As the Asia’s oldest and biggest cattle fair, the Sonepur fair began in Bihar’s Saran district on Monday, conservationists are worried that the fair may resume trade of elephants.
The fear is obvious because the Bihar government has constituted a nine-member committee to invite elephant owners from all over Bihar, Uttar Prdaesh and Jharkhand to the Sonepur Fair.
Arrival of elephants at Sonepur fair had stopped after a ban on sale in 2000. In 2018, only one elephant arrived at the fair.
Munmun Singh, a member of the committee said they are expecting at least 50 elephants at the Sonepur fair this year.
Sonepur Fair is held on the eve of Kartik Poornima in the month of November- December on the confluence of river Ganges and Gandak. This year, the fair will be from November 11 to December 11.
The Sonepur Fair existed when Chandragupta Maurya (340 – 297 BCE) used to buy elephants and horses across the river Ganges. The biggest attraction of the fair was the Haathi Bazaar where elephants used to be lined up for sale.
Elephants used to be openly sold at the fair. As per records, 92 elephants were sold in Sonepur Fair in 2001. The highest of 354 elephants were sold in 2004.
Most of the elephants sold in the Sonepur Fair were originally from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, and had buyers from other states, mostly Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Conservationists in Assam are now worried with the Bihar governments decision to invite elephants to the Sonepur fair. “This is illegal,” one of them, said.
“It would open a floodgate, and poachers would go all out to catch juvenile elephants from in the jungles in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh,” he added.
It was reported that 167 elephants were transported to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh from Assam between 2005 and 2008, and almost all of them were reportedly sold at the infamous Sonepur fair.
As per the record, 77 elephants were transported in 2006 from Assam, the highest in the conservation history of the state.
While captive elephants from Assam were the victims of the smuggling network, a significant number of them were caught from the wild.
The elephants caught from the wild were transported from Assam with forged documents and that too, in connivance with a section of corrupt forest officials.
But, as per the law, any such sale of elephants is illegal. The transportation could have been justified and supported with adequate documentation, but the sale was totally illegal.
As per She Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, sale, purchase or transfers of captive elephants from one person to another for monetary consideration or any other profitable gain, is totally illegal.
Unfortunately, the Assam Forest Department never tried to locate the elephants which were transported outside the state and did not try to bring them back. (This story first published in NE Now)
At least 24 people were killed and more than 2 million others spent a night huddled in storm shelters as Cyclone Bulbul smashed into the coasts of India and Bangladesh with fierce gales and torrential rains, officials said Sunday.
The cyclone made landfall at 9 p.m. local time (1530GMT) on Saturday in Indian West Bengal, near Sagar Island. The cyclone packed winds of up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, forcing the closure of ports and airports in both countries.
Ten people were killed in India’s West Bengal state, the Press Trust of India reported, including two after uprooted trees fell on their homes and another after being struck by falling branches in Kolkata.
Two others died in nearby Odisha state, PTI reported.
Ayesha Akter, an emergency official in Bangladesh, confirmed 12 people had died in the storm, adding that she feared the death toll will rise until Monday morning.
According to Bangladesh’s Health Directorate report issued on Sunday night casualties have been reported from eight districts in the country’s southern coastline.
Five others are missing after a fishing trawler sank in squally weather on Meghna river near the southern island of Bhola, district administrator Masud Alam Siddiqui told AFP.
AFP Photo
The cyclone also damaged some 4,000 mostly mud and tin-built houses, disaster management secretary Shah Kamal told AFP.
In coastal Khulna, the worst-hit district in Bangladesh, trees swayed violently and were ripped from the ground in the fierce storm, blocking roads and hampering access to the area.
Some low-lying parts of the district were flooded, Disaster Management Minister Enamur Rahman told AFP.
Authorities said the cyclone was weakening as it moved inland.
“It has turned into a deep depression, causing heavy rainfall,” Bangladesh weather bureau deputy chief Ayesha Khatun told AFP.
Bulbul hit the coast at the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest which straddles Bangladesh and India, and is home to endangered species including Bengal tigers and Irrawaddy dolphins.
The mangroves shielded the coast from the storm’s full impact, Khatun said.
Some 2.1 million people across Bangladesh were relocated to cyclone shelters.
AFP Photo
Troops were sent to coastal districts while tens of thousands of volunteers went door-to-door and used loudspeakers to urge people to evacuate their villages.
“We spent the night with another 400 people,” said Ambia Begum, who arrived at a shelter in the port town of Mongla late Saturday along with her family.
“I am worried about my cattle and the straw roof of my house. I could not bring them here. Allah knows what is happening there,” the 30-year-old mother of three told AFP.
Around 1,500 tourists were stranded on St. Martin’s island off southeastern Bangladesh after boat services were cancelled.
In India, nearly 120,000 people who were evacuated started to return home as the cyclone weakened, authorities said.
“The storm has left a trail of destruction as it’s crossed the coastline of West Bengal,” the state’s Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim said.
In Odisha, crops in coastal regions were extensively damaged by the cyclone, officials told AFP.
Bangladesh’s low-lying coast, home to 30 million people, and India’s east are regularly battered by cyclones.
Hundreds of thousands of people living around the Bay of Bengal have been killed in cyclones in recent decades.
While the frequency and intensity of the storms have increased, partly due to climate change, the death tolls have come down because of faster evacuations and the building of thousands of coastal shelters.
Cyclone Fani was the most powerful storm to hit the area in years when it struck in May, killing 12 people.
