2nd attempt at Rajaji National Park

So, Dr. Malik who is a good friend of Dr. Krausman (my PhD advisor) invited me to go into Rajaji NP.  This was the same park I had been to on my trip to Haridwar.  I thought this would be a great chance to again look at the park and hopefully see some elephants....I thought that since I was going with a professor from WII and that we were going to go into a part of the park where tourists do not go that For Sure I would see some elephants....

This was as close as I got to seeing elephants. :(

But I did get to see some other things....Nilgai

who are very cool because they use "toilets" - latrine sites - meaning they poop in the same place over and over and over.

Chetal

Though there are not tourists, there are people who live in the park.  These are herders and used to be nomadic people.  Now they stay all the time in the park which is causing great ecological impact because of their grazing practices and of course anything they harvest from the forest (like wood) to sell.   

I also got to see a male samba deer.  Last time I only got to see the females.  This buck was smart enough to put a tree between the vehicle and him and then walk directly back keeping the tree in between us.  Even as we inched forward he moved to the left.  Don't know how he did that without looking, but it was rather funny.    He peeked out at us several times from behind a tree and was trying to stay perfectly still as if we couldn't see him.  Funny thing is that his antlers were so wide that was all we could see on either side of the tree. 

Ive put more pictures up on the Picasa web site so click the links to the left if you want more of the NP.  Not too much in way of excitement though....no predators or "really" good bird shots. :(