Wild Roar: dogs

Thursday, 25 May 2017

Call of the leopard

When the night falls, the phantom calls !

A small greenery cover on fringes of a suburb of Kathmandu valley, surrounded by agricultural farmlands and moderate sub-urban and rural settlements, where there is frequent movements of local people for their daily livelihood activities (agriculture) as well as attended on regular basis by internal & external tourists for recreational purposes like bird watching, hiking, mountain biking etc., is also frequented by an invincible resident, a leopard. The leopard frequently spray marks urine and scratches on trunk of a tall Schima wallichi (Nepali: chilaune) tree, which is the usual behavior of leopards for territory marking and identification. Local people knows about its presence and they hear it calling/growling every night, while few have even sighted in daylights. According to them, the leopard prowls in the cover of darkness to take stray dogs, which has become their urban prey as their natural prey (barking deer, wild boar, monkeys etc.) are believed to be depleting due to habitat encroachment, fragmentation and illegal hunting [SMCRF 2015]. The leopard thrives despite the change in their habitat unlike their food by changing their menu [Athreya et al. 2014]. As scientifically as its known, leopards cannot change its spots, but it does can change its behavior for it is the most adaptable and versatile of all the great cats.

Spatial location of the tree with scratch mark. [Google Earth Pro v7.1.5]

This is the scenario which is very common today in most of the leopards' global range around the globe, so are the cases in many parts of Nepal too. The coexistence only remains to be one until there is, but not limited to, a conflict. The dynamics of their behavior is just so dynamic across their range, habitat, regions, areas, and individuals. The same species have made far-west Nepal [Karki & Rawat 2014] and bordering Uttarakhand of India [Sondhi et al. 2016] a most probable global hotspot of human-leopard conflict making lives difficult at both the ends. Yet they are equally proving that they can coexist alongside human settlements as urban as Kathmandu valley which is one of the most fastest urbanizing cities in South Asia [WorldBank 2012].

But its just like a matter of the string where the tension is gradually building up. This is a high time for us to give enough attention towards these charismatic spotted big cat to understand their behavior, their ecology, their situation! Maybe the leopard is calling for sake of their plight being unheard of! Maybe they are trying to signal us through their spiritual power, for they are the part of the forest deity, Ban devi, the goddess of the jungle. The forests are there because they are there.

May the people living with leopards always be bestowed with the eternal blessings of the Ban devi for generations and generations to come as have been since the dawn of the time.

P.S. Coming soon is an artwork expressing spiritual connections of people living with leopards under the blessings of Ban devi!

Cited articles:
Athreya V. et al. (2014). A cat among the dogs: leopard Panthera pardus diet in a human-dominated landscape in western Maharashtra, India. Oryx.
Karki JB & Rawat GS. (2014). Human leopard conflict in Nepal: A case study from Baitadi district of Nepal. DNPWC Special Issue-2071.
Sondhi S, Athreya V. et al. (2016). Human attacks by leopards in Uttarakhand, India: an assessment based on perceptions of affected people and stakeholders. A technical report submitted to the Uttarakhand Forest Department.
SMCRF (2015). Biodiversity survey of Chandragiri Hill, Kathmandu, Nepal. Small Mammals Conservation and Research Fund.
WorldBank (2012). Urban Growth and Spatial Transition in Nepal: An Initial Assessment.

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Sunday, 9 April 2017

Dogs for wildlife conservation - CK9

Meet with the CK9 dogs

We, I and Adarsh dai, had a chance to shortly meet Jennifer Hartman and Suzie Marlow from CK9 group, while they were on their way to airport travelling to their next work site after 2 months of work in Nepal’s challenging terrains. A short intro about this group, Conservation Canines (CK9) is a part of Center for Conservation Biology, University of Washington. And they deal with scat detection dogs or sniffer dogs trained to find scats of wild animals in the wild. After finding scats of wild animals, biologist/ecologist/geneticist can study more in detail about the species through DNA extracted off these scats. These dogs are highly trained for the work that they do, such as going out in the wild in completely new and challenging terrains of every sorts all over the world whenever an elusive species need to be studied. And what’s more interesting about them is that these dogs are not any specific pedigree breed dogs, they are all mixed or abandoned strays picked up from shelters in US.

Having been following their facebook page (link) for nearly 4-5 years now when I was studying in Finland, I really liked the kind of work they have been doing for over the past 10 years in the field of wildlife conservation as well as animal welfare. It struck me immediately when I saw their facebook post (about 2 months back in Feb) that two of their team dog members, CK9 Athena and CK9 Skye, are in Nepal for pangolin work. But never had I imagined that I would get to meet them in person on the last day last moment of their work in Nepal, while they were leaving for their flight. Thanks to these wonderful and dedicated people from the Conservation Canines, who are also the dog handlers of these two sniffer dogs. Pangolins are one of the world’s most trafficked wildlife and are in the verge of extinction. And scientists from UW are going to try tracking illegal trade of pangolins by use of molecular genetics tools. They have pioneered similar work in tracking the origin of illegally traded ivory through use of genetics and helped identify two main elephant poaching hotspots (more info). Definitely this is not our last meet, we will meet in the coming days for more works on pangolins. And I am equally excited about their passion of training local dogs in Nepal for similar works in the future. Putting the nose of dogs for such work will not only aid wildlife conservation, but also helps provide a stray or abandoned yet equally capable dog a very healthy, exciting and meaningful life. And no any wildlife or dogs are hurt during the work, which makes this whole process a noninvasive.

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