After ensuring that food sold in the city’s main market was free of toxic food dyes, Mandalay Region Chief Minister U Zaw Myint Maung said he now wants to focus on making sure that farm produce is free of dangerous chemicals.
The campaign will begin with a pilot project targeting the 10 most popular crops on 95 hectares of farmland in eight townships.
“When we looked at what we could do, we immediately saw food safety,” he said. “We started with fields in Pyin Oo Lwin and are now extending it to Nyaung-U.”
The project started with 215 acres of morning glory, long beans, kidney beans, cabbages, tomatoes, chillies, and nuts in Pyin Oo Lwin.
The pilot project will be conducted from October to September with a budget of K1.79 billion.
KHIN SU WAI : Members of the agriculture committee in the Mandalay Region parliament held a two-day meeting with farmers and livestock breeders last week to discuss their concerns, including getting information that would be helpful in making policy decisions.
U Khin Maung Myint, a member of the pulses wholesale centre, underscored the need to stabilise their prices and expand the market.
He said a tonne of mung beans is worth about K1 million (US$660), and a 96-kilogram bag sells for K95,000 at Mandalay Market.
U Khin Maung Myint added that planting hybrid varieties could further increase the yield.
“The prices of white, red and yellow chickpeas have declined in the market because of the entry of green peas from China,” he said. “This resulted in local chick peas being pushed out of the market.”
U Hla Than Win, a leader of a local sugar association, said a flood of foreign sugar on the local market had pushed down the price of sugar. Also, there are sugar storage problems because of foreign sugar, with the start of the local cane harvest only two months away.
The legislators hope to continue the dialogue with local farmers to increase cooperation on improving farmers’ production and livelihoods.
The Mandalay government is implementing a food safety plan to ensure that farm produce is free of dangerous chemicals and meets international standards.
A trader said that to fetch a good price, local produce must be grown organically and supported by the government with good seeds and soft loans. – Translated
On the morning of 14 November 1994, a train glided into the Gare du Nord in Paris. It had left London Waterloo three hours earlier with around 700 passengers, then meandered – frustratingly slowly in those days – through Kent. Near Folkestone it dived underground, into a tunnel bored through the chalk under the seabed, before emerging 20 minutes later near Calais, where it could at last accelerate to 186mph and finally arrive at the French capital three minutes ahead of schedule. Or rather late, perhaps, depending on how you look at it.
After all, it was nearly two centuries earlier, in 1802, that a French mining engineer named Albert Mathieu-Favier first proposed the idea of a tunnel under the Channel. It involved horse-drawn carriages and oil lamps and was quickly abandoned. Numerous other ideas and schemes followed; surveys were carried out and tunnels were even started. Digging began in 1881, but the project was ditched when British politicians and the press stirred up fears of an invasion.
Since then over 200 million passengers have travelled on the Eurostar – including the Queen, presidents, prime ministers, Beatles and Rolling Stones, ambassadors, Wags, fans, and a lot of ordinary people. I spoke to some of those passengers, and the people who helped them travel.
I drove the first train to Paris
‘I thought, blimey, that’s a lot of pressure’ … Bob Priston. Photograph: Eurostar
My co-driver Lionel Stevenson and I were told the Friday before that we were rostered on the first train to Paris. I thought: “Blimey, that’s a lot of pressure,” but we were well trained and ready to go. The day went very fast. We left Waterloo within a minute of the right time, had a pretty clear run and in northern France we accelerated to 300kmh. We were aware that it was a historic moment – that if anything went wrong, that’s what would be reported.
Before that I was an InterCity driver on British Rail. The Eurostar train is a lot faster; we loved that, but it was something we had to get used to. Then there were the different signalling systems; French and Belgian rules and regulations. We were given 600 hours of French language training, including two residential stays in France.
It always gives you a buzz, going into the tunnel, especially if you get slowed down on the approach and then accelerate into the tunnel. We don’t get much overtaking us. The nearest I’ve come to it was many years ago when there was a 170kph speed restriction in France. There was a BMW on the left-hand side, just in front of the train. As we came off the speed restriction I looked over and he was accelerating at the same rate, up to about 250-260kph, before I gently eased past him.
We had a couple of stowaways once. They were on the outside of the train and were spotted as we left Lille for London. There are a number of places – without giving too much away – where you can wedge yourself in. As we approached Calais I was told we would stop and the French police took them away.
And I have had a couple of fatalities. It’s not a pleasant side of the job. It takes a while to get your head around. The company provides counsellors. There’s nothing we can do about it – that’s the starting place for dealing with it, but it’s not pleasant, especially when you find out a bit about the people involved.
Bob Priston, train driver.
I met my husband on the Eurostar
‘I thought, I’m going to take a chance’ … Jenny and Chris Wheeler at their wedding
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In 2002 I was studying English and went to live in London, but eventually ran out of money and had to go home to Paris. I had come to the UK with one suitcase, but when it was time to go back I had three, so I left some behind. I was on my final trip from Paris to London to pick up the last suitcase when I met my husband. He was on a business trip and wasn’t even supposed to be on that train – he had just missed the previous one. I did notice him in the queue, but he wasn’t my type, if I’m honest – although there was something nice about him. Then, when I came to sit next to him on the train, I thought: “Oh, it’s that guy.”
We both had Discmans and that was probably the start of the conversation: “Ooh, what are you listening to?” I was probably listening to PJ Harvey and Radiohead – he was more dance. He’s a DJ at heart, even if he has to work in the City.
