Dog and Bull: an Investigation Into Carnivore
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OCCASIONAL REPORT NO. 9 DOG AND BULL Globally, carnivores face many threats including habitat modification and fragmentation, diminishing prey base, poaching for skin, bones and claws and direct persecution by people following attack on livestock. As a free ranging livestock found only across north-east India, Mithun (Bos gaurus frontalis) a semi-domestic bovid is susceptible to predation causing economic loss to the villagers. The An investigation into carnivore-human villagers retaliate by killing the predators ‘thought’ to be responsible for conflict in and around Itanagar Wildlife the depredation. This survey attempts to identify the causes of conflict, incorporating socio-economic and livelihood strategies of Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh local communities, status of mithun, predators and wild prey. It also Ambika Aiyadurai and Surendra Varma identifies methods for documentation and compares and reviews methodologies adopted to investigate the status of forest and relative abundance of wild prey and predator and their influences on carnivore-human conflict. A-220 New Friends Colony, New Delhi-110025 Tel.: 011 26326025, 26326026, Fax: 011 26326027 Website: http//www.wti.org.in Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), is a non-profit conservation organisation, committed to help conserve nature, especially endangered species and threatened habitats, in partnership with communities and governments. Its principal concerns are crisis management and the provision of quick, efficient aid to those areas that require it the most. In the longer term it Project Coordinators hopes to achieve, through proactive reforms, an atmosphere conducive to conserving India's wildlife and its habitat. Vivek Menon Suggested Citation: Aiyadurai, A and Varma, S (2003). Dog and Bull - An investigation into carnivore-human conflict in and around Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, Wildlife Trust of India, New Delhi. Keywords: Rapid Action Project, Arunachal, dholes, mithun, Itanagar Wildlife Project Investigators Sanctuary, leopard, carnivores, man-animal conflict, forest status and wildlife abundance. Ambika Aiyadurai The designations of geographical entities in this publication and the presentation of the material do not imply the expression of any opinion Surendra Varma whatsoever on the part of the authors or WTI concerning the legal status of Sunil Subba Kyarong any country, territory or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the Chuku Loma delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Narendra Babu All rights reserved. Reproduction and dissemination of material in this Series Editor publication for educational or any non-commercial purposes are authorized without any prior written permission from the copyright holders provided the source is fully acknowledged and appropriate credit given. Reproduction of Vivek Menon material in this information product for or other commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holders. Applications for such permission should be addressed to the Executive Director, Wildlife Trust of India or by e-mail to [email protected] Copyright © WTI 2008 Design and layout Photo credits: John Kunju Kunju Front cover : Arivazhagan (the photograph of dhole is not from the project area but is meant to illustrate the predator only) Back cover, title page, Fig.2, & 19: Ambika Aiyadurai Fig.1, 17, & 18: Surendra Varma Fig. 3 & 4 WTI, Fig. 16: Narendra Babu DOG AND BULL An investigation into carnivore-human conflict in and around Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh Ambika Aiyadurai and Surendra Varma March 2003 An Occasional Report of a Rapid Action Project conducted by Wildlife Trust of India in collaboration with Asian Nature Conservation Foundation supported by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation Occasional Report No. 9 CONTENTS List of Figures iii List of Tables iv Preface v Acknowledgements vi Executive Summary vii 1. Introduction 1 2. Objectives 4 3. Materials and Methods 5 3.1 Survey sites 5 3.2 Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary 6 3.3 Survey Villages 9 4 People and their dependency on forest and its products 9 5 Methods 11 5.1 General 11 5.2 Status of forests 12 5.3 Forest trail survey 12 5.4 Status of wildlife 13 5.5 Survey through village visit 13 5.6 Survey on the mithun, human-predator conflict and the effect on socio-economy of the villagers 14 5.7 Review of the subject 15 6 Results 15 6.1 Status of forests 15 6.2 Status of wildlife 17 6.3 Relative abundances of animals (trial surveys) 17 6.4 Encounter rates of signs in relation to status of forest 17 6.5 Status of wildlife signs 19 6.6 Relative abundances of animals (village surveys) 20 6.6.1 Reasons for visiting forests 20 6.6.2 Forest products used 20 6.6.3 Animal visit to human habitation 22 6.6.4 Variety and frequency of wildlife encountered