Overall, it's fun talking to so many people (count must be 500 vehicles).
It's a good feeling to educate people. We had a great time but we had our
share of irritating moments as well.But to witness the kind of ignorance
people displayed was appalling.

Drunken driving, over speeding, stopping, honking...we witnessed everything
that can be considered as "breaking the rule". But, What hurts me MORE is
NOT the ignorance of people-but the impatience, in sensitiveness and
attitude of the some of the so called educated class whom we interacted
with. Somebody tell them that the ego-filled, closed minds are not going to
help them !!

With the new year eve around, the drunken driving things is going to get
even worse! God save the wild. I wish we can suggest the DFO to deploy few
guards on the new year eve to check the drunken drivers. I am sure, a huge
"penalty" money is awaiting the Forest department which can be used for
other useful purposes(not sure where the money goes!)

Although we do not know how long the drivers and tourists remember the
guidelines, but now they at least know that there are few "guidelines" while
driving through the forest.

Kudos to our team -
*Prakash*- For driving most part of the journey with hardly one hour sleep
and the officer kindda look (shades+khaki shirt with half- folded
sleeves) that scared the hell out of few people out there!!(although
unintentional)

*Satish*- For coming down all the way from Chennai and sleeping in advance
on Friday evening to save energy for the program and handling Tamil and
Malayalam and for sharing the driving time!!

*Soumyajit*- Our officer-in-charge of the operation and who never showed
signs of fatigue and sleep despite of not sleeping the previous night and
did the vehicle count without a break!!

*Chandu- *For writing this report & clicking pics !:P

As we pass on the baton to the next group of volunteers, let me tell you-
Being a volunteer for this program is FUN with a little drama and
"surprises"(like the sighting of elephant and a calf we had) and you can
leave for home feeling better and ample reasons to smile!


Chandrasekar Bandi
Member
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society

Bandipur Roadkills campaign - Jan 2009

The Bandipur Reserve Resort Forest
(no offence meant for resort owners)

******
Hello all and welcome to the Bandipur Resort Forest. This is one of those few places where you feel like "being at home". We had lots of attractions lined up for you and trust me all those makes an amazing package!! Without boring you much, let me brief you all a little about the mind blowing facilities and attractions one can experience.

The Bandipur Tea:

If you are a tea lover, we bet you never heard about BANDIPUR tea?? Move aside ASSAM tea, Darjeeling tea, we have our own best branded BANDIPUR TEA. You can choose this as welcome drink and we know your inquisitive minds wish to know how to prepare it, hence to soothe you all, we will share the recipe too!!

1. Reach Bandipur forest with all your friends and family playing loud music and screaming.
2. Drive through the forest and when you feel you are in the middle.. stop!!, Yes stop in the middle of the forest where you can find THICK dried bamboo or dried grass
3. Make sure the place is dry and had all dry twigs and dead leaves around.
4. Collect some leaves, lit fire and make temporary stove, boil milk, add ingredients.
5. Leave your brains behind and don’t worry about wind or forest or a bed of dead leaves around ready to catch fire that can demolish the forest!

You can choose it as a “welcome drink”! Some people out there found it tastier!???

Monkey Massage

Then, as you proceed we have a NATUROPATHIC SPA with a little difference. It provides special refreshing massage and naturaopathic treatment, usually done by 2 masters we had in the resort, a Langur-dada and the Bonnet dada.
To experience the offer, you need to do the below.
1. Get down in the middle of the jungle
2. Carry some eatables be it namkeens or whatever you eat or about to throw into bins
3. Go closer to our experts and try feeding them!!
You would get a bite on your body (can be any place) that feeds in the "secret" ingredients that makes you run crazy and drives you into "musth" mood. Remember we are not responsible for the "hospitlization" charges if any that you need to incur due to the “side-affects" of our NATUROPATHIC SPA.

Other Attractions

If that was not enough, we have a “Drink-while-drive” scheme, where through out the “resort” you can throw your beer or any liquor bottles and drive at your “will” testing the limits of your speed-o-meter. Remember we are not responsible for any freaky accidents.