He offered me a beer. I think I spilled a bit on him. I offered him a Bonne Maman chocolate tartlet – it’s really cliched! We were talking in English for the first hour and a half, then suddenly he spoke French. He had kept that one quiet. I was quite impressed. It was a fun three hours. I didn’t think “I’m falling in love”, but we exchanged numbers.
I told my friends how I had met this guy, he was nice, carried my suitcase – the embodiment of the proper Englishman. They said, you’ve got to call him. I went back to Paris and we arranged to meet, because he was coming to Paris again. We went to one of those bars opposite Gare du Nord. I went to the UK maybe a couple of weeks later, to see him. We got on so well I decided to move in. I had quite a good job in Paris, but I thought: “I’m still young, I’m going to take a chance.”
Jenny Wheeler lives with Chris and their two children on the Essex/Suffolk border.
I helped build the tunnel
I’m actually sitting on the Eurostar right now, leaving in seven minutes. I was public affairs manager for Eurotunnel, involved in the tunnel and the start of services. I’ve been following it ever since. In 1980 or 81 Margaret Thatcher indicated that if a fixed link across the Channel could be built and financed without public money, then we could do it. We had people from Dover Harbour Board saying the tunnel was going to be the longest crematorium in the world – we had to struggle against that.
The decision to make it a rail tunnel was very significant. Some of the alpine road tunnels have had lots of problems, as well as the issues of exhaust emissions. But Mrs Thatcher didn’t like trains, she liked cars. When she asked our chairman how you get the cars across, he said: “Oh, you put them on shuttles,” and she never asked what a shuttle was. Of course, it was a train.Advertisement
I always thought it was an important way of linking us to the continent – not just business, but pleasure and culture. The train has helped integrate communities in a way that didn’t happen before. That’s what’s so sad about Brexit: they are doing their best to wreck it.
Anthony Fitzhardinge Gueterbock, Lord Berkeley.
The Eurostar is at the centre of my marriage
Backwards and forwards at weekends … Bryony Hoskins on the Eurostar. Photograph: Provided by Bryony Hoskins
Antoine was a software engineer who came to the UK when they were building the tunnel under London in about 1998. We met by chance in a London bar – I was a sociology student at Brunel University on a girls’ night out. We married in 2010. I live in London and he lives in Paris. We travel by Eurostar backwards and forwards to see each other at weekends. He comes twice a month, I go one weekend over there, or I stay longer because I have more flexibility. I do an art course and even did a big model of the Eurostar, with pictures of myself and Antoine inside.
Bryony Hoskins is a professor of comparative social science at the University of Roehampton.
I was a passenger on the first train to Paris
The most disappointing thing was that you never actually saw the sea: it’s because of the way the tunnel had to start in front of a hill on the British side and takes you quite a way beyond Calais. It’s a brilliant piece of railway engineering: I’ve travelled in the cab, an amazing experience. But the other great disappointment is that Brexit has happened. Despite the fact you can hop on the Eurostar and end up in France, it hasn’t made us feel more European. As a railway person I’m loath to say it, but maybe itwould have been better if you could have driven across. It might have made for more casual connections.
It’s undoubtedly the best way to travel between London, Paris and Brussels. But if you want to go to Amsterdam it only works one way round. Eurostar doesn’t sell tickets to many destinations either, so it’snot really connecting us to lots of places in Europe. Kent is one of the most pro-Brexit areas. If they had connected France with England on that kind of level it would have done enormous amounts for European relations. Instead it’s almost like taking a plane – you have to go to St Pancras or Ashford International, through security. If you go from France to Belgium or France to Italy you just hop on a train or in the car and you’re there.
You can’t blame Brexit on Eurostar, but it could have done more to prevent it. It has missed an opportunity – politically, symbolically and culturally.Advertisement
Christian Wolmar, writer and railway historian.
I commute on the Eurostar
Boulogne-based … Harry Dobbs and his wife Bernice Pan. Photograph provided by Bernice Pan
I’m an architect and my wife and I were looking at a site to build a property by the sea near Rye. Just the site alone was something like £600,000. It was a clear day and we could see France – that sort of piqued our interest. I do a lot of urban design, using maps to analyse how close things are in time, rather than distance. If you put a pin in King’s Cross – where my wife Bernice and I both work – in one of these interactive maps, most of northern France is closer in time than most of south-east England: Eurostar stretches northern France into what would, timewise, be considered a suburb of London. It’s 55 minutes to Calais-Fréthun. So we came over for the weekend, looked at eight properties and chose the fourth – in the old town of Boulogne, between the cathedral and the castle.
We both run our own businesses and commute every day or weekly, as we see fit. Obviously it’s expensive; if I did it every day it would be double or triple what I would pay for a Brighton season ticket – but you would need several lifetimes of that before you got near the cost of property differential. I used to come up from Brighton and sit in someone’s armpit – if the train worked at all. In general I would say the prices in northern France are 10% of south-east England’s: not 10% off, 10% of. The house next door to ours, once occupied by the writer Alain-René Lesage, who wrote Gil Blas, just sold for 40,000 euros.Advertisement
We spend our weekends walking on the beautiful beaches, cliffs and dunes of the Côte d’Opale national park and eating some of the best seafood in Europe.
Harry Dobbs, Boulogne.
