NEWSLETTER
OF THE GHARIAL MULTI-TASK FORCE – Number
Much has transpired since
the circulation of the last newsletter in September
and below is a summary of the main activities of the
GMTF.
1. Gavialis Website --
Much delayed, the website is now undergoing final fine
tuning and we should have it online shortly. Apologies from the undersigned for
not getting this vital function of the Task Force going sooner.
2. Gharial Conservation Coordinator --
Initial optimism on finding the right
person for the job in
someone out of our population of over a billion. We are in the process of
screening several applicants and hopefully we will have someone on board soon.
One reason why things are not moving as fast as we’d like them to is the lack
of a fulltime coordinator.
International
GCCs are: Colin Stevenson/Rene Hedegaard for
for
and awareness
raising in their respective regions.
3.
/span> River Watch Workshop -- Originally
conceived as a gharial workshop,
the scope of the meeting, jointly organized by
Jiwaji University (and hosted by
them in Gwalior) November 28th – 30th, GMTF,
WWF-India (who have kindly agreed to
fund the meeting) and the Madhya Pradesh
Forest Department, is: “Conservation and
Management of Aquatic Animals”. We are aiming toward the realization of a
coalition
of like-minded individuals and agencies both within the Government
and out, all
working toward the same goals of river
conservation for sustainable livelihoods
and guaranteed protection of river fauna. For more
details you may contact me or
RJ Rao.
4. Projects/funding -- Gharial conservation work that most
urgently needs funding
will be deliberated at the meeting of the GMTF Core
Group on 30th November in
Gwalior,
following the River Watch Workshop based on our Action Plan under formulation.
Already identified areas of support could be for:
1. Short, hard-hitting
conservation film on the gharial
crisis with a wide target
audience
2. Conservation oriented research projects (for example: the fate
of annual hatchling
production and head-started gharial (the monsoonal ‘flush
effect’),identifying
essential environmental requirements
for gharial survival, future impacts of river
development projects on gharial
survival).
3. Equipment requirements of field workers (boats, binoculars, GPS
etc).
4. Mapping of gharial nesting, basking and feeding areas and collation
of river
information (fisheries, irrigation projects, presence of other
endangered species
etc etc) in key gharial habitats.
5. Uplisting the gharial to Critically Endangered -- The document is ready to submit
to the Species Survival Commission of the IUCN for consideration which will be done
shortly by CSG Chairman Grahame Webb.
6. GMTF Core Group – The Core Group
consists of 11 members, at this time all from
members of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust Administrative Committee, which holds the
financial responsibility for GMTF. GMTF members are urged to communicate with the
Core Group with suggestions and comments to help gharial conservation efforts.
The list of Core Group members is below:
B. C.
Choudhury (bcc@wii.gov.in)
Dhruvajyoti Basu (dhrubasu@rediffmail.com)
G.Dattatri (shekar.dattatri@gmail.com)
Goutam Narayan (goutam.narayan@gmail.com)
Harry
Andrews (mcbtindia@vsnl.net)
Lala A. K. Singh (laksingh2005@yahoo.co.in)
Nikhil Whitaker (nikhil.whitaker@gmail.com)
R.J. Rao (soszool@rediffmail.com)
Raj Gupta (rajgupta@milesworth.com)
R.K. Sharma
(rksharma_ncs@yahoo.com)
Rom
Whitaker (kingcobra@gmail.com)
7. More agencies and individuals on board for
gharial/river conservation – The
undersigned went to
WWF India to solidify their involvement
in the River Watch programme.
the WWF commitment by offering to support the Gwalior
Workshop and discussions with
Goutam Parikshit (WWF Freshwater Program) and Sandeep
Behera (Ganges River
Dolphin Project) set the stage for an ongoing collaboration with GMTF.
Tigerwatch, the NGO headed
by Fatehsingh Rathore,
ex-Warden of the Ranthambhor Tiger
Reserve (part of which borders the
their long expertise in enforcement and people’s
participatory activities.
We are also pleased to report that support from the eco-tourism
sector is growing.
Manju Barua
of Wildgrass,
of your survey team if and when they transit through
Kaziranga.” And following this
his partner Ranjit Barthakur writes that the
offer to stay at Kaziranga “can be
extended to Wild Mahseer,
Balipara, which is probably closer to the dolphin
point
at Tezpur. In terms of field workers etc we
look forward to supporting you and extend
our ground and river facilities based
on Manju's advice.”
