Workshops at the schools of Mandya District

Govt. High School, Katteri, Pandavapura Taluk.

Date : 01-07-2011

            This day marked the beginning of the series of workshops to be carried out over five districts. The event was inaugurated by Mr. Kempugowda, member of Zillapanchayat, Mandya and long standing leader of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha. In attendance were Mr. Thimmegowda, Head Master and his staff. Mr. Kempugowda appreciated the idea of sensitizing the rural children about local environmental issues and mentioned how both the central and state governments had identified lakhs of Acres of agricultural lands for establishment of Special Economic Zones and questioned how could farmers survive in the leftover land and share it with wildlife. Such policies are detrimental to wildlife as well as farmers, If we need to protect wildlife it is not just the farmers who have to sacrifice, the urban riches need to cut down their consumption he said.

            Soon after the registration and pre-test the students were taken through a slide show in which Mr. Kumar enumerated the story of blackbucks. After a small break the students were shown a film on grasslands. With intermediate stops he explained the issue in local language to make the show meaningful. Until lunch time questions by the students were duly answered. 

Kumar addressing the children about Blackbucks.

            In the post lunch session Mr. Manu involved the students in nature games. The resource materials were distributed and the students were grouped in dozens and encouraged to inspect the materials and have group discussions. Each group was assigned with a topic for which they found substance in the materials provided. A few students presented their learning during the valedictory function.

Govt High School, Jakkanahalli, Pandavapura tq, Mandya Dist.

  Date : 01-07-2011

            It was a small informal function in the school where Mr. Mohan Kumar, Science teacher invited and introduced us to the students. Around 100 Students were chosen for the daylong workshop who were pooled in from all three classes in the high school.  Sri. Kamalesh, Head master of the school addressed the gathering and said how lucky the students were to have such a workshop in their school.

            We started off with a pre-test questionnaire and the 100 students were split in to two batches. While the 1^st batch had slide show the other batch was engaged in outdoor activities, Mr. P. Hemanth conducted the outdoor activities. Mr. Mahesh gave the slide show on Grasslands, Blackbuck and its co habitants. He gave every bit of information to the students and clarified their doubts after the show. 

Mahesh giving a slideshow on Blackbucks.

The outdoor activities were:

o  Playing ‘WHO AM I ?’ with names of particularly grassland species.

o  Learning to differentiate grass from a plant by observation.

o  To study the different species of grass in their campus through collection.

o  To study the blackbuck material and poster and list out different birds, carnivores, herbivores and reptiles mentioned in the booklet.

           

            In the post lunch session a film was shown alternately in two batches. Later a post-test questionnaire was given to the students. At the end of the day we thanked one another for the cooperation extended and before we parted blackbuck stickers and labels were distributed to students.

Students reading the Material.

Some Documentaries on grasslands and Black buck.

In our pursuit of putting together some useful documentaries about black bucks we scanned hundreds of them.  Our intention was to learn more about the species and of course to use them in schools to communicate with children. 

i.           Human planet part-6: Grasslands-the roots of power

        Production: BBC   English : 58 mins

Human Planet is a 8 part documentary series produced by the BBC and narrated by John Hurt. The 6^th episode is a brilliant piece on Grassland and an eye opener about how Grasslands paved the destiny of Mankind and his survival that still clings on to them. It describes several rare stories never filmed before but will happen in the grassland ecosystem almost every day. The story of the tribal boys who are guided by the honey guide to a bee hive, the Kuruve hunters who track their prey for weeks to run them out to make the kill or the Cambodian fisherman who takes his five year old boy to pick snakes from the Marsh are all fascinating. But the nail biting the Sequence is that of the Derabo tribe of the African Grassland who drive out a pride of Lions to pinch some flesh off a large kill is spell binding. 

A lion in the midst of a wildebeest herd.

Domestic cattle being herded.

Grassland ecosystem, unlike the Tropical rain forest is not in its climax and the grazers have evolved to keep them a young ecosystem forever. Together the grazers and grasslands thrive. Like all animals of Grassland we humans mastered the art of harvesting grass. We not only control the grass but  its consumers and their predators for our own benefits.

ii.           Land of the tiger part-4 Desert Kingdom

       Production: BBC    English :48 mins

This is a 5 part documentary series produced by BBC. Narrator Valmik Thapar takes you through a journey across the tiger habitats in the Indian subcontinent. The fourth episode, Desert Kingdom deals with the wildlife of arid zones of the tiger country and very vividly visualizes the symbiotic life of blackbucks and demoiselle cranes with certain tribes of north western India. The documentary is a good choice for classroom viewing especially while talking of blackbucks and grassland habitats. In the rare footage you can see the Indian grassland in its perfect shape without much of the invasive species in them. The shots of the black buck are taken in Velavadar and the specimen are strong, black and bigger in built than the their south Indian cousins.