For the sake of devotional souls we have a "feed-d-animal" scheme where you can get down in the middle of the jungle and feed the chital and sambar around and feel that you are a "kind-hearted" and treat it as “alms”. We are not responsible if you feel guilty when you realize that one of them was killed because you disturbed their natural food habits and make them stay close to the road ending up as road kills!

For the "i-have-been-there-seen-there" kind of photo lovers, we had a scheme of CLICK-ANYWHERE where people can get down wherever they want in the forest and pose for photographs proving Darwin’s theory of "evolution" by reminding people that we still have our ancestors (read apes & chimps) traces in us, which comes out only during forest visits! But, we are not responsible for tusker attacks!

So, come visit us and feel refreshing!!!..

******
So, if you managed to read this till here, didn't you think at some point of time that I am insane and wrote rubbish and wondering what this article is about? But these appear to be the hidden rules of the forest as perceived by our public. People are treating it as a resort, but not national park!

Fun apart; let me tell you that we WITNESSED all those schemes that I detailed above during KANS-4th Road kill awareness campaign in BANDIPUR in JANUARY. The mindless tea makers, the stupid drunken drivers, the benevolent animal feeders who make the monkeys and langurs sit on road expecting every vehicle to be potential source of food. Some throw food at them, some of them pass it to their hand, others calls them up and offers, someone gets down and get closer and ends up being chased away.

At one moment we saw a line of 10 cars stopping in the middle of the forest and magnanimous people getting down and feeding and posing with chital!! What a stupidity!!? Now, don't blame the forest department! They are understaffed and overloaded. What can they do when the netas are not interested in taking care of them??

Again, don't blame the netas, after all, we are the one's who elected them. But hey, don't blame people completely. I feel it is partially because there is zero awareness and partially due to the "attitudes". Like what my friend quotes- when humans are least concerned about other humans around, how can one expect them to be sensitive towards animals? I would say chances are as good as spotting a 'native' tiger in Sariska! This is precisely the reason why we are trying to educate people about the behavioral ethics in the forest.

After stopping close to 10,000 vehicles and talking to more than 20,000 people over the past 4 months, we realized how badly our public needs this kind of education/awareness. With every campaign we are resolving ourselves to do it more often and with more vigor. It's not about which NGO do we belong, it's not about whether Kenneth Anderson wrote fiction or truth, it's not about who inspired us to head jungles... but all that matter to us is.. -What can we do to the precious precious jungles which gave us this air to breathe, the food we eat, the inexpressible joy we perceive...which is shared by any nature lover around the world be it Kenneth Anderson or Jim Corbett. All are a Band of brothers in this good world of conservation, taking different paths like the way we all are doing it on our own small ways! So let's pray and hope that our jungles are safer and our efforts are blessed!

A team of 12 volunteers joined the campaign in January delivering instructions in English, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Bengali. I am sure every one went back with a pool of memories and a well-lit inspiration to pass on the message to their friends and family as well. Someone sent their wife to home town to catch up time to volunteer, some one heeded nothing to parents concern of driving all night, Couple of guys drove all the way on the bike from Bangalore daring chilling cold skipping the sleep, Someone came from Chennai, Some came from close by place squeezing in whatever little time they had in between running their businesses. Someone came all the way from Kerala, someone made sure they did their bit before flying out of the country…. & the stories goes on..
Kudos to the spirit of the volunteers and finally someone is volunteering to make a trip report at almost midnight!(self-pat)

P.S: We thank the forest department officials, KANS committee, our volunteers and supporters. Also, special thanks to Sudhir Shivaram & Giri Cavale of INW ( www.indianaturewatch.net) for stopping by (or stopped!!? :) ) and passing their encouraging words beside showing us the precious 800 mm bazooka