My train broke down for a night
I commute weekly between Brussels and London, and in November 2014 I was on a train that broke down in northern France, en route to Brussels. After a while the power went out; it was around 9pm and we were sitting in darkness. It quickly became apparent we would be stuck for a long time. Everyone made a dash for the bar, which sold out in about 20 minutes. It was cold outside, but when the aircon broke the carriage warmed up. The problem was that the train was on a bend and tilted, which meant we were all leaning to the right (or the left if facing backwards). In the end we spent the whole night on the train, trying to sleep, while leaning to the right.
Finally we were towed away by another train and arrived in Brussels at 6am – nine hours late. The woman next to me listened to nothing but Coldplay (loudly) during the delay. Everyone’s phone batteries started to run out except hers, which went on for ever. It was a very long night.
Paul, who did not want to give his surname.
I had sex on the Eurostar and founded the 45 Metre Underground Club
I was with my girlfriend – it was 2011, we hadn’t been going out long. It was a morning train. I think we did have a drink on the train, but we were very much in control of our senses. I had the idea as we were heading out of St Pancras. She didn’t take much persuasion: it was a sort of pioneering thing. I imagine we weren’t the first to do it, but we were the first to do it in the spirit of this new club we wanted to set up.
The Mile High Club is aspirational: what could be sexier and naughtier than sex on a plane? But now flight shame puts the Mile High Club in a different light. The 45 Metre Underground Club is the low-carbon option. But you have to be doing it when you are under the Channel.
Honestly, I think we were in there for about five or 10 minutes, before emerging gingerly but extremely pleased with ourselves. I would absolutely recommend it. There is a huge body of water above you, you are hurtling along at high speed through a dark tunnel under the Channel, knowing you are on a low-carbon adventure.
One cold November evening I boarded a 7pm train at St Pancras. The journey proceeded through the tunnel, across the flat French countryside and I was looking forward to checking into my hotel. Suddenly there was a loud bang, followed by an all-consuming scraping noise that seemed to go on for ever. Eventually we ground to a halt.
We saw train staff wandering around outside with torches. After an hour, we finally started up again. There was a very loud grinding noise, then we stopped. After two to three hours of further waiting, we finally had an announcement: “Your Eurostar has hit a wild boar and is badly damaged.” They didn’t tell us what happened to the boar, but I guess that at 180mph it had probably been quite badly damaged too.
Time passed: another two hours; three hours. But the bar was open and the wifi was working. We were stuck, but it was comfortable. Eventually, at about 4am, they commandeered another train and towed our broken Eurostar into a nearby station at about 10mph. We finally made it into Paris shortly after 8am, where they left us with a free breakfast, huge apologies, a full refund and tickets for another free trip.
Chris Allen lives in Suffolk.
I sat next to the England Wags
‘They were very jolly’ … wives and girlfriends of the England football team, World Cup 1998. Photograph: Clive Limpkin/Daily Mail/Rex/Shutterstock
I was returning home to Brussels in 1998. The train got almost to the tunnel, had a problem and had to turn back to London. Eventually we were all bussed to a hotel near Wembley stadium. The following morning I insisted on a place on an early train. I had a first-class ticket and argued I should be able to get back to work asap. Eventually I was given a ticket rather grudgingly and collected a free copy of the Daily Telegraph at Waterloo. Before boarding I read an illustrated article about the England football team’s wives. This was before the term “Wags” was in use, but it was the World Cup and that evening England were playing Argentina. When I found my carriage a man tried to stop me boarding, saying the carriage was fully booked, but I insisted on getting on. The carriage had few people in it, all women under 35, very well dressed.
My seat was at a table of four. The three women all knew each other, and another seated across the aisle. I offered to swap places so they could sit together. Gradually it dawned on me this was a carriage reserved for the
wives and girlfriends of the England team. I remember recognising Paul Scholes’s wife from the picture. I think Victoria Beckham was the only one not present. They were very jolly. I thought the last thing they wanted was a male trying to engage in conversation. I would just sit back and tell my mates about it. At Lille they all departed, exiting the carriage in a wave of expensive fragrance.
Tom, who did not wish to give his surname.England lost to Argentina on penalties.
I am the French ambassador
‘I always take the Eurostar’ … Catherine Colonna on her visit to Dover and Folkestone. Photograph: the French embassy
A few days after my arrival in September I went to Dover to see the traffic and the harbour – preparedness, shall we say, on the English side, for various scenarios. I went to Folkestone as well. In the operations centre there is a photograph of Mme Thatcher and President Mitterrand when they signed that agreement in 1986. Seeing it made me think that great vision is needed in politics. There had been talk about it for so long, but they actually decided to do it. And it works. It is the easiest, safest, most ecological way from the UK to France and the continent. I always take the Eurostar. It symbolises that we are so close to each other. When I visited Dover, you could see France from the cliffs. It’s not my job to make predictions, but I can’t say I think much will change. My guess is just as many people will travel from one country to the other, as before. The Channel will not become wider overnight.
Catherine Colonna is France’s ambassador to the UK.
I wore a banana-yellow jacket to serve drunk rugby fans, the wrong Rolling Stone and the right Beatle
‘The idea was to sell as much produce as possible’ … Eurostar staff at Waterloo. Photograph: Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock
I served on the Eurostar for two summers, 1998 and 99, to pay off my student debts. I went to the interview thinking I could speak fluent French, but completely froze. They still gave me the job.
We had to be on the platform an hour and 15 minutes before departure to get the train ready. We had these banana-yellow blazers, designed by Pierre Balmain, with a yellow and blue clip-on bowtie. It was horrendous. The idea, if you were working in standard class, was to sell as much produce as possible and 1999 was the Rugby World Cup – I’ve never seen so many people drink so much alcohol in my life: when Wales were playing France in Paris, the whole train ran out.
