Shooting from the heart

CHANDIGARH: India's first woman wildlife photographer Rathika Ramasamy had to wait for six months at Bharatpur bird sanctuary to click a perfect shot of a Saras crane pair. On her visit to the city, she narrated her close encounters with snakes, lions and gleaming birds of African jungles and Indian bird sanctuaries. For her, the most interesting work so far has been shooting Saras crane at Bharatpur bird sanctuary, Rajasthan.

Describing her 'perfect shoot', she said she had to wait for six months to shoot photographs of a Saras crane pair at Bharatpur. 'I waited for the right moment to capture elaborate courtship dances being engaged in by these cranes. When I got the shot, I was on seventh heaven. These photographs are possibly the best of my collection,' she said.

She has been regularly visiting national parks in and around Delhi to keep her zeal alive. She got into more active photography by shooting wildlife, especially wild cats, sitting patiently in hiding to catch the cats in action. She then zeroed in on the birds. 'I am a nature-friendly person and used to visit bird sanctuaries. I grew up visiting bird sanctuaries near my native place,' she added.

While she specializes in bird photography, she is also into wildlife photography. 'I remember a time when we were stuck at Nehru Park, New Delhi. While clicking photos of a lion that came suddenly in front of our vehicle, when we tried to move back, an elephant was coming from the other side. However, we managed to escape. I will never want to face such an experience again,' she added.

With her first SLR camera that she got from her uncle, Dr Appasamy, an amateur photographer, Rathika started capturing nature's moments like blooming flowers and swaying trees. 'My first candid shot was of my parents in the house that is close to my heart,' she said.

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You'll meet the locals as well as wildlife at this new reserve

Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary is the final link in a chain of reserves across southern India. And it's not just for rich tourists, says Sarah Barrell

Sunday, 13 March 2011

'Nothing stinks and everything is pleasant." So concludes the welcome film at India's newest tiger reserve. I'm at base camp in Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary, a little-known, recently created conservation area in eastern Kerala.

Myself and some 15 Indian tourists are jockeying for position in front of a screen in the spanking new interpretation centre watching a list of "dos and don'ts" aimed at those unfamiliar with the conventions of a nature reserve. That goes for most of the group.

Wildlife safaris are new to India's domestic travel market, partly because posh lodges in tiger tourism hub states such as Madhya Pradesh price out many local visitors. Day-tripping was the only easy way to visit Parambikulam until last year when basic camp facilities were added. Apart from my British companion and me, visitors to the reserve today are all from Kerala and neighbouring Indian states. A minibus transports us en masse, from the broiling Tamil Nadu town of Annamalai, past orderly groves of coconut palms, teeming villages and litter-strewn streams.


An hour later we bump on to the sole Forest Department road that climbs up through the wilderness of the Western Ghats towards the park. On arrival in camp, first impressions are of an old Indian army base renovated to resemble a child's playground. "That looks like one I might have made," says my companion, raising an eyebrow to a roughly hewn wooden table.


The same could have been said about the bamboo raft we clambered on to later. Somewhat alarmingly, the craft is used for croc-spotting; its gap-tooth, rustic finish generously allowing us to track the hefty mugger crocodile as it slips off the bank and passes beneath us. Parambikulam was created in 2007, but India's Environment and Forests Minister declared the reserve officially open only last year. It's just beginning to turn its hand to tourism.


But should tourists be here at all? Last year, in the face of plummeting tiger numbers, there were rumblings from the Indian government about severely limiting travel to the subcontinent's 38 big cat reserves. The debate is raging about the place for tourism in India's national parks: is it aiding or adding to the problem of the country's diminishing tiger numbers? Wildlife tourists are traditionally wealthy and foreign – their money often funding smart lodges rather than the conservation of the animals they've come to see. Apart from scientists and rangers, say critics, humans shouldn't be present in India's parks at all.