 

A blackbuck pair in Velavadar.

iii.       Point calimere-Little Kingdom by the Coast

Production: Shekher Dattatri              English : 30 mins

                This is a short documentary done by seasoned wildlife maker Shekar Dattatri for the Forest Department of Tamilnadu. It is a brilliant video showcasing of the vivid life forms of Point Calimere, the tiny sanctuary situated in southern tip of India. The blackbucks here share habitats with many rare creatures- the feral ponies, colourful crabs and migratory birds.  Being on the sea shore it attracts thousands of migratory birds and breeding turtles. Small patches of open scrub adjacent to the beach houses fairly good number of blackbucks.  There are some rare footages of the way blackbucks survive against the onslaught of domestic cows, competing feral horses and marauding dogs. In 2002 the swamps around Point Calimere were declared a Ramsar Site, a designation given to wetlands of international significance. Over a hundred species of migratory water birds visit these swamps in winter, but over the years their populations have been declining. Point Calimere. Little Kingdom by the Coast offers a glimpse into this remarkable ecosystem and the problems that confront it.

Field Testing the Education Material

It was the month of June and Environment was the catch word of the public. Hot debates and discussions about the environmental issues of our PLANET EARTH were on a high because of the World Environment Day celebrated on June 5^th. This is the only time when people talk about Environmental status of the PLANET EARTH. Politicians and the press focus upon the Environment and feel sorry for the Health of the Planet. In order to show their concern a whole range of activities are undertaken by the government and the public. A lot of them are merely verbal and without anything materializing at the end. Various contests for the children like painting, elocution and quiz are the commonest.

Occasionally we come across people perceiving something different. Our friend Satish of Kadashettyhalli had a different plan altogether. Being an elected representative of the Kadaba Gramapanchayat in Gubbi Taluk of Tumkur District, he had initiated a Biodiversity Monitoring committee in his Panchyat, a feat carried out only by a couple of Gramapanchayath in the country. Manu and Hemanth were also involved in the process and had conducted a workshop for the Teachers. They had formed about twenty school biodiversity clubs with the limits of the Panchayath which were supposed to be serviced by the Mysore Amateur Naturalists on a bi- monthly basis. The Program was sponsored by the Biodiversity Board of the State and Satish was looking forward to rope in the Karnataka State Pollution control board (KSPCB) in the year's World Environment Day celebrations. With some discussions we hammered out a joint venture to make the week long celebrations colorful and spread out. 

 A week long Environmental Awareness Campaign was held for the entire cluster of Govt. schools in the Kadaba Grama Panchayat limits. Manu and Hemanth were part of the campaign and went there as resource persons for the campaign.  Manu suggested utilizing this golden opportunity to field test our material. We immediately agreed upon the suggestion since there was very little time left time for us to carry out the Black buck Education program.  Kumar & Mahesh who were the principal investigators joined the team the very next day.

For six days between the 5^th and 11^th June there was a festive mood in the schools. As we travelled from school to school conducting education programs, the Mobile unit of the KSPCB too came, anchoring itself in the school compound or any suitable place within the village. The huge white bus with colorful paintings all over attracted the entire village to the school premises. The village folk really were eager to see the elephant in the Bus! Someone had spread a rumor that the bus had an elephant calf that strayed into Mysore city recently. There were some onlookers who even thought it must be some beneficial scheme of the Government that intended to distribute some thing to the public free of cost. 

A PCB Staff explaining about alternate fuels.

The Extendable side walls were opened and the staff of the KSPCB had to stand beside to explain that there were no elephants on the bus nor were they in the village to distribute anything.  They had a tough time in explaining the themes show cased on the bus. There was the fuel issue, water issue and the Mining issues.

Kumar delebrating about the Black bucks.

Kumar and Mahesh made use of this unique opportunity to field test the material generated. They had the privilege of two batches of fifty students each with whom they spent a whole day.  The workshops were conducted in two batches at the Gramapanchayath office Auditorium at Kadaba. The slide show, booklet and suggested activities were all tested and they did show the expected results. However the interaction with the students enabled us to rectify some colloquial terms and the font sizes in the material which otherwise would have posed glitches. 

Hemanth conducting an awareness game.

Manu exchanging stories with kids.

Satish speaking to the children.