Once, when we were preparing the train to depart at Gare du Nord, the French crew were very excited because Mick Jagger was on the platform. I thought, that is actually an A-list celebrity, worth a look, so I went out. It was actually Charlie Watts, but I didn’t want to disappoint my colleagues by correcting them. In those days, one of the carriages was dedicated to what was called premium class. The only person who regularly travelled premium was Paul McCartney. His daughter was just starting work for Chloé in Paris. He would always refuse the food and fill out a comments card saying the vegetarian options would be better if it used Linda McCartney food.
The job was good fun and very well-paid, for what it was: bilingual coffee serving. I liked chatting in French and it cleared my overdraft. Twice. I kept my banana-yellow blazer for a few years afterwards.
Tom Wolfe is now an English literature teacher in Yangon, Myanmar.
I got my A-level results on the Eurostar
I was going to the south of France on holiday with my boyfriend. For some reason we booked for the day my A-level results were coming out. It was an early train, and as soon as I could ring the school I did. I didn’t want to call in front of everyone, so I went to the little space between the carriages. The teacher was a methodical man who often took quite a long time to say what he wanted. He eventually found my name, then had to check the results. I was getting kind of stressed, because we were going to go into the tunnel soon and I would have to wait another 20 minutes.
I got 4 As: French, Spanish, English and Drama. I was really pleased. I went back to my seat where my boyfriend was waiting with a little bottle of champagne. I remember the rest of the holiday, but not as vividly as that moment.
Jennie Burke lives in Paris with her French husband Julien and four-year-old daughter Octavie.
Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary authority could not open the sanctuary on Tuesday for jeep safari and elephant safari due to anthrax outbreak which resulted in the death of two wild buffaloes in the sanctuary on October 16.
Few other buffaloes have also been affected by anthrax and this has posed a serious threat to the one-horned rhino and the local people as well. Humans can become infected with anthrax disease through contact with an infected animal.
Anthrax is a serious infectious disease caused by gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria known as Bacillus anthracis. Although it is rare, people can get sick with anthrax if they come in contact with infected animals or contaminated animal products, as stated in a report by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
Based on reports, the deaths occurred last week and the carcasses have been disposed of as per the guidelines.
Following the outbreak, forest department officials have been taking precautionary measures to control the spread of the disease.
A team of veterinary doctors have also been allocated for the mass inoculation of livestock in the region and the Forest Department has issued an advisory for preventive measures to ensure that the disease does not spread any further.
Further, the veterinary department has vaccinated domestic elephants and the entry of domestic animals in the reserve has been restricted for the time being.
Thus, the reopening of Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary has been postponed till further notice.
A narrow road bifurcates the hyper-green paddy fields of Webi village in Middle Andaman, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. A clear stream flows around the Webi, home to the Karen community, brought to these shores from Myanmar 93 years ago.
At dusk, as fading sunlight paints the surrounding hills in silhouette, the calls of cicadas, crickets and frogs rise in crescendo. In the cacophonic stillness, a centipede winds its way across the empty weathered road. And then, in the blink of an eye, it’s gone, swallowed whole by a recent migrant to the island — the Indian bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus).
Barely 10 cm long, this particular specimen is small. But the larger ones weigh at least half a kilo. The golden stripe on their backs and the glitter around their throats shine in the diffused light of a mobile phone. Less than two feet from the centipede-eater sits another frog. Next to that, one more, and another, and another… scores of frogs in varied sizes, basking in the warmth of the asphalt. Every now and then, one of them leaps toward the murky waters of the paddy fields. There is nothing frog-like about the deep, guttural croaks of these prolific breeders. Rather, they sound more like a bull with a sore throat.
“It wasn’t here even five years ago. Now they’ve taken over the village,” says Nau Thaw Raytoo, a mother of four, who lives in a concrete-bamboo house with her children, their wives, and her six grandchildren. Her broken Hindi shifts to fluent, high-pitched Karen when instructing raucous kids.
The bullfrog is only the latest entrant in the Andamans’ 150-year-old history of invasives. Picture shows Gannatabla village at Diglipur in North Andaman. | Photo Credit: K. Murali KumarMORE-INGround Zero
The Indian bull frog, a recent arrival from the mainland, is steadily occupying the islands’ ecosystem and threatening the local economy. Mohit M. Rao reports on the bizarre man-frog conflict brewing in the islands
Barely 10 cm long, this particular specimen is small. But the larger ones weigh at least half a kilo. The golden stripe on their backs and the glitter around their throats shine in the diffused light of a mobile phone. Less than two feet from the centipede-eater sits another frog. Next to that, one more, and another, and another… scores of frogs in varied sizes, basking in the warmth of the asphalt. Every now and then, one of them leaps toward the murky waters of the paddy fields. There is nothing frog-like about the deep, guttural croaks of these prolific breeders. Rather, they sound more like a bull with a sore throat.
“It wasn’t here even five years ago. Now they’ve taken over the village,” says Nau Thaw Raytoo, a mother of four, who lives in a concrete-bamboo house with her children, their wives, and her six grandchildren. Her broken Hindi shifts to fluent, high-pitched Karen when instructing raucous kids.
Webi is just among the scores of villages in the islands where the amphibian has arrived in hordes. An unusual man-frog conflict is brewing. The voracious animal gulps down anything that would fit in its jaws: centipedes, leeches, native frogs, lizards, small snakes, and even chicks and ducklings, which are an important source of food for the islanders.