The more informed side of the argument, a view that Parambikulam shares, is that managed carefully, tourism is an essential part of promoting, protecting and sustaining India's wildlife and tribal communities, as it has been in the best South African and Amazonian reserves. Parambikulam was created to form the missing link in a chain of seven conservation areas stretching 4,000sq km across the middle of southern India. It's partly run by indigenous tribes who live on the land, and entrance is restricted to 30 vehicles a day, most of those aboard regulated buses that must come and go before sunset. Movement around the park is very restricted, too. Wildlife-watching is done in the equivalent of a public bus, along more or less the same prescribed route and only at dusk.


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India’s first woman wildlife photographer visits Chandigarh

By Jaideep Mander

CHANDIGARH: Pixel Palette organized an interactive session with India’s first woman wildlife photographer Rathika Ramasamy on March 12, Saturday at the Chandigarh Press Club.
The event began at 11:30 a.m. one of the top 20 photographers of India, Rathika briefly explained the concept of photography and wildlife photography through a presentation that contained number of beautiful photographs of birds and animals. She told how to capture photographs in their natural pose without disturbing the subject.

Much inclined towards bird- photography, Rathika said that it is a much more challenging task to capture birds whether perched or in flight as they just flick away in no time even with the shutter sound. Rathika said that there should be a strong and undisturbed coordination between the eyes, hands and mind to click photographs of birds. Besides, one needs to keep a continuous watch over the birds and animals to shoot the desired picture. Rathika also shared a few close encounters in the wilderness and warned that there should be minimum of 3-4 feet gap between the subject and the photographer to avoid attack by the subject wild animal.

Rathika briefly explained settings for focus, lights, shots, midtone adjustments, shutter priorities, shutter speeds, highlighting modes, metering modes for digital cameras, histogram readings and other settings suitable for various kinds of shots. She also told the importance of composition of a picture. Rathika talked about the dos and don’ts while shooting a good landscape in sunlight, low light, snow, fog and rain as well. She gave tips regarding the type of cameras and other equipments that a person must use to suit the type of shots he desires to take.

Rathika emphasized that for a perfect wildlife photograph, a person should have 40% knowledge of the techniques of photography and 60% knowledge of his subject and the nature. She also said that to be a wildlife photographer one has to have immense love for the nature. She stressed upon the fact that some people for the sake of their photography, disturb the nature and its creatures which is very wrong and immoral.

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South African zebras fail to cross Indian red tape

HYDERABAD: It's official now. The city's Nehru Zoological Park will not be getting the much awaited zebras from South Africa as the striped animals couldn't get past Indian red tape. The zebras, selected by the zoo authorities were found to have antibodies of piroplasmosis, a tick-borne disease, during the preliminary fitness tests. Assuming that they could be potential careers of the disease, the Indian government has ruled out the import, despite wildlife experts highlighting that the disease is common even in India.

Wildlife officials said that piroplasmosis is found in India as well and blamed the stringent quarantine rules in India for the deal to fall flat. "This disease is common in zebras and donkeys and we find it in India as well. Ninety five per cent of the animals in Rajasthan have it. But the quarantine protocol of the airport does not permit this. We had sought an exemption only for this purpose to the quarantine officials at the airport but they did not agree," said Hitesh Malhotra, chief wildlife warden, who had recently visited South Africa to check the condition of zebras before the import.

He further said that the dozen zebras selected for purchase were young, aged between a year and a year-and-a-half and healthy. They were also not exposed to the forest but for the anti-bodies, which they must have acquired from their mothers, they could not be brought here. In fact, a letter in this regard was also written to the Government of India highlighting the prevalence of the disease but a negative response was received recently.

Authorities at 360-acre Zoo Park had started working on this import with Bangkok-based Goatrade Farming at a cost of Rs 60 lakh in the beginning of 2010 after several unsuccessful attempts. This time, they were certain that it would fructify. The 12 zebras were to be distributed among three zoos in the state. As per plans, six were to be housed at the zoo in the city, while two each are to be sent to Tirupati and Vizag Zoo.