Others we need to induct are NGOs and persons involved in social
uplift, alternative
livelihoods, fuel/food/fodder programmes,
fisheries and other, sometimes indirectly
connected disciplines relevant to river conservation issues.
Suggestions are
urgently needed. Tell us if you know of good people/agencies whom
we
can work with.
8. Media/Publicity/Awareness/Education/Fund-raising
– Check out the following link
for the article ‘Gharial on the Brink’ by RW and
JL in the leading national
newspaper ‘The Hindu’ of
http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/10/08/stories/2006100800260700.htm
If you would like a hard copy of this article (Xerox) for
publicity purposes write
to the undersigned.
‘Sanctuary
October issue called “Gharials, Going…Going…Gone?” Again, if you need a hard copy
let me know.
Our scanner is down at the moment but we can send one by snail mail.
The Centre for Science
and Environment (CSE),
carrying a cover story on the gharial crisis in their magazine ‘Down to
Earth’ very soon.
Film
on the gharial crisis. Well known wildlife film-maker Shekar Dattatri has kindly
agreed to work with us on producing a short, hard-hitting film to highlight the plight
of the gharial, river problems and possible solutions. We have already begun
with a
recent trip to one of the three last breeding sites in
(see below) and he will be with us in
River Watch Workshop.
Well known artist and cartoonist (formerly with CSE), Rustam Vania has
agreed to help
develop a gharial cartoon character which can be used on the
website and in other
media.
We still need to develop
an effective education campaign and need inputs from
knowledgeable people
in this sphere. Radio, TV and local school programmes
are all
effective avenues that need to exploited but
help is needed, especially in local
languages. Volunteers to the front please!!
Kent Vliet writes: “I am happy to host
anything at my new domain Crocodylia.com
for
the gharial group if that is helpful”. We have a similar standing offer
from Adam
Britton and his well used domain crocodilian.com.
Wayne Hill, organizer of one of the biggest annual reptile expos
in the world (if not
the biggest!) at Daytona Beach Florida has kindly agreed
to have Gharial
Conservation be the recipient of the proceeds from their
auction in the 2008 Daytona
Reptile Expo.
This auction could net $15,000 or more and Bill Ziegler suggested we
get a good
gharial carving made to put up on auction there. Other ideas welcome, we
have plenty of time to prepare for it.
Firoz Ahmed circulated an article
on the gharial titled: “Extinction Cloud
Looms on
Gharial” from the Northeast Page of the Telegraph (
daily in
it is all grist for the mill.
Sandeep Behera
(
coverage of the
Please see the links below: A
news Channel CNN-IBN
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/26243/bachchan-girl-out-to-save-dolphins.html#
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/26516/dolphins-die-as-the-ganga-chokes.html
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/26587/the-gangotri-glacier-is-shrinking.html
This was sent to GMTF on 15 October from Europe GCC Colin
Stevenson:
Hi, all.
Good news from
DGHT's AG Krokodile - a
German crocodilian group from their huge herpetological society - will be
exhibiting and
promoting information on the gharial crisis at
in the world.
They will also be doing fundraising for the gharial.
This is great news, and thanks to Ralf for passing this on!
Take care,
Colin
And this from Eddy Even on 21
October:
Dear All,
The fundraising is
Florian and I ( and Ralf and
others) are members of the AG-krokodile, but will
raise the money on behalf of the
Gharial Multi-Task Force.
Florian Haselbach is very active on this, and a considerable
amount of money is already promised to him. I want to
introduce him to this
group.
The link is:
http://www.terraristikahamm.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=46&lang=de
Regards, Eddy
9. News: bad and
not so bad – The news from
river fauna and people’s lives on our side of the border would be catastrophic.
But more imminent is the proposal by Oil India Limited to conduct seismic surveys
using dynamite along
the
gharial expert on the team and Abdul Wakid, Programme Leader of the Gangetic
Dolphin Research & Conservation Programme, Aaranyak in
in trying to
stop the survey. Unfortunately, oil exploration is somehow viewed like
a sacred
undertaking by the Government and it looks like it will go ahead anyway.