Getting dressed to meet the children

1. Teacher’s Manual

    As decided in the workshop at Tumkur, articles from various writers were collected. Some of them had to be translated into Kannada. The proposed manual was a ready reckoner for teachers who would be interacting with students after the workshop. It contained a lot of information about blackbuck- its morphology, demography and ecology in the most basic of languages. The target group was teachers from high schools. As there is no educational material readily available on blackbucks and Grasslands it is evident that they are not in a strong position to handle the issue. Neither did their school libraries have relevant books nor had they heard about the possibility of incorporating such issues into the curriculum. As a result we had to concentrate on simplifying the issues and make them usable in classroom teachings.

    Contribution from Mr. Prasanna suggested activities that are handy for both indoor and out door sessions. Some the activities like ‘Web of life’ and ‘Who am I? ’ could be directly linked to grassland issue. A few of the activities had very particular outcome but the local situations would not easily permit the activities in a day’s workshop. Yet the activities like the skit, biodiversity assessment ‘Fish in the pond’ were all incorporated into the manual as suggested activities.

2. Booklet for students

    In fact the greatest challenge in getting this booklet done was its simplicity in terms of words and design. We had to undergo a couple of rewritings simplifying the words in every round. Reducing the size of the text without curtailing information was our first emphasis. The illustrations of blackbucks by Mr. Vinayaka gave life to the booklet. Though the initial idea was to focus the booklet on blackbuck a lot of illustrations of its cohabitants got incorporated. Finally, fixing the right amount of text and relevant pictures on each of the pages became even more challenging and had to be carefully handled. 

Cover page of Student's booklet.

3. Poster for the students

    Students are known to be attached to a favorite picture in there formative years. May be a film star, a cricketer, ultra-modern automobile or in most cases a religious deity. In most of the cases children simply don’t have choices of a relevant picture of their own world. So we decided to come out with a colorful, almost realistic landscape design as a poster. Though the theme was blackbuck and its cohabitants the emphasis was upon grassland-upon which the local community thrived. While it was thought that the poster made a beautiful wall decorative in the study place of the student, it would also work as a reinforcing agent about its learning.

Poster-front.

Poster-back.

4. Sticker and labels

    A sticker was made with a simple photograph and a slogan that called to save the blackbuck. The book labels were kept at the very basic in its design concept. Very clear pictures of six grassland species in its up close mode were chosen. The pictures were placed on the left half of the label. Large space is given to the right where the student can write down the details. Names of particular animal were clearly mentioned below which would be very essential in making the animal popular among the students.

Labels.

Sticker.

Black Buck, Poachers and Innocents...

Tuesday, a busy day in my office. It was 2.30 in the afternoon. No lunch yet. There was a call from ACF Magadaiah to inform about a black Buck hunt in H.M.Kaval (Halu malledevara Kaval, 661 Acres) of Handanakera Hobli, Chikkanayakanahalli Taluk, Tumkur Dist, which is under his jurisdiction. He also informed us about the persons whom they have already taken into custody.  It was raining outside. I and Manohar started up quickly in my car. Manohar wanted to go in a 2 wheeler the reason being to reach the place inside the deep kaval area. And finally I was also afraid of the crowd in the village who came to protect the aarrested persons and decided to go by 2 wheeler. We started at 3, reached Doddaennegere gate which is about 40 kms of purely country road from Tiptur in just 35 minutes. We were welcomed by driver Nagaraj of forest department who was waiting for us at the gate. I was hungry. Had biscuits with a strong tea. We picked up Dr. Nagaraj, Veterinary doctor from Doddaennegere and continued our journey in forest dept. jeep to Kidakanahalli (Village) which is about 8 kms from there, where the persons have been held. We reached the village and we were shocked to see the crowd. 

I entered the house with RFO Nanjundappa , Forester Krishna Naik (both from Chikkanayakanahalli range) along with camera in my hand. I never saw such a scene before. I was shocked to see the head of a young Black Buck aged about 10 years separated from its body. The carcass of the animal was hanging from the top. The front legs were cut into half and lying dead. Eyes watered for a moment. Captured the scene. Then the carcass was taken to the kaval area for further process. Post mortem was done in the kaval area. We took the culprits to the place where he found the body. RFO Nanjundappa started questioning  Ramanaik on the spot. ACF, me and manohar started questioning  Ganganaika (Ramanaika’s father in law) a few yards away.  Finally we tallied both of their statements. Which was true. Post mortem was finished by that time and Dr. Nagaraj said it was shot by a country rifle at around 8pm on Monday night. We saw the shot on the right front part of the animal. 

Ramanaika & Ganganaika with the carcass.