“I’ve seen them eat chicks, swallowing the head whole,” says Raytoo, adding that of the 15 chicks hatched in the family’s chicken coop this year, only three have survived. Balakishore, whose father is Ranchi (an overarching term for Jharkhand tribals who were settled here to clear the forests decades ago) and mother is Karen, has lost 50 ducklings to the frogs. When grown, each duck would have fetched at least ₹300 in the local market.
In the villages carved out of the virgin Andaman forests, the amphibian invader has evoked both surprise (“where did they come from?”) — and anxiety (“when will they go away?”). The bullfrog, found widely in mainland India and protected under Schedule IV of the Indian Wildlife Act 1972, is making the most of a free run that it’s enjoying in the erstwhile penal colony.
In the Andaman Islands, it can rain eight months of the year. The first rains in May are the signal for the bullfrogs to come out of the streams and agricultural ponds that have become their shelters. They breed by the hundreds, with each female able to lay between 3,500 and 20,000 eggs. Not all survive, but enough live to breed again, ensuring that the horde extends their range. With an average life span of seven years, and time to sexual maturity of 10-12 months, their population can dramatically shoot up in a very short time, which is precisely what happened once they landed in the islands.
“This is an invasion,” says Nitya Mohanty, a doctoral student at the Centre for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). His research, done with the Andaman and Nicobar Environment Team, has been on invasive species — first on the chitals (spotted deer) that have established their herds in the Andamans, and now on the bullfrog invasion.
So far, the bullfrog has been found in six out of the eight major inhabited islands. In 2017, it was even found in Little Andaman, which is separated from the Greater Andaman Islands by more than 55 km of sea. “This kind of incursion into remote islands is not naturally possible in such a short time,” says Mohanty.
The frog has acquired many names in the course of its journey through multi-cultural settlements of the island: shona beng (‘Golden frog’, for the prominent golden stripe) among the Bengali settlers; haramendak (‘Green frog’, for its olive-green skin) in Ranchi villages, where you could hear Oraon, Sadri or Munda being spoken; and dey-phala (‘Green frog”) in villages where the 2,500-odd Karen community stays. Whatever the name or language, the narrative of economic loss and ecological threat is a constant.
How they spread
Mohanty’s team sought to define the contours of this “invasion” through interviews with locals. As early as 2001, the bullfrog had already established breeding populations in one village. By 2009, it had spread to seven villages. Since then, at least 53 villages have reported the bullfrog in worrying densities.
Like most contemporary tales in the archipelago, the bullfrog story may also have to do with the earthquake and the tsunami that devastated large parts of Andaman and Nicobar islands in 2004. Following the decline of natural fish stock, the local administration encouraged integrated farming, with aquaculture in agricultural ponds. There are now over 2,500 such ponds in the islands, most of them filled with stocks of exotic, fast-growing fish imported from the mainland.
The fishling stocks (mostly from Kolkata) released into some of these ponds were contaminated with bullfrog eggs and tadpoles. All fingers point at the local fisheries department, which has, however, dismissed these claims and accused private traders of having brought the invader to the islands.
Most villagers believe that the bullfrog’s first hop into the islands was in Diglipur, in the northern tip of the Andamans, where its prolific spread first became a talking point. By 2011, it was spotted at Mayabunder in Middle Andaman, and by 2013, it was found in Wandoor, near the southern tip of the Andamans, around 300 km from Diglipur. While many were accidental releases, in some areas, it had been released by villagers as a fast-breeding cheap food.
Researchers Harikrishnan Surendran and Karthikeyan Vasudevan had been working in Wandoor since 2008, and were the first to report the presence of the bullfrog as an invasive in a scientific journal. “[The spread] is not surprising at all, given the high reproductive output of Indian bullfrogs and their association with agricultural areas… it was only a matter of time before they got introduced to other islands,” says Surendran.
Nearly two years ago, while engaged in construction and repairs at a resort near Wandoor in South Andaman, M. Alazhagan, 35, saw a multitude of frogs thronging the swimming pool. Some, he says, had turned yellow, with blue globules on their throat — males decked up for the breeding season. He approached one, and it froze. He decided to take a selfie: him grinning in the foreground, with the frog posing meditatively in the background. “It looked so strange! So much bigger than the frogs we were used to seeing and so colourful,” he recalls.
But fascination soon gave way to frustration. In North Wandoor village, located at the edge of the Lohabarrack Salt Water Crocodile Sanctuary, it isn’t the crocs that villagers keep an eye on.
The tsunami had created salty channels in the area and rendered large tracts infertile. So, many had turned to creating agricultural ponds — to rear fish and also because they would serve as sources of freshwater when the rains filled it up. Shushil Mondal found that his pond had been taken over by frogs. “Earlier I could get 20 kg of fish whenever I spread the net. Now, I get only shona beng. There is no fish left now. It has eaten everything,” he says.
The frogs pose a threat particularly to the livelihoods of landless labourers, such as Parimal Das and his family of eight. They had migrated to the Andamans from Kolkata nearly 20 years ago, and are now nomads, leasing land wherever it is available to grow vegetables. Agriculture in a rain-heavy, saline-rich soil is difficult, and free-range chickens are an important and steady source of income, with each fetching up to ₹600. “I’ve lost six chicks this year already. We had to build a murghi ghar [wooden makeshift cage on stilts] to lock the chickens at night, but even then the frogs manage to squeeze through,” he says.