by villagers 22 ii Dog and Bull 6.7 Comparison of the results of relative abundance of animals across different methods 24 6.8 Comparison of the results across different regions 25 7 Status of carnivore-human conflict 27 7.1 Status of prey and predator 27 7.2 Prey-predator interaction and its influence on predator-human conflict 38 7.3 Status of mithun 34 7.4 Status of conflict 35 7.5 Involvement of dholes 37 7.6 Population status, resource gathering and socio-economy of villagers 37 7.7 Review of earlier surveys and recommendations 38 8 Discussion 39 9 Recommendations 46 9.1 Forest around villages 46 9.2 Hunting and other resource gathering 47 9.3 Developmental activities 47 9.4 Mithun 47 9.5 Alternate livelihoods 48 9.6 Conservation education 48 9.7 Study on the conflict 49 References 50 Appendix 1 : Data Sheets 54 Appendix 2: Details of the trials and village surveys 58 Appendix 3: Methods of hunting and trapping wildlife 59 Appendix 4: List of animal products and their usage 61 Appendix 5: Glossary of Nishi names for animals 62 List of of figures Figure 1: Shifting cultivation in progress 1 Figure 2: A preganant mithun being brought from the forests 2 Figure 3: Map of Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh 7 iii Occasional Report No. 9 Figure 4: Trail survey for animal sign investigation 13 Figure 5: Village survey through interviews 14 FIgure 6: Percentage of forests under different categories 16 FIgure 7: The percentage of forest under different categories in each trail 17 Figure 8: Encounter rates of wildlife signs/km across trails 19 Figure 9: The species time curve for the three trails 18 Figure 10: Encounter rates of wildlife signs/km of different species along the tracks 19 Figure 11: Percentagte of time spent by Nishi in the forests 21 Figure 12: The species time curve for the trail survey. 24 Figure 13: The species time curve for the villagel survey. 25 Figure 14: Number of species encountered across different regions 26 Figure 15: Changes on the trends of mithun in the villages 35 Figure 16: Percentage of reasons attributed for mithun deaths 36 Figure 17: Clouded leopard sikn(killed by the villagers) 43 Figure 18 Leopard skin (killed by the villagers) 43 Figure 19: Wild dog skin (killed by the villagers) 43 Figure 20: Mithun 48 Figure 21: Trap for capturing smallcanopy dwelling animals 60 Figure 22: Trap used to capture/kill tigers and other tresspassers 60 List of tables Table 1: List of mammals reported by people during village surveys 23 Table 2: Percentage of species-wise encounter rates of signs 27 Table 3 List of species sighted frequently and occasionally by villagers 28 Table 4: Expected pattern of prey selection for the survey area 34 iv Dog and Bull PREFACE It took just one phone call from the field to launch a Rapid Action Project in Arunachal Pradesh, that has over the years resulted in this occasional report ‘Dog and Bull’. The phone was from an agitated field officer, who had just attended a village elder’s (Gaon Burrhas) meeting in Sagalee, near Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh. He had heard their vow to eradicate all the carnivores of their surroundings due to the menace of wild dogs eating their traditionally prized, semi-wild cattle, the mithun, and had rung up requesting immediate action. This tribal pronouncement could well have been carried out had a rapid project not been conceived of to meet the needs of the local populace. And in this instance, the rapid project was nothing more than sending a senior field scientist, Surendra Varma, with the concerned field officer, Sunil Kyarong to work with the local communities to understand and alleviate the conflict. Two other field biologists worked on this project for differing lengths of time but basically all of them worked to defuse the potentially combustive situation. It is gratifying to know that neither did the threat of wiping out carnivores actually take place, nor were there any large scale depredations reported from that area since then. More importantly, the locals, for the time that the project was ongoing, took out a proclamation protecting wildlife in the area. There was also subsequent governmental support to the villagers as a result of a specific recommendation of the report, that of corralling livestock. Man-animal conflict is nothing new globally but is likely to see an increasing trend over the years. Conservation actions such as this, seek to find locale-specific remedies to these problems and to implement them. This Occasional Report is the result of a very small, focused project but one which has lessons for many others across India. Vivek Menon Executive Director v Occasional Report No. 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the forest department of Arunachal Pradesh for providing permission to carry out this survey. Thanks are due to C Loma, Deputy Chief Wildlife Warden, Tana Tapi, Assistant Chief Conservator of Forests and H Taji, Range Forest Officer for all their support and hospitality.