The Hindu Business Line : Passion for a bird

The Jerdon's or the Double-banded Courser (Rhinoptilus bitroquatus), the size of a partridge, is unique to the scrub jungle off Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh. The bird does not reside anywhere else in the world. The most hopeful estimate (no census has been done) puts the bird population at around 25 going by Panchapakesan Jeganathan, project scientist, Jerdon's Courser project, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

Now the Telugu Ganga canal-project, to feed water to drought prone Kadapa and Kurnool, will disturb the habitat of the bird and the Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court has stopped work on the dam till April 11. The irrigation and forest departments of the Andhra Pradesh government along with BNHS are trying to re-route the canal and save the bird to the satisfaction of the CEC.

By seven in the evening, we were at Daggonichalaka, a spot in the wide scrub jungle, flat as a dining table, stuck between the 464 sq km Sri Lanka Malleswara Wildlife Sanctuary (SLMW) and the 1,031 sq km Sri Penusula Narasimha Wildlife Sanctuary (SPNW), searching for the bird (called kalivikodi in Telugu). The sun had switched off for the day leaving a scary darkness, and a cool wind blew as forest tracker Aithanna threw the beams of a torch attached to a buzzing battery slung from his shoulder. "The noise of the battery will mask our footsteps," Jeganathan explained while one felt the noisy battery to be the bigger nuisance.

We followed Aithanna past tall strands of the thorny Prosophis julifloria and carissa bushes to spot the nocturnal and cursorial bird. At one place, the beam fell on two birds as they flew away into nearby bushes, lost forever. That was the last we saw of the bird as we searched till around 9.30 in the night when a huge, orange moon sat up on a steel blue sky buttoned with stars. "Now we can leave as the bird avoids moonlight," said Jeganathan and we left. Driving back Aithanna, Jeganathan, Paul and myself stayed quiet having failed to make it.

The bird, categorised as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List, was first discovered in 1848 by a British surgeon, T.C. Jerdon, and was thought to be lost to humankind till Bharat Bhushan saw it again in 1986 thanks to Aithanna. This 45-year-old forest department employee started life as a trapper of bird and black-naped hare before turning a trekker. Coming from Reddipalli village near the SLMW sanctuary, Aithanna responded to a query sent by Bhushan by trapping the bird. Bhushan rushed to the spot, identified the bird as Jerdon's Courser though it died after three days. Dr Salim Ali rushed to the spot after the bird's demise and today its stuffed body is the lone specimen with BNHS. There is a board explaining the incident in Telugu at the spot in the sanctuary where Aithanna got the bird.

For the last four years, Jeganathan has been doing a habitat study of the bird and is busy garnering scientific evidence to fence the area from the Telugu Ganga canal. One day at around 12 in the afternoon under a 37 degrees Celsius sun, we drove to a spot called Jogarapalli to witness a brown, dug-up Telugu Ganga canal passing two feet from a white stone marker indicating the SLMW border.

If the irrigation department of the AP government sticks to the present route, the Telugu Ganga canal will cut into the scrub jungle and the rare bird does not know borders. "More importantly, a canal will lift the water table and alter the scrub jungle, which cannot be replicated. With that the bird may be in further trouble," said Jeganathan. As of date the BNHS researcher stands between the bird and the Telugu Desam canal and many question his passion for a bird when water is more important to the villages in the drought-sapped Kadapa district. "I am not against development. If the SLMW is eaten into, it will only reduce green cover which will hurt the bird and the populace," he contends.

The Telugu Ganga canal starts from the Sri Potuluri Veera Brahmendra Swami Reservoir (SPVBR) near Bramhagarimatam. "This canal proceeds southwards and ends two km from Nadhipalli near Badvel-Mydukur road. It is also referred to as Right Canal. Apart from this one more canal is being excavated from Madakaravarapalli, which is 1.5 km from Badvel. This canal goes southwards to the east of Sagileru river and along the western boundary of Sri Penusula Narasimha Wildlife Sanctuary. This part of the sanctuary falls under Kadapa forest division and this canal is referred to as Left Canal," explains the survey report (December 2005) prepared by the University of Cambridge, BNHS and the University of Reading and funded by Darwin Initiative.

In the last week of October 2005, work on the canal started and excavation machinery was seen in the scrub jungle near SLMW sanctuary. "Immediately, this was brought to the notice of the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) in Kadapa, as well as to the Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, AP government in Hyderabad. Prompt action taken by the APFD resulted in stopping the canal work on October 23, 2005," the survey report remarks. On January 16 this year work resumed only to be halted by the Supreme Court. With work orders snapped up by a major private contractor and Kadapa being the home constituency of the present chief minister, one can understand the urgency behind defiling two fine sanctuaries and its honourable citizen, the Jerdon's Courser.

If work goes ahead on the Telugu Ganga canal, wildlife scientists will not have enough time to study the bird of whose habits, little is known. The Ministry of Environment and Forests has recently given permission to the BNHS to radio track two birds in the sanctuary. "I am waiting for the day when I can hold the bird in my hands, strap a radio to its body and leave it alone. It will help me to know a bit about the bird," said an excited Jeganathan. Will that moment come?

Picture by Paul Noronha

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