Team:
Satish Pari Baskaran, Guruprasad Timmapur, Prakash Matada, Rajesh Mangat, J. Balamurugan, Arunava Das , Anantharaj MS, Soumyajit Nandy, Rakesh Gupta, Vasanth, Arun and ChandraSekhar Bandi


ChandraSekhar Bandi
Member
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society

Bandipur Roadkills campaign - 21/22 Feb 2009

The team reached the Kekanahalla Check Post around 10.00 AM on Saturday morning, before reaching the check post the team picked up two trespassers walking on the forest road without the knowledge of the unforeseen dangers. They were picked up and dropped in Bandipur Reception Center; they were also educated about the consequences. In between Bandipur and Kekanahalla we found few patches of land being burnt out due to forest fire.

After reaching the forest check post at Kekanahalla the team started distributing the pamphlets carried by Mr. Soumyajit and Mr. Rakesh Gupta, we also explained the vehicle drivers about the need for wild life conservation, Do’s and Don’ts while driving in the forest range. About 80% of the people the team stopped showed interest in the conservation of wild life, and approximately 10% of the drivers neglected and the rest 10% bluntly replied that they knew every thing and they were regular travelers. However, the team ensured that every vehicle passing through the check post were stopped and the sound systems in the vehicle were switched off and requested to drive their vehicle at a maximum of 40 km/hr speed. These activities continued till 7.15 PM and in that time span approximately 850 vehicles passed through this check post.

After the dinner around 9.30 PM the team set out for a patrolling in two cars up to Gudalur. On the way we sighted two groups of Gaurs and few spotted deer and Sambar deer. This went up to 1.00 AM midnight. (Note: Mr. Soumyajit and Mr. Rajesh spotted Leopard in the bush which others could not). We also noticed forest fire was blazing on top of a hill, on the way to Mangla village.

On day two we set out for a safari ride around 6.50 AM we found many fresh tracks of Tiger and Leopard, its seems to be lot of activities that has happened the previous night, we also visited one of the Anti Poaching Camp (APC) and spoke to the Watchers, we understood from them that there was a need for drinking water and sanitary facility, we also observed a dried well, which on pumped could not let out anything other that hot air. If this is the situation for the watchers, imagine for the wild animals it is really pathetic, tears welled in our eyes without our knowledge. We could see nothing but the burned vegetation. The green has turned into black ash, water holes had dried up expect for very few still left with some amount of water. I hope this could provide some life to the wild animals till the next monsoon.


With this pain we came out to Pugmark, Jungle Lodges and Resorts for breakfast. Then the team moved towards Gopalswamy Hills, the way was very painful, the destruction of the forest fire was un-imaginable as it has washed away the heritage of the green lands. From the top of the hill deep in the valley we could see fire erupting like a volcano, the smoke was reaching the sky looking like a bridge between the land and the sky. The fire was very huge and was spreading quickly. We could see it was burning away the landscape within hours. We felt helpless and could do nothing against it, and kept watching. The fire was spreading from both the sides destroying the valley. We could also spotted two small patches of smokes just starting up the fire on the other side of the hill. The Forest Guards in Gopalswamy Hill didn’t seem to be much interested in that, we were not sure whether he had informed the department about the fire. Also we could not understand their intentions, like whether he was deliberately neglecting or felt the same helpless like what we felt.

On the hill, we understood that there were been movement of wild life prior to the destruction of the forest fire. We were able to trace foot prints and scats of gaur, elephant, deer, leopard and tiger.

At last we decided to leave the hill around 1.00 PM with the heart full of nothing but the pain.

However this camp was successful in bringing in awareness of Wild life Conservation among the public passing through the sanctuary. Photographs of the forest fire have been taken as a proof.

Team : Soumyajit, Rakesh Gupta, Harish, Ananth, Vasanth, Satish Pari, Dr Rajesh, Bala, Dr Paul, Tarun Paul, Divyan Paul and Prince Rahul.

Number of vehicles/pamphlets distributed: 825

Pics at 5th Bandipur Campaign

Harish Kumar S
Volunteer
Kenneth Anderson Nature Society