On the other side of the Greater Andaman islands, the Andaman Trunk Road snakes its way through dense forests. Trees form a seemingly impenetrable canopy, creepers drape branches in a gown of broad leaves, and undergrowth form layers upon layers above the damp soil. Amidst the shades of green, the Andaman Crape Myrtle, a deciduous tree, bursts in bouquets of small lilac flowers.
Five kilometres of these forests separate Gannatabla village — a settlement of Jharkhand tribals — from the nearest village in North Andaman. The village is a clump of 50 houses and a series of rectangular paddy fields. There is no pond here where fish is cultured. The bullfrog, however, lurks in these fields and drinking water wells.
“We don’t know how it has come here. Three years ago, we spotted it in the streams that come through the forests when we went fishing for kala macchi (black fish). Now the fish is hardly seen but the frog is everywhere,” says 29-year-old Johnson Kirketa, suggesting that the bullfrog had crossed the forests through channels and streams.
Colonisers among the natives
Bullfrogs are found all over mainland India, but it is in the unique ecosystem of the islands that it becomes a major threat. Unlike the mainland, resources on the islands are scarce for big animals, while natural calamities are more frequent. The wildlife here has evolved in a miniature setting: there are no large herbivores (the largest is the Andaman wild pig) or large carnivores.
“Islands have fewer species, but their nature make them irreplaceable. They are found no where else in the world… This makes the entire food web in the islands very different from that of the mainland,” says Vasudevan, senior principal scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.
The Zoological Survey of India has found that out of the 9,130 marine and terrestrial species discovered so far in the islands, 1,032 species (or 11.30%) are endemic (found only in the Andamans). In the constraints of land, this endemicity increases to nearly 25%, or 816 out of the 3,271 land species. These creatures had evolved to cope with natural disaster, but have little capacity to withstand rapid, human-induced impacts. “There is not much room for redundancy and refuges in these islands,” says Vasudevan.
But the bullfrog is only the latest entrant in the Andamans’ 150-year-old history of invasives, with alien species introduced in waves by the British, Japanese, and ‘mainland’ Indians having gradually colonised many parts of the island territory. These include the elephant(introduced for logging and later abandoned), chital, hog deer, and barking deer (all three for game meat).
In 2013, using satellite imagery, Rauf Ali from the Puducherry-based Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning found that forests with elephants and chitals had suffered significant degradation (Interview Island) compared to places where they were absent (Little Andaman). It’s a one-two punch: elephants knock down trees and strip barks, while chitals prevent regeneration of forests by grazing on seedlings.
Invasives have come in all forms to the Andamans. The Japanese introduced the Giant African Snail, one of the 100 worst invasive species as described by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in the 1940s during their three-year occupation. It has now established itself as a major agricultural pest. Meanwhile, about 90% of the fish being bred in ponds are carps and other exotic fish which have even established natural breeding sites outside human-created ponds. Similarly, the islands are home to at least 592 introduced alien plant species, some indirectly pushing endemic plants to the fringe.
Away from the obvious economic impact, it is in the sounds of the night that one can perhaps gauge the ecological impact of the invasive bullfrog. Across infested villages, residents say sightings of native species of frogs have reduced. Full grown natives pale in size to even a young bullfrog. Water snakes, a common accompaniment for the paddy farmer, and centipedes are in decline.
But even more worrying signs were found in the gut of the frog. For months, Mohanty and his associates captured and “stomach flushed” contents out of 798 individuals belonging to two native species and the invasive bullfrog. From the gut of the bullfrog came out native frogs, the endemic Andaman blind snake, the endemic emerald gecko, skinks and others. “Adult bullfrogs pose a threat to small endemic vertebrates [from frogs to birds]. Within frog species, it can have a two-pronged impact on the Limnonectes genus of frogs. Bullfrogs not only eat the native frogs, even their diets overlap, indicating a possibility of competition,” he says.
It isn’t just their size that works to their advantage. It’s their appetite for meat, even at the tadpole stage. Bullfrog tadpoles are highly carnivorous, preying on other tadpoles (even native tadpoles) heavily.
Controlling invasives
In a few villages, the explosion in population from May onward sees a feast of bullfrogs: skin fried to a crisp, their legs boiled or fried. Here, a kilo (roughly three medium-sized frogs) is sold for ₹60 — the cheapest source of protein in the market. In other places, it is anger that has humans killing the frog. “Whenever I find it on the road, I beat it with a stick. If it jumps, I’ll jump into the paddy field and chase it. One dead frog means one lesser mother laying thousands of eggs,” says a villager in North Andaman, whose name has been withheld as killing bullfrogs is a criminal act under wildlife laws. In Wandoor, a family claims to have killed nearly 50 frogs in July.
However, these are mere dents in a burgeoning population. “It is difficult…I don’t see a way to stop it. The government should think of something. Else, in five years, poora basti bhar jayega [the village will be filled with frogs],” says Krishna Singh at Mohanpur village in North Andaman. He claims to have lost 30 chicks to the frog.
Murmurs of the conflict have started, with the issue being raised by local political representatives. “It really is a big menace. But we have to see how the population stabilises,” says S. Dam Roy, Principal Scientist at the Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Port Blair, which operates the local agriculture helpline.
Stung by the inflow of invasives, and with the fear that more could come, it was in the serene, undulating plantations that form the CIARI headquarters that a plan was hatched five years ago to start a ₹40-crore bio-security laboratory for quarantine and research. The plan did not materialise.