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Saving the tiger needs putting people first

Since 2006, the environment ministry has demarcated and declared 39 'critical tiger habitats' — the core of our tiger reserves. Every one of them, wrote activist C R Bijoy recently, is illegal. This is an extraordinary allegation. To understand it, we need to go back to our most recent "tiger crisis" .

In 2005, the country woke up to the news that the national animal had disappeared from Sariska, a well-funded tiger reserve close to Delhi. Public shock and outrage followed, and the government set up a task force to look into why tiger numbers had fallen and what could be done to reverse this.

While the Tiger Task Force tried to understand why India's premier conservation programme, Project Tiger, had failed, some conservationists were busy with another set of debates. These concerned the upcoming Forest Rights Bill, which proposed to confer rights on adivasis and forest dwellers over lands they lived on and the forest resources they used.

The bill ran afoul of conservationists and foresters who feared recognizing people's rights would jeopardize the fragile protection of forests and wildlife. They also felt these rights would worsen the pressure these habitats already experience from firewood harvest, cattle grazing, collection of forest produce and other local livelihood activities.

But, existing forest and wildlife conservation laws such as the Wild Life (Protection) Act of 1972 (WLPA) already provided for the recognition and settlement of some of the rights of local communities. So, why was a new law being drafted with very similar provisions?

For a rather simple but disturbing reason: while creating most wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, forest departments had not implemented the available provisions to recognize and settle the rights of local people. As a result, for several decades, millions of people in our forests and wildlife reserves have lived in the fear that they could be declared trespassers and removed from their lands anytime.

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14 tigers died in two months in India

NEW DELHI: As many as 14 tigers have died in the country till February this year alone, including two due to poaching, environment minister Jairam Ramesh told Lok Sabha on Tuesday.

Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, Ramesh said 161 tigers - 51 due to poaching -- have died since 2008.

"About 14 tigers have died, 12 due to natural and other causes and two due to poaching, till Feb 22 this year," Ramesh told the upper house.

From projections done on the basis of the last tiger census done in 2008, there are less than 1400 tigers left in India.

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Rajasthan mulls national park in Kumbhalgarh

JAIPUR: Rajasthan’s forest department plans to develop a national park in Kumbhalgarh, Raoli and Tatgarh areas of the state, an official said on Saturday.

The park, covering an area of 525 sq km, will be Rajasthan’s third one after Ranthambore and Keoladeo national parks in Sawai Madhopur and Bharatpur districts, respectively.

It is being planned to accommodate the growing population of tigers in Ranthambore National Park and prevent territorial fights among them.

The park will be developed after clubbing together sanctuary areas of Kumbhalgarh, Raoli and Tatgarh falling in Pali, Rajsamand, Udaipur and Ajmer districts, a senior forest department official told IANS.

“We have prepared the proposal on the basis of our vast research of the area. We found that it has all the potential to be developed as a national park,” said the official.

He added that combination of rocky terrains and dense forests was suitable for a variety of animals, including panthers, leopards, bears, deer and rabbits.

“There is no dearth of prey if the tigers are shifted here,” he said.

If implemented, the project is likely to give a major boost to the tourism industry in the state.

“The state government, after giving its nod, will issue a notification announcing the area as national park. After that, work to shift some of the villages will begin,” he said.

The desert state is one of the few states that can boast of two tiger projects, a bird sanctuary and 25 wildlife sanctuaries. 

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Payal Kapoor's arty soiree

When Payal Kapoor invited art enthusiasts for the art exhibition on Indian wildlife by Vikramaditya Singh, it made for a lively Saturday evening.

Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was the chief guest for the evening, surprised all by making an appearance in a sharp black suit, with colour-coordinated shoes and belt, unlike his usual self in white kurta and black jacket. And look who came all the way from Dehradun (Doon School, we mean) to accompany him – his 16-year-old son Aryaman Scindia. We asked the dad to elaborate a bit on his bracelet (the politico was wearing a casual band and a bracelet, which, looked like that of Sallu Bhai's), to which he said, looking at his wrist, "This? Oh...umm... nothing, it's just very personal. Forget it!"

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