The story goes on like this as said by Ramanaika and Ganganaika : One Ramanaika saw the carcass, around 8 am on Tuesday a portion of which had been eaten by foxes, lying beside road, where he has to travel to his place through the kaval area. He informed his father-in-law Ganganaika. The duo had taken the carcass to their house and were peeling the skin out to consume the meat. On a tip off watcher Girish and Umapati informed higher officials and raided the house and took them into custody.

From the post mortem report we came to conclusion that the poachers had shot the animal by a country-made rifle on Monday night at about 8pm but failed to take it to their possession, as the injured animal had run away into the forest in dark leaving behind the culprits. The animal died around 12 midnight.  And the persons who have taken into custody seem to be innocents as they have taken the carcass to consume it. 

Blackbuck head severed from it's body.

Bullet wound.

Consuming an endangered animal is also an offence and hence forest dept. officials took them and produced before the Magistrate along with the carcass. Dept. officials are eagerly waiting to arrest the real culprits who are hunting in that sector.

Thanks to Girish (watcher) who managed to get the information and informed higher officials about the matter. And thanks to ACF Magadaiah, Tiptur , who gave us the field experiences and manohar who joined me.

Entry wound seen on the skin.

Shrikanth and others at the scene.

Article contributed by Shrikanth Tiptur, Mythreya trust.

Joining Hands for a cause

A Two days workshop was conducted at Tumkur on the 28^th January 2011 where experts in the field of Environment Education and activists who had worked upon Black Buck conservation took part. Among the people who attended the Workshop were mainly NGOs from Tumkur and Mysore. 

The work shop was attended by T. V.N Murthy, Honorary Secretary and Founder member of one of the oldest Nature groups in Tumkur, D V Gundappa a teacher of National repute who has extensively worked to promote biodiversity studies in schools, D R Prasanna Kumar, a long standing Environment Educator who has worked with CEE and author of several education material and Mohan Rangan who teaches in TVS Academy School. All these persons were representing a three decade old organization called Wildlife Aware Nature club (WANC). They started it in their school days and kept on their interest in the field, nurturing hundreds of youngsters into good habits and responsible citizenry.

The members of WANC have the credit of bringing the grazing lands of Mydanahalli village into public attention.  They had identified those common lands to be a home for Blackbucks as early as 1994. We had very closely observed their persistent approaches with the Karnataka Forest Department to recognize the destination.  

 There were also representations from other groups from the district. Shrikanth of Mytreya Trust based in Tumkur who started to take up conservation issues since the past three years. Their focus is upon saving the grasslands around Tumkur. Satish Kadashetty halli  fights a battle of a sentential through Makkala Mane, was also present at the workshop. Satish worked from a small village near Kadaba and has set up an activity centre for children with a library of over a thousand books. He focuses Children’s theatre and conducts several workshops and productions every year. He also happened to be an elected representative of the Kadaba Grama panchayath of Tumkur district.

The plethora of experts appeared too big for a small job. But the discussions opened up a Pandora’s box of Conservation issues. Some of the younger members of our team got a first hand experience with their senior counterparts. Many participants in the workshop had withstood the testing times in their fields for over two decades and there was no dearth of ideas. The job of the coordinators Kumar and Mahesh was to keep the ideas within the limits of the budget.

On the first day a thorough brain storming was done upon the content of the Resource materials. The only guidelines were to reach out to the children of the local community and the available budget. A multitude of options were put forward about the package that was supposed to be designed for the capacity building of school teachers and  carry back material for children. Finally it was decided to come out with a 60 pages resource book for the teachers and volunteers who would involve in conducting the workshop and a kit on black buck that was meant for the students. All the materials were to be in simple Kannada and as picturesque as possible. The Hand book was to be sort of a ready reference about the issues concerned with Blackbuck-its biology, ecology and conservation issues. 

A brain storming session with seniors in the field.

In order to make the package comprehensive, various people were assigned to contribute articles on relevant subjects. Mr. Prasanna suggested a concept map upon which sharing of the responsibility was chalked out. While Mr. Gundappa was to write about the Human-Blackbuck conflict, Mr. Manu took up the issues of the habitat and co inhabitants. While Mr. Prasanna took up the responsibility of designing activities for the children, we the authors had to write about the life cycle of the black buck. Dr. H. N. Kumara who has done pioneering work on the estimation of Large Mammals of Karnataka agreed to prepare a chapter on the distribution of Blackbucks.

Ideas poured in- from making a key chain as a carry back memento to a wall calendar or a poster, and a pocket note book. The meeting ended with time frames for each of the participants to prepare a chapter for the proposed Resource book on Black buck in the local language.