Globally, invasive species, particularly in islands, are becoming the focus of numerous organisations. The Convention on Biological Diversity has said that invasives have contributed to 40% of all animal extinctions since the 17th century. The IUCN has formulated guidelines for managing invasives specifically in islands, largely involving data collection, community engagement, policy measures and management plans.
Far away from the concerns of scientific papers and environmentalists, in the government offices at Port Blair, there is little panic about invasives. “They are just animals, and nature will find a way to live in harmony,” says Tarun Coomar, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, who also holds the post of Environment Secretary in the relatively small administration governing the islands.
This confidence is not reflected among the villagers. While many are resigned to the invasion, some suggest commercial harvest for export to South-East Asia, for history has shown that animal populations crash when they have an economic value attached to them.
But for now, it is an unchecked invasion. “Bullfrogs have reached little Andaman, the next frontier is Nicobar. There are other islands they are yet to invade, and we must do everything to stop that. Signs at jetties about the adverse economic impact of bullfrogs and the need to check contamination of fish stocks could be useful,” says Mohanty.
For millenia, the islands, now a Union Territory, were largely disconnected, literally and figuratively, from the mainland. In more ways than one, the landscape here resembles those in Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia than mainland India.
In ethos too, the disconnect remains. In government offices, officials caution outsiders (whose annual numbers touch 6.5 lakh, as compared to 3.9 lakh residents) to take it slow in the islands: “Ye mainland nahi, yeh Andaman hai [This is not the mainland, this is Andaman].” But it may not stay that way for long. As the croaks of the bullfrog reverberate through the islands, their clamour assumes the urgency of a clarion call — to act before it is too late.
Arunachal Pradesh on Thursday received an amount of Rs 1588.72 crore under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), which is a major boost towards promoting afforestation and achieving green objectives.
Tripura and Mizoram received funds of Rs 183.65 crore and Rs 212.98 crore under CAMPA.
In total, union minister of environment, forest and climate change Prakash Javadekar handed over Rs. 47,436 crore of CAMPA fund to various States in the presence of Union Minister of State Babul Supriyo.
The fund shall be utilized as per the provisions of the Compensatory (Afforestation) Fund (CAF) Act and CAF Rules.
Speaking at the meeting, Union Environment Minister Javadekar said, “The State budget for forests shall remain unaffected, and the fund being transferred would be in addition to the State Budget.”
“It is expected that all States will utilize this fund towards forestry activities to achieve the objectives of the Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs) of increasing its forest and tree cover, which will create an additional carbon sink equivalent to 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030,” said Javadekar.
The Environment Minister further emphasized that CAMPA funds cannot be used for payment of salary, travelling allowances, medical expenses, among other expenses.
Javadekar highlighted the efforts of the government towards preserving and improving the forest wealth and ecological security of the country.
He said important activities on which the fund will be utilised will be for the Compensatory Afforestation, Catchment Area Treatment, Wildlife Management, Assisted Natural Regeneration and Forest Fire Prevention and Control Operations and others.
Besides, the other activities include soil and moisture conservation works in the forest, Improvement of Wildlife Habitat, Management of Biological Diversity and Biological Resources, Research in Forestry and Monitoring of CAMPA works.
Exposure to toxic air pollutants is linked to increased deaths due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, warn researchers.
Conducted over a 30-year period, the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, analysed data on air pollution and mortality in 652 cities across 24 countries and regions.
The researchers found that increases in total deaths are linked to exposure to inhalable particles (PM10) and fine particles (PM2.5) emitted from fires or formed through atmospheric chemical transformation.
“As there’s no threshold for the association between particulate matter (PM) and mortality, even low levels of air pollution can increase the risk of death,” said Yuming Guo, Professor at Monash University in Australia.
“The smaller the airborne particles, the more easily they can penetrate deep into the lungs and absorb more toxic components causing death,” Guo said.
Though concentrations of air pollution in Australia are lower than in other countries, the study found that Australians are more sensitive to particulate matter air pollution and cannot effectively resist its adverse impacts.
“Given the extensive evidence on their health impacts, PM10 and PM2.5 are regulated through the World Health Organisation (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines and standards in major countries,” Guo added.
The results suggest that the levels of particulate matter below the current air quality guidelines and standards are still hazardous to public health.
LHASA = The unusually hot and dry weather in Tibet since June has posed new challenges to agriculture, climate experts said.
Sustained heat and little rainfall dried soil and limited the growth of vegetation, particularly in Lhasa, Nagqu and Xigaze, the Tibet regional climate center said.
The water surface of the Yarlung Zangbo River and Lhasa River shrank slightly compared to the same period last year, it said.
Local authorities have been reminded to make preparations for possible drought and step up monitoring of fires, crop diseases and pests, said Wang Xufeng, a researcher with the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
June’s average temperature in the Tibet Autonomous Region was 1.3 degrees Celsius higher than the previous average, with record highs seen in several cities.
On June 24, the temperature in Gyaca, under the jurisdiction of Shannan, soared to 32.6 degrees.
Regional capital Lhasa, which is a generally cool place 3,650 meters above sea level, embraced summer for the first time on June 23 since meteorological data was first collected in 1981.
Moreover, the region entered the rainy season on July 4, 27 days later than previous years.
Such weather anomalies have more negative impacts on agricultural production than positive ones, experts said.
With the highest elevation in the world’s mid-latitude region, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is very sensitive to the impact of global warming, said Kang Shichang, director of the State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Science of the CAS.
This year’s weather is an anomaly, and the long-term trend remains that the plateau is getting warmer and wetter, he said. (Xinhua)
