India  

Butterflies are so beautiful that I find it difficult to refer to them as insects, but they are insects.

They are attractive and graceful. Vivid and multi coloured – representing nature’s canvas at its finest. The restless butterflies make a fascinating sight flittering around in gardens and parks, hovering over plants, landing on the flowers for a few sips of nectar, before taking off.
Metamorphosis - one of most remarkable phenomenon of nature 

Metamorphosis – the transformation from egg to larva, larva to cocoon, from which emerges a beautiful butterfly – is one of most remarkable phenomenon of nature. 

Metamorphosis involves four stages:

• Egg: The female butterfly lays eggs on the underside of specific plants so that when caterpillars later emerge from the eggs, they can immediately get food from the plant leaves.
• Larva: Also called caterpillar, emerge from the eggs after a few days. The caterpillar is a eating machine and spends most of its time eating.
• Pupa: When the caterpillar has finished growing, it stops eating and forms a protective shield called Pupa. Most of the magical transformation into a butterfly takes place inside the Pupa.
• Butterfly: The pupa undergoes transformation and the caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly which emerges from the pupa.

The adult butterfly later mates and lays eggs on plants and the cycle starts all over again.
You can see the video of a butterfly metamorphosis at any of the following sites:

http://vimeo.com/7203408

http://lifecycle.onenessbecomesus.com/

 
Butterfly Facts

• There are 1,500,000 insect species in the world. 
• Of these, 200,000 species are of Lepidoptera (the group to which moths and butterflies belong).
• 17, 050 of these species are butterflies and the rest are moths!
• Of the17, 050 species world wide, India has 1501 species of butterflies
• The life cycle of a butterfly is extremely short – mere 30 to 40 days.
   

Butterfly Parks

All over the world, butterflies have suffered extensive damage due to habitat destruction – urbanisation, felling of trees, construction, etc.
In many areas, they have been almost exterminated.

Butterfly parks have been set up in several countries ….to conserve them, to breed them, to allow visitors to see them and to conduct research.
There are quite a few well maintained butterfly parks in different countries of south-east Asia which display quite a large selection of different species.
But unknown to most of us, there are a few good butterfly parks in India, too.

India’s First Butterfly Park – Butterfly Park, Bangalore

India’s first Butterfly Park was opened on November 25, 2006 in Bangalore to promote butterfly ecotourism.

The Butterfly Park, near the Bannerghatta Zoo, cost Rs 50 millions and covers an area of over 7.5 acres.
 
The centre of attraction is the 10,000 sq. feet circular Conservatory with polycarbonate roof which has on display more than 20 species of butterflies.

The next dome houses a museum. Here you learn about the 4 stages of lifecycle of the butterfly – the egg, larva or caterpillar, pupa or chrysalis, and the adult.
You learn about different species of butterflies – from the smallest Eastern Pygmy Blue, Brephidium isophthalma with a wingspan of about 5/8 of an inch to large Bird-Wing butterflies from New Guinea, with wingspans of up to 12 inches. 

The third and last dome is a theatre where you can watch a 20 minute movie about butterflies. Besides giving information about butterflies, the movie focuses on conservation. The movie explains how the fate of man and butterflies are interlinked and conservation of the environment is in our mutual interest.

The Butterfly Park also has an artificial waterfall. It is quite well maintained and has become a popular week end attraction amongst localites.

India’s second Butterfly Park was established at Shimla in Himachal Pradesh. It cost Rs. 60 millions and spreads over an area of 10 acres.

 Himachal Pradesh has more than 300 species of butterflies. The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) found 14 species of butterflies in the cold deserts of Lahaul and Spiti district.

The Butterfly Park which includes a conservatory, a museum and a nature park has a larger collection of butterflies.

The Butterfly Park in Pune was inaugurated by actress Dimple Kapadia on Women’s Day – March 8, 2011.

The Pune Municipal Corporation funded the park with Rs. 50 million. The Park covers an area of two acres. The project has transformed a dirty drain into a beautiful park.

The Butterfly Park has about 80 species of butterflies. It also has a rock garden, waterfalls and a jogging track.

