Biodiversity survey at Jayamangali Blackbuck reserve: 6th and 7th August 2011

It was a long standing  job of updating the biodiversity assessment of Jayamangali Black buck reserve. Prasanna Kumar of WANC (Wildlife Aware Nature club) and his team from Tumkur had taken up the initiative of arranging the event. The first week-end of August was decided to be convenient for many volunteers.  

Participants arrived at Jayamangali Forest Guest house in two batches on the 6^th Aug.

 By noon they were all in the field in small teams. Gundappa, Prasanna and Murthy lead the teams in different directions collecting plant specimen. Thejasvi, Guruprasad and Prithvi were photographing plants and the black buck. Manu stayed back at the base trying to place some of the already collected specimen. By lunch time the entire hall was filled with green leaves. Herbs, shrubs and grasses were all separately cataloged and tabulated. During the post lunch session the teams took newer transects and repeated the exercise. Specimens of the grass family were preserved in a herbarium for detailed identification.

Arranging plant specimen onto herbarium sheets.

  Arranging plant specimen onto herbarium sheets-2.  

In the night there were discussions regarding the conservation of blackbucks and Man Animal conflict in the region. Discussions were also regarding the increased conflict with the Sloth bear even in the district of Tumkur. Manu shared his observation and experiences of his friends working with Sloth bear conservation at Daroji in Bellary District.  He held a consultation about the Education materials useful in carrying out conservation of Sloth bears that he was developing with the local NGOs at Hospet.

The following day the teams were more relaxed as most of the work with regards to plants was over and took to bird watching. There were a bunch of school kids who had come on their bicycles all the way from Puruvara some ten kilometers away. Having given up cycling for long the task of pedaling up the pebbly dirt road appeared too tedious for us. But to any body’s astonishment there were only half the number of bicycles as compared to the number of boys. This meant that there was at least more than one rider for each of the bicycle. Two of the tyres had already gone flat. Our first question to them was what brought them here? Do they regularly use this place for recreation? The answer was really rewarding. It was their maiden venture. A shy boy tucking his head upon his shoulder affirmed that he was instigated by the black buck team that had come to their school.

We exchanged some goodies with them and sat them through for an interaction. They revealed a lot of issues pertaining to their daily lives and all the animals they come across in their routine. Murthy, Prasanna and Gunndappa kept on quizzing them to get some hint on the probable existence of poaching in the locality. But the innocent kids were indeed truthful and there didn’t seem to be any instances of poaching of black bucks.

Murthy and Mohan Rengan set out to nearby village to have some interaction with the local community. They had been to a nearby village and come back shocked at the state of the farmers. It seems that the villagers were all perturbed by the entry of their car into the village thinking that some Forest officials had come to conduct some enquiry.  But gradually they developed confidence and opened up.

Murthy who spoke to the villagers at length had noticed some great difference in the same characters that he had spoken to over a decade and a half ago. They had suffered a lot in their agricultural efforts in the recent past and had lost the ‘not at all bothered’ attitude about the black bucks. Every body appeared to be aware of the importance of wildlife and conservation but in the depth of their hearts they had something else to say. They were all thoroughly frustrated by the concurrent loss that they had undergone because of the black bucks. The repeated and varied approach to the Forest department had left behind disillusion and had made them feel that their battle was over. The apathy of the higher ups in the department was said to be because of the undecided state of the protected area. The blackbucks had ruined their lives.

The issue became a topic of debate for the rest of the day. After a post lunch game ride outside the sanctuary the teams set out on their journeys back home.

List of participants-

TVN Murthy , Prasanna Kumar D R, Gundappa B V, Mohen Rengan, Kumar, Mahesh, Hemanth, Guruprasad, Manu K, Prithvi K, Shankar Narayana. KP, Thejaswi Munishankerappa and Harish.