The remaining Gaur population in Shiwalik in India fights many odds to survive

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Indian Bison (Bos Gaurus), one of the eight species of wild bovid in Asia, is finding its grip on existence loosening in the Shiwalik hill ranges in India due to a wide range of issues, reports a scientific correspondence published in the latest issue of Current Science journal.

Indian Bison (Bos Gaurus)
Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

The large ungulate which is also known as ‘Gaur’, is threatened by food scarcity, competition from domestic cattle and poaching across the border in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) which is the last home to these animals in the Shiwalik hills, says the correspondence. Though, the local people report that the reserve had a large gaur population in the past, now it has been reduced to a mere 50 individuals, it says.

As per the research correspondence, Gaur population in the North East Indian region is mainly located in interconnected forest areas between Nepal and India. While some 296 gaurs are estimated to live in Chitwan NationalPark and Parsa Wild Life Reserve in Nepal, an estimated 50 member strong gaur population resides in Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) in the Indian region.

Major threats to Gaur population in VTR

Destruction of grasslands due to planting of non-native commercially important trees species like Tectona Grandis and the presence of strong invasive species like dwarf Phoenix in understory vegetation and Mikania sp. In the stream side flora has reduced the food availability of the remaining population of bison in the Shiwallik, shows the correspondence.

Though VTR harbors different variety of grass species including Lagerstroemia parviflora, Saccharum spontaneum, Mallotus phillippinensis, Adina cordifolia, Shorea robust, Imperata cylindrical and Sclerostachya fusca, which are favorites in the Gaur menu, indiscriminate grazing by domestic cattle from the villages nearby the reserve is also raising multiple threats to the Gaurs here, says the study.

While the domestic cattle compete with for food resources, they also make the chances of contracting foot and mouth diseases, pests and anthrax to their wild cousins. Though no such reports are made so far, the chances still lingers.

Though official records are not available, poaching still seems to be a major reason which has brought down the gaur population in the area considerably. Gaur meat has high demand in the illegal markets on both sides of the Indo-Nepal border which makes it a favorite target for poachers.

The Grim picture

The conservation status of Guars has been grim in India recently, says the correspondence. The animal has been reportedly exterminated from at least three protected areas in different parts of the country in recent years. Presently, VTR is the only protected area in the Shiwalik hills to shelter it, which makes the bison population here crucial in conservation perspective. Since it is a major animal in the prey base of the carnivores in the area, including the endangered tiger, any threat to the existence of the gaur population will indirectly affect the tiger population in VTR and adjacent Chitwan National Park also.

Gaur is already categorized as Vulnerable by IUCN Red Data list and has been included in the Schedule I of the Wild life (Protection) Act, 1972 of India due to its diminishing population trend in the country.

To improve the gaur population in the area, the correspondence suggests manual clearing of invasive plants species from the reserve and growing native plants which are favored food species of Gaurs. It also calls for a regulation in indiscriminate cattle grazing in the reserve.

Tigers switch to night life to avoid human interference in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

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Contrary to the widespread belief that threatened carnivores and human beings cannot co-exists using the same spatial locations, a new study from the neighboring country of Nepal shows that a large carnivore- the globally endangered tiger- do adapt to such situations and even takes a night shift to co-exist in a place frequented by human beings.

Panthera tigris

A camera trap study done by researchers at the Michigan State University in USA, Institute for Social and Environmental Research and Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation in Nepal at the Chitwan National Park in 2010 to 2011 found that tigers changed their spatiotemporal activities to avoid human detection.

According to the study, humans, vehicles and tigers were all using the same roads through the forests for their routine explorations during the period. However, to avoid the human presence, tigers restricted their movement through the overlapping routes to night when human activity was very low.

“In contrast to the general belief, we found that tigers and people frequently co-occurred at fine scales both inside and outside the park in both years,” point out the researchers in the paper which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Major findings

The study which put camera traps in different parts of the national park found that despite the heightened human activity during the day time, the tiger density at the study site was greater than that of similar sites in the neighboring India and other South East Asian countries where human intervention on tiger reserves are very low.

They have also found that a 20 percent increase in the human density in the locality does not affect the tiger density at the Chitwan National Park which is considered as one among the few tiger reserves in the world that can support more than 25 breeding female tigers. 

A tiger photographed by the camera trap
Image Courtesy: CSIS

It has also found that the tigers in the study area in Chtiwan were one sixth less active than their counterparts in tiger reserves of other South East Asian countries were human activity is controlled. Moreover, there was a 55 percent increase in the presence of local residents in the study area, which according to the paper, has caused the tigers to avoid small trails used by locals as well as to keep themselves to the inner forest areas of the park, bringing the tiger density inside the park more during the last year of study.

However, the study also points out that the presence of high prey base and low levels of poaching also helped the co-existence of human beings and the tigers in the area. Interestingly, it found that the prey base was increased after the implementation of conservation oriented policies due to increase in the biomass as well as reforestation of the areas outside the park. 

Human density near tiger reserves, a different view

The new study contradicts the basic rationale of many conservation programs which focus on evacuating human settlements from protected areas fearing human-animal conflicts and adverse effect on threatened organisms.

Instead, the study supports the idea that effective curbing of poaching is the key to increasing tiger density, than restricting human density in a protected area. “Our findings affirm the notion that effective management policies, such as those policies that improve habitat conditions and lower exploitation, are more important to tiger conservation than human density per se”, says the study.

Moreover, the study provides a ray of hope at a point of time when earth is getting crowded with the rapidly expanding human population shrinking the forest habitats.