Butterfly Park in Chandigarh

The Environment Society of India inaugurated a Butterfly Park at the Commonwealth Youth Programme Asia Centre in Sector 26 of Chandigarh on Biodiversity Day – 23 May 2011.

The Park costing Rs. 70 lakh covers an area of 7.5 acres.

India’s first Open-air Butterfly Park in Sikkim

India’s first Open-air Butterfly Park was established at Rangrang, Sikkim. It cost Rs. 60 millions and extends over an area of 14 acres

Some nature lovers have started their own private Butterfly Parks.

Butterfly Conservatory of Goa, Rajnagar, Pisgal – Priol, Ponda, Goa.

 The Butterfly Conservatory of Goa. situated in Ponda , the Spice and temple town is quite good

This private Butterfly Park is spread over 4000 square metres.  A few common people, without too much money and resources, got together and have converted the place, which was once barren and without any natural source of water, into a beautiful park with streams, endemic plants and a lot of butterflies. If you go to Goa, you must visit this Butterfly Park.

http://www.bcogoa.org/

 Ovalekar Butterfly Farm at Wadi, Thane

 Closer to Mumbai, Rajendra Ovalekar, started a Butterfly Park on his own 2 acres of land at Ovalekar Wadi, off Ghodbunder Road, in Thane (near Mumbai).

This small place has about 100 different species of butterflies. And Ovalekar personally escorts you around the place and explains to you all about butterflies.
Very few people in Mumbai even know about this Butterfly Park.

http://www.wikimapia.org/14420146/Butterfly-Farm

 Protecting our Butterflies

 A total of 450 species of butterflies have been given protection under The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972;
128 species under  Schedule-I,

303 species under Schedule- II and  

19 species under Schedules- IV.
Butterflies have also been given protection under the Biodiversity Act of 2002.
 

Commercial Butterfly farming

Commercial Butterfly Farming has been adopted as a viable occupation in several countries. In India, too, Butterfly Farming can help the rural people play an active role in the conservation of butterflies as well as help them earn some good money.

The Bombay Natural History Society, founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research.

It is also doing a lot of work in relation to butterflies. Its museum has a huge collection of 25,000 butterflies collected over the years. It conducts regular programmes like Breakfast with Butterflies and Butterfly watch camps allowing any one to see and learn about butterflies.
It also conducts distance learning courses in Basic Entomology.

Butterfly Migration

Many animals, birds and other animals migrate….sometimes over long distances. Butterflies also migrate.

A few, like the Monarch Butterfly, migrate long distances. There are no other insects in the world that migrate twice each year for close to 3,000 miles.

But the there is one difference between the migration of butterflies and the other animals. The butterflies who migrate, because of their short life spans, do not live to return to the originating place.
They perish. Only their off springs return. What guides the off springs to the same locations?
Well, this is one of Nature’s unsolved riddles.

Vanishing Vultures 

Perhaps you have noticed that at present there are considerably less vultures in our skies than there were a few years back.

In the early eighties, there were about 40 million vultures in India. The Oriental white-backed vulture was so abundant in India, that it was probably the most common large bird of prey in the world.
The vulture population has declined…….. by more than 97%……. in the last few years and their numbers are decreasing at an alarming rate.

Vultures endangered

Of the nine species of vultures found in India, three species – the white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures have been categorised by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as critically endangered.
These three species are also listed in Schedule I species in the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, along with the tiger and one-horned rhino.

A survey by the Bombay Natural History Society in 2007 estimated that there were about:

• 1000 slender-billed vultures,
• 11,000 white-backed vultures, and
• 44,000 long-billed vultures in the country.

Reasons for the decline

 The main reasons for the decline in vulture population in the entire South and Southeast Asia are:

• Rapid urbanization which has caused habitat destruction – felling of the high-rise trees, where the vultures nest;
• Aeroplanes and other moving objects in the sky;
• Electric power lines;
• Rampant use of pesticides like DDT, and to a great extent diclofenac.

Diclofenac

Many experts believe that the drug diclofenac is the main culprit for the decline of vultures in