With regards to the Students education material, it was decided that the authors would compile notes from the materials collected and prepare the Booklet. Their sole responsibility would be to accumulate data and present it in a child friendly manner. Mr. Vinayaka was referred to be invited as an artist to illustrate the publications. As part of the carry home material for children a set of six labels with pictures of co-habitants of Blackbuck and  a sticker with a picture of a typical blackbuck. An appealing slogan had to be copy written for the sticker.  A colorful poster of the grassland ecosystem represented by the animals found in Karnataka was to be designed and creatively produced. On the other side of the poster, it was decided more pictures and information were to be produced.

On the second day of the workshop members visited Jayamangali Blackbuck reserve and had a first hand experience about the grassland ecosystem. The team photographed the local natural history and spoke to the local community to find out what they felt about blackbuck and their conservation.

 

The team at a Lek in Mydenahalli.

A Lek at Mydenahalli.

Tawny eagle.

An adult male buck at Mydenahalli.

All photos in this post are by Guruprasad B.S.

On getting an approval

One fine afternoon, there was a call from some unknown number. As Kumar picked it up reluctantly, a strange voice from the other side asked is it Kumar-Mahesh? ‘Yes’.   Haven’t you checked your mail? Asked the concerned voice! ‘Oh please do it at once and give us your consent regarding the Small Grants.’ It was a call from ATREE enquiring about our consent to the acceptance of the proposal we had sent. To our astonishment, it was already four days since the mail had arrived stating the selection of our proposal.

The agency was concerned about our decision because they had resized the budgeting and wanted to know if we could still take up the program. They had asked us to make necessary changes in the work to be carried out. It was not only the budget that mattered; it was the reduced time frame. Since the project was to do with schools, it had to be fit into their annual pattern of functioning. It was already January; getting into schools in the fag end of the year was not our greatest inconvenience but preparing the resource material by then was intriguing. At the same time the project should have to be completed within six months. This meant that we had to wait till the beginning of the next academic year. The schools begin in the month of June and we had to wrap up the program by 15^th July. It was a tight rope walk even though we would be ready with the resource material by the beginning of the schools.

Enriching ourselves

Shooting a positive reply to the agency, we sat for the preparations. We started pooling in all possible material on Blackbucks and listed out all possible ‘resourceful persons’- Biologists, Conservation Educators, Community NGOs and conventional Teachers. We decided to do the job in a very inclusive manner and saw to it that all the local groups working for Nature in Tumkur district were invited for a two days workshop for resource material generation. To make it convenient for them to be part of the process we decided to hold the workshop at Tumkur. The first day would be set aside to brainstorm about the education material for the teachers and some carry back material for students. It was decided to have a field visit to Mydanahalli to make the workshop meaningful and interesting. 

Having called for the meeting, we were getting restless to wait until the day. So Kumar and Mahesh started going through the literature and even sat in front of the enclosure of Blackbucks in the Zoo. They spent several days observing the beautiful beast. They started recognizing individuals through their color and behavior. They could not resist updating their learning to others and almost did it on a daily basis.

The enclosure in the zoo, just about an acre contained no more than twenty blackbucks but it was a world in itself.  About half a dozen of them were males while the rest were females or juveniles. This population was more than enough for any beginner to realize their body language. The males in rut displayed with their little tails twisted and turned upright. Two of the males even fought for their position to be an alpha male.

 

A full grown male buck.

 Lekking-a behavior of guarding one’s territory was also observed. The Real hero of the lot was a dark coated handsome male. He kept to himself all day not bothered by any of the trivial movements made by the other males. 

An alpha male inspecting a Lek.

But once fodder came into the enclosure he mustered to summon each one on them into a corner and feed all by himself. Once he quenched his appetite the females started getting close and taking their share.

In spite of all the freedom they had to express themselves, there was a severe shortfall when it came to express their genetic traits.

A buck with a 'goat like' horn.

Another variation, rarely found in the wild.

  Most of the subordinate males were deformed in one way or the other.  The horns were mutilated or abnormally spiraled. The coat not perfectly coffee coloured as it should be in the case of an adult. Probably, the entire herds belonged to the same stock and were repeatedly in-bred, as the Zoo Vet explained.  Owing to the same reason the authorities had decided to keep check of all such stock and were carrying out birth control. 

Another variant- 'Bharal-like' horns.

Such instances are rarely encountered in the wild says M K Ranjithsinh in his pioneering work on Indian Black bucks and calls them freak.

An adult male showing colour mutation.

A color mutant doe.