This
is what Abdul Wakid wrote for the Public Hearing on
October 30th:
“Since the EIA (which was completed
by Guwahati University) was a rapid assessment;
therefore, we are
demanding that you (Oil India Ltd) initiate a new and
comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment with special
attention to the
possible impact of the seismic survey on the Gangetic
dolphins and their habitats through an appropriate
dolphin specialist in
conjunction with a
local dolphin expert and conservationist team. Stop the seismic survey until
that
rigorous EIA is completed.”
Elsewhere, in an
interesting development, five adult gharial suddenly
showed up in
October 2006 on the banks of the Torsha River in West Bengal “causing panic among
villagers living along
the river”. At present we are trying to get more details such
as whether an
adult male is among the group and whether there is any suitable habitat
there
in which gharial could survive. Check this link:
Page url: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061010/asp/siliguri/story_6850103.asp
Last month we all
read that Orissa was planning to
release surplus gharial from
from members that this activity should be deferred until the
causes of the
99.98% loss of previously released gharial in that river are
positively
identified and mitigated. CSG Chairman Grahame
Webb sent a representation to
the PCCF Wildlife, Orissa and the latest
information indicates that the releases
will not be made just yet. We now know
that hatching, rearing and releasing
gharial is the easy part; guaranteeing
survival of a reasonable number is now the
challenge.
10. Gharial conservation outside India -- With the sad loss of GMTF member Tirtha
Maskey in the tragic
chopper crash in Nepal the Core
Group is presently
unrepresented in that country.
Ahmed Khan in
results of surveys there for possible
reintroduction sites.
Kimzang Namgay,
CEO of WWF Bhutan has expressed his
interest in collaborating with
GMTF on surveys in that (mostly) mountain
kingdom. Sangay Wangchuk,
head of the
Nature Conservation Division, Department of Forestry Services,
agreed to join GMTF and is currently checking the security situation in the
southern areas of
Recently M.I. Zuberi, of Rajshahi University in Bangladesh expressed his
and his
colleagues’ willingness to start gharial surveys and conservation work
in his
area of the
Nothing from
there is still chance of some suitable gharial habitat there.
11. Zoos with
Gharial – This
from Colin: “I've checked the online database of
listing for
institutions.
Total of 8.16.2
listed on
Obviously Indian zoos are not contributing data to
India
in the country. The
zoo in
However, D. Basu tells us
that there are XXX gharial being reared at the Kukkrail
Gharial Centre near
Zoos with gharial and zoos that want gharial are all good
candidates for support
to the GMTF. The CZA is giving us a list of Indian zoos
and we would appreciate a
list of the 8
12. Notes from the field – The undersigned
made a four day visit to Katerniaghat
Wildlife
Sanctuary in northern Uttar Pradesh State (one of the last three gharial
breeding sites in India), along with Janaki Lenin and
Bill Zeigler. A note on
the gharial survey we did in the
preparation but we thought you might like a peek at the summarized
findings:
A total of 58 gharial were counted (with an estimated 20 more
not seen but secondary
evidence such as tracks observed) between the boat landing at Katerniaghat upriver
to
Patharana Phanta with the
following breakdown:
Adult females (including an unknown number of subadult males): 25
Subadult males (with small,
developing gharas) : 2
Adult males (with large gharas) :
11
Juveniles and subadults :
19
Hatchling/yearlings : 1
What is interesting (and
unfortunately predictable) is the almost total absence
(only one observed) of
any of this year’s estimated 500 to 700 hatchlings
resulting from the 18
counted nests (at 30 to 40 per nest).
Similarly, there
were very few gharial (only
eleven) in the size class of those 168 released in
the Girwa
in Jan/Feb 2006.
We had useful discussions
with the Warden, Mr. Ramesh Pandey
and the Ranger,
Mr. Manoj Shukla
as well as with boatmen Ram Roop and Sowai about threats to the
gharial (mainly fishing and the
downstream barrage operated by the Irrigation
Department) and what can be done
to mitigate them.
The high number of adult
males is also very significant, probably the highest
density recorded in any
survey of the species, especially considering the optimum
gharial habitat here
in the Girwa in only about 5kms. The number of adult
females
is consistent with recent surveys by V.P. Singh and D. Basu. We also counted 7
we have been discussing the possibility of starting
‘Gharial Tours’ there for fund
raising.
Next
Time
Our next Newsletter will
report on the deliberations at the River Watch Workshop.
Members are invited to
send bits and pieces of relevant gharial information,
news and opinions which
we will try to accommodate in future Newsletters.
Keep
it rolling!
Rom
kingcobra@gmail.com