It was a wonderful and sunny October morning after an overwhelmingly busy week-long discussions over complexity of health systems and researchers’ collective aspiration for a people-centred health system held at a venue largely unrepresentative of the rest of South Africa, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Birds & wildlife
Afrindian Mammals
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I just came across a recent book on Indian mammals. Congratulations to the
Cover image from Flipkart. Click image if you really want to buy the book.
authors (M. S. Pradhan, S. S. Talmale), both from the prestigious Zoological Survey of India. I, for one would have bought it, if not for its fairly expensive pricing. It is priced at 4500. I hope, that by now, the authors have become aware of the bloopers on its outside cover though. Well, I hope they are bloopers, for I would find no good reason to illustrate a book of Indian mammals with African elephants on its cover! Continue reading
the biligirirangan hills
The BR Hills forests, until recently protected as a wildlife sanctuary under the
BR Hills have been identified as a source site for tigers, one among 42 such sites globally (Source: Walston et al, Plos Biology)
Wildlife Protection Act have recently been upgraded to a Tiger Reserve. And by no means without reason; BRT is one of the 42 global source sites for tigers, “so termed because these areas contain concentrations of tigers that have the potential to repopulate larger landscapes”. However, the forests are also a sanctuary to the Soliga people, who are themselves also increasingly seeing a role in tiger conservation. With a new, dynamic officer taking over as the Field Director of the tiger reserve, there was an effort at making a booklet to introduce new visitors to the rich wildlife, people and culture that these hills hold. Reproduced below is my contribution to the booklet, now incorporated into a well-designed booklet available to all visitors to the hills. Continue reading
NarcondaMn
Update: Apparently, the ayes have it! The Envt. & Forests Ministry’s committee decidees NOT TO go ahead with the proposal!
The Narcondam Horbill, an endangered species of hornbill from the Narcondam Island in the Andaman & Nicobar chain of islands is under threat. A
Sketch of the Narcondam Hornbill (Aceros narcondami)
proposal (a short-sighted one, clearly) to install a RADAR and a power supply source on this 681 hectare island by the Indian ministry of defence could endanger this species of hornbill found nowhere else in the world. Continue reading
Dazzled and deceived
Thanks to a recent British library membership acquisition, I got hold of this book by Peter Forbes – Dazzled and deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage. The book effortlessly leads the reader through a journey that begins in earnest with the comma butterfly flying across a garden and slowly winding its way through personal lives of luminaries in biology, through the private struggles and public lives of the proponents of various sorts of camouflage for both sides in the two world wars, artists and naturalists. There has been much talk about the role of camouflage nets in the winning of the Second battle of El Alamein in World War II. The battle was quite important – it got Churchill to apparently ring bells all over Britan, signifying the impending end to the war. Continue reading