Standing tall: The hardground barasingha

Kanha National Park, Mandla district, Madhya Pradesh

The Kanha National Park is spread over Mandla and Balaghat districts with the Mukki range in Balaghat district being one of the homes for the rare hardground Barasingha (Cervus duvauceli branderi) with the swamp dwelling barasingha (Cervus duvauceli) being found in Terai, Uttar Pradesh and Assam. Besides Kanha National Park, the hardground species is not found anywhere else. The best place to see the swamp barasingha is the Dudhwa National Park, put up by Billy Arjan Singh in U.P.

At one point of time in the 1970s, the number of hardground barasingha had dropped to 66, going by an article, Hardground Barasingha, written by Kishor Rithe in Sanctuary dated October 2005. Today, the number of barasinghas is put at slightly over 300 and is thought to be a viable population.

After a 25-km run to Mukki range from Kanha, Ganesh and this writer, hit the Bishanpura meadow, which impresses one with its quiet spread, rather more than the Kanha meadows. Tall, dry grass nod with the wind and at a distance one could see with the help of binoculars (also naked eyes) a barasingha family – a male, a female and a cub. One also noted, far away, a sizable herd of the animal.

We were keen on seeing the animal from near and our guide took us to Sounp Meadows, where again one spotted a male and a female together. The rutting season is on in the winter months and one heard the rutting call resembling “a shrill baying sound” as S.H. Prater puts it. However, the best viewing was the last, Friday morning drive into the Park. Motoring along at a slow pace in the Kanha meadows, we watched a male barasingha, looking comical with grass stuck at the top of its left antler. Taking dainty strides, the animal walked past our vehicle, waited for a few moments near the forest track, before crossing over followed by a second male, which had lost its antlers.

“There is a handsome grace in the animal,” remarked Giri and it seemed so. Kishor Rithe writes, “Barasingha have special habitat requirements. They feed on special grasses and enjoy aquatic plants found in and around water bodies on the hard grounds. Though their diet consists chiefly of grass, they also enjoy the tender leaves of sal and other trees. The presence of tall grass is essential to their breeding, as it provides shelter to pregnant females and protection for young fawns, from tigers, leopards and jackals.” Our guide told us wild dogs went after the animal as it was sluggish, and a tad dumb, mover.

Over the years, the park officials tried their best to alter the environment to lift the number of barasinghas. Kishor Rithe contends: “Though the efforts of most researchers and funding organisations came to naught, the barasingha eventually responded to that most simple of solutions – village resettlement, habitat regeneration and minimal forest management designed to keep meadows healthy and vibrant.”

Khageswar Nayak, who was the Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director, Kanha National Park, in his book Kanha: Glimpses of a Tiger Reserve, writes of a future plan to keep this animal going. “The Kanha meadows are anthropogenic – old sites of relocated villages and abandoned agricultural fields – and are in an arrested stage of succession. Besides, the meadows have become regressive due to the long history of annual early burning. These have resulted in the encroachment of grasslands by woody species such as Butea monosperma (Palas), Lagerstroemia parviflora (Lendia), Shorea robusta (Sal) and Diospyros melanoxylon (Tendu). ….Keeping this is view, the park management erects chain-link enclosures before monsoon in some portions of the grasslands that require this treatment and allows them to recuperate for a season or two until they grow rich in heterogenous species,” writes Nayak.

Today, the barasingha have moved from Kanha to Kisli, Mukki, Supkar and Bhaisanghat. One can hope to live with this fascinating animal, with its antlers dancing above the grass, for long into the future.

Surprisingly, the book of Nayak seems to have missed out on the rare white-backed vultures (Gyps bengalensis). We saw nine vultures a distance away from Shravan Tal – five in flight taking the thermals and four absorbing the sun atop a dried up tree. In the bright sunlight, they circled the air and on the turn one could spot the white back of theirs which while resting is hard to see.

There is a crash in the population of the white-backed vultures and the drug Diclofenac has been banned. Expert Rishad Naoroji in his book – Birds of Prey of the Indian Subcontinent – says most of the potential substitutes for Diclofenac hurt the kidneys of the vultures. He is in favour of captive breeding “to ensure viable populations for future reintroduction (into the wild).”

Rounding up the case for vultures, Rishad says: “At the time of this book going to print, permissions have not yet been granted for holding and captive-breeding facilities and capture of three species of vulture, despite the gravity of the situation. The MoE has shown itself to be completely impotent and this lack of effectiveness and bureaucratic indifference will be recorded by history.” Well, the way the script is running, every common bird of yesteryear, including the common house sparrow (Passer domesticus), could become uncommon.

P. Devarajan