Vanishing Point
Ranjit Lal
We keep hearing (often from shrill environmentalists and activists) that the sixth great extinction is upon us, that we’re doing ‘90 mph down a dead-end street’ (as Dylan so evocatively put it). For most of us, the doomsday warnings simply go in through one ear and straight out of the other. But when you realise that you’ve probably seen this or that living creature, probably for the last time ever – as has probably every one of our 1.4 billion people at least once in their lifetime – well, it makes you sit up a bit with a sense of disquiet.
Way back in October of 1990, I was with a group of friends at the Karera Bustard Sanctuary, near Jhansi in Madhya Pradesh, jolting and lurching across the rocky, thorn-bush landscape in search of what the villagers here called the ‘Son Chiriya’ (golden bird) – none other than the Great Indian Bustard. The jeep’s engine was howling so loudly I was convinced that any Bustard with a modicum sense of self-preservation must have flown the coop long ago. But suddenly there they were: two supercilious GIBs, stalking casually away from us on muscular legs, heads held snootily high, their gait somewhat reminiscent of that of ostriches (except they didn’t wear the flouncy tutus ostriches did). The driver and the jeep got a bit excited – he pressed the accelerator, the jeep howled louder and bucked like a bronco, and the birds broke into an easy run, gathering momentum and then taking off with all the grace of an airplane, with powerful, deep-thrusting wing-beats. We were lucky: over the next couple of days, we met several more of these grand birds: birds, that none other than Salim Ali[1] had proposed be declared our ‘National Bird’. Alas, that was not to be – but for sound reason: a typo, so easily made by any official, could have caused huge embarrassment for the authorities.
Even at that time, the 15 or so Karera bustards were up against it: sharing their space (and they needed plenty of it) with something like 36,000 head of livestock and 33,000 people plus miscellaneous dogs, jackals, and other predators. They were soon all gone – and then so was the sanctuary – finally de-notified by the authorities in 2022. That was the last time I saw these grand birds and seeing them ever again seems a distinct impossibility. The fate of the Karera bustards has more or less been replicated in all the other parts of the country it was once found in: especially Rajasthan (where it is ‘state bird’) and Gujarat, where, according to one report, only four ladies were left. All India, the tally is now estimated at around 100 birds and dropping.
Once upon a time, they roamed around the windblown grasslands of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Well, basically, we grabbed all their land, turning expansive tracts over to agriculture and plantations. Now we are in a last-ditch battle to save the remaining number in the deserts of Rajasthan – where they regularly fly into high-tension powerlines and windmills (their dead-ahead vision is not very good), and have to evade vast tracts of terrain covered with solar panels. They are slow breeders – one chick a year is the maximum – and very difficult to ‘captive breed’.
In their heyday, they were hunted by emperors – often with falcons – and were considered good eating. In Pakistan, their cousins, the Houbara Bustards, are still hunted by Arab sheiks who shell out big dollars for the privilege. Even Great Indian Bustards flying across the border were considered fair game. In India, the fate of this ineffably supercilious looking charismatic bird, given Z+ security according to the Environmental Protection Act (1972), seems sealed. And once gone, there will be no comebacks. But often, I seriously wonder – how many will care, let alone regret?
For any upcoming birder, an annual (if not biannual) pilgrimage to ‘Bharatpur’[2] or more specifically, the Keoladeo National Park a.k.a the ‘Ghana’, was de rigueur. And back in the day – the 1980s and 1990s – the highlight of any such trip was to see the Siberian Cranes or ‘sibeys’. These 4-4.5 ft tall elegant snow-white birds, with their dark red faces and black-tipped wings, would arrive in Bharatpur in winter, flying all the way down from Siberia and happily feed on their favorite tubers found in the shallow waters of the ‘jheels’[3]. In 1964-65, some two hundred birds arrived, but then the numbers declined steadily: between sixty and seventy in the period 1969-1976, between thirty and forty in the period 1979-1988; just ten birds in 1991; and down to zero in 1992-93. A few birds did turn up in subsequent years, but today, no-one mentions Siberian Cranes in Bharatpur anymore. The India-visiting flock was (fortunately) just part of a larger population, some of which migrated to other countries such as Iran and China so the birds are not yet globally extinct.
The Bharatpur ‘sibeys’ were considered V.I.P.[4] birds and there would always be a gaggle of awe-struck birders (and human V.I.P.s) gazing raptly at them at any point of time. Desperate attempts were made to understand why their numbers were dropping by affixing satellite transmitters to track their exact migratory routes – and enhance protection along these if necessary – but it proved impossible to tag the wild cranes. Desperately, the authorities tagged a hand-reared crane, brought all the way down from the (then) Soviet Union, hoping it would join its wild compatriots at Bharatpur and fly away with them. Alas, a friendship never blossomed, and the bird was left behind.
Hunting is thought to be one of the major causes of the Cranes’ decline: they were met with gunfire – and nets – as they flew between the mountain passes of Afghanistan and Pakistan en route to India. Another reason cited was that the supply of their favourite tubers became less and less as the years went by.
Visiting Bharatpur in winter (especially after a good monsoon year) is always invigorating, but a trip will never be as enriching as it was when these immaculate, snow-white birds stalked the vast marshes, their bugling calls echoing over the waters.
What is really scary about ‘extinction events’ is that even the slightest, most innocuous seeming action on our part (if not properly researched beforehand) can spell wholesale disaster even for the toughest nature has on offer. Admittedly, very few of us would show any kind of empathy towards vultures – but we – and the rest of the world did sit up and notice – when suddenly in the mid-1990s there seemed to be none circling the heavens above us. Indian skies were empty of these immense, easy-soaring birds, and horrified ornithologists and environmentalists maintained that populations had plummeted 97 percent in under a decade. The vultures, it seemed, were flying away forever.
Decades ago, when the family lived in Bombay (as it was then), I used to go to the terrace of our building to get an eye-level view of these magnificent flyers – just as I had done in 1971, when Air India's first 747, the ‘Emperor Ashoka’, flew into the city for the very first time. On New Year’s Day, seven years later, that historic, if unfortunate, jet crashed into the Arabian Sea shortly after take-off from Bombay. Was the same fate now awaiting the five odd species of vultures found in India? They were sickening and dying in huge numbers all over the country.
Here in Delhi, where I now live, they nested in the big old trees in the Quidsia Gardens opposite my house, and I would watch them sailing down to land at dusk every evening with all the avidity of a plane-spotter. In the mornings, the birds that had used the trees in the next-door Nicholson cemetery as a roost would stretch their giant wings, looking a bit infra dig as they caught the first rays of the sun. Take-off for the day’s patrol would be around 11am once the thermals were strong enough to send them up.
Make no mistake, vultures are tough birds. Their stomach acid (hydrochloric acid) is much more powerful than ours, with a pH value of 0.7, so ulcers wouldn’t be very pleasant. The pH (potential hydrogen) of water, which is neutral, is 7. The famous lammergeyer or bearded vulture soaring over the Himalayas, dines on the bones and marrow of dead animals: swallowing them whole; the bone-end begins to dissolve before the entire bone has got into the stomach! Other (once commoner) species, like the iron-coloured, white-backed or white-rumped vulture, and the slender-billed vulture could thrust their naked necks deep into the most putrefying carcasses and gulp down the rotting flesh without a burp. True they don’t have the best table manners, screeching hoarsely at each other and fighting over the tender most cuts, but a group of 200 could clean up a buffalo carcass in 20 to 30 minutes. As a clean-up crew they were hard to beat. And we in India needed them: they kept the streets clear of roadkill, and the countryside dumps (especially near villages) free of rotting carcasses of livestock, preventing the spread of bacterial and viral diseases. In the jungles, they cleaned up after the big carnivores had left the table. And contrary to what you might believe – they are the cleanest and most hygienic of birds: they have to be, considering their diet.
Frantic investigative research into why these birds were literally falling out of the skies en masse eventually pinned down the culprit to – of all things – an analgesic and muscle relaxant called diclofenac given to livestock to make milking less stressful. (Humans use it too as a relaxant.) The remnants of this drug in the carcasses of buffalos and cows attacked and destroyed the kidneys of the big birds, killing them. Diclofenac has now been banned for veterinary use, though we can still use it. Additionally, attempts have been made to increase the birds’ population by captive breeding programs and even the opening of vulture ‘restaurants’ (‘The Gore ‘n’ Gristle Bar and Restaurant’, ‘Blood on the Rocks Cocktail Bar’?) to encourage the birds to wine and dine! Here the only service charge would be – go home and have more babies quickly! (Alas they too are slow breeders.) In parts of India, they do seem to be staging a recovery, but it’s going to be a while before they nest again in the big trees in the Quidsia Gardens and Nicholson Cemetery next door.
Great Indian Bustard (Photo: Ranjit Lal)
Siberian Crane (Photo: Ranjit Lal)
Vulture (Photo: Ranjit Lal)
Ranjit Lal is the author of over 45 books - fiction and non-fiction - for children and adults who are children. His abiding interest in natural history, birds, animals, and insects is reflected in many of his books: The Crow Chronicles, The Life and Times of Altu Faltu, The Small Tigers of Shergarh; The Simians of South Block and the Yum-yum Piglets, The Tigers of Taboo Valley, Bambi, Chops and Wag; Birds from My Window; The Birds of Delhi; Wild City, The Trees of Medley Gardens, The Little Ninja Sparrows, Rumble in the Jungle, 365 Nature Stories etc.
His book, Faces in the Water, on female infanticide, and for which he was honoured by IBBY in 2012, won the Crossword Award for Children’s Writing 2010 and the Ladli National Media Award for Gender Sensitivity 2012.
Our Nana Was a Nutcase – on dementia and Alzheimer’s – won the Crossword Raymond Award for Children’s Writing in 2016.
Other books with social themes include Taklu and Shroom (short-listed for the Crossword Award for Children’s Writing 2013), Miracles, Smitten (on child abuse in the family), The Secret of Falcon Heights, The Dugong and the Barracudas, Bozo and Chick, The Battle for No. 19, The Secret Palace Adventure, What Lies Between Two Hearts and Owlet, Not Out.
He was awarded the Zeiss Wildlife Lifetime Conservation Award for 2019 for writing ‘with exceptional literally skills’ on the conservation of wildlife, especially birds.
As a journalist he has had well over 2,000 articles and photo-features published in the national and international press and currently has a column – Down in Jungleland – in The Indian Express ‘Eye’. He also writes a monthly children’s column for The Hindustan Times called ‘Bratpack Brief’.
His other interests include photography, automobiles, reading, and cooking. He lives in Delhi.
References
[1] India's pioneering and legendary ornithologist
[2] In Rajasthan
[3] Water-bodies
[4] ‘Very Important Person’: an acronym usually used to indicate a dignitary (or other heavy-weight e.g. a politician!)