As part of my grant I asked to be allowed to attend the tours with the MSc students. These are extended field trips where they learn about certain portions of wildlife studies. The trip to Orissa was entitled the Wetlands Tour. We were to learn about wetland ecology and management - particularly through certain examples in Orissa.
For instance there are 3 crocodile species in India and Orissa is one of the only places where all 3 used to occur naturally. We were allowed to handle some salt water croc's that they are trying to reintroduce after about 4 years of husbandry in captivity.
They were really successful with reintroducing the salt water crocs but not the Gharial - which is unfortunate because funding and support deminished for crocs. Most saw that - hey we are getting crocs back so all is good no need for more $$ - except that they were only getting saltys not the Muggers or Gharial.
Two of the students (which I find funny) got bit by a salty while handling them. I say this is funny because they weren't hurt - just startled. It is also funny because now they can go around saying they were bit by a saltwater croc and lived to tell the tale. It wasn't so funny for the croc who was dropped due to misshandling - but they are just fine too. Tough creatures.
We also learned about Chilka Inida's largest freshwater lake. The ecology and restoration management for this lake is quite the story - but would probably bore most of you. So to highlight while on the lake we learned about the fishing industry and I got to see dolphins! There is much contriversy over the shrimping/fishing industry with overharvesting, no regulations, no enforcement of the little regulations they do have, no monitoring, no standardizations, and danger to those that do try to regulate the harvest.
Also, along the beaches in this area are spots of mass nesting for turtles, particularly Olive Riddly turtles. When I say mass nesting I mean 1,000's of turtles nesting in the course of 3 nights. 90 turtles is "nothing" - has to be over 800 to be mass nesting (ok there is no magic number but when I was impressed by 90 I was laughed at and told "thats not MASS nesting")...for someone who's never seen turtles nesting 90 seems impressive. With turtle nesting you are not allowed to take photographs because the light messes with turtle ecology (for those of you who don't know - turtles that are nesting are attracted to the light the moon provides - which is why there is a concern of light pollution and the light from factories attracting turtles to the wrong locations for nesting and nests fail etc.) But we did get to see some nests that actually we spooked a jackal off from raiding. Therefore the forest service sent a guy to transplant the eggs to a nursery where they will be helped. This is the ideal anyway. There are a lot of issues with the methods (there aren't any), with who they hire to help (usually some random uneducated guy someone knows - not anyone with the proper knowledge behind turtle conservation), with consistancy of collection an monitoring, with proper documentation of how many eggs from which clutch, from which beach, from what day - which plays a huge part because 50some days later the eggs hatch and there needs to be someone there to make sure the baby turtles can get to the water without the crabs eating them. Anyway, its a big mess and yet another example of how India is a developing country.
We also learned about Chilka Inida's largest freshwater lake. The ecology and restoration management for this lake is quite the story - but would probably bore most of you. So to highlight while on the lake we learned about the fishing industry and I got to see dolphins! There is much contriversy over the shrimping/fishing industry with overharvesting, no regulations, no enforcement of the little regulations they do have, no monitoring, no standardizations, and danger to those that do try to regulate the harvest.
Also, along the beaches in this area are spots of mass nesting for turtles, particularly Olive Riddly turtles. When I say mass nesting I mean 1,000's of turtles nesting in the course of 3 nights. 90 turtles is "nothing" - has to be over 800 to be mass nesting (ok there is no magic number but when I was impressed by 90 I was laughed at and told "thats not MASS nesting")...for someone who's never seen turtles nesting 90 seems impressive. With turtle nesting you are not allowed to take photographs because the light messes with turtle ecology (for those of you who don't know - turtles that are nesting are attracted to the light the moon provides - which is why there is a concern of light pollution and the light from factories attracting turtles to the wrong locations for nesting and nests fail etc.) But we did get to see some nests that actually we spooked a jackal off from raiding. Therefore the forest service sent a guy to transplant the eggs to a nursery where they will be helped. This is the ideal anyway. There are a lot of issues with the methods (there aren't any), with who they hire to help (usually some random uneducated guy someone knows - not anyone with the proper knowledge behind turtle conservation), with consistancy of collection an monitoring, with proper documentation of how many eggs from which clutch, from which beach, from what day - which plays a huge part because 50some days later the eggs hatch and there needs to be someone there to make sure the baby turtles can get to the water without the crabs eating them. Anyway, its a big mess and yet another example of how India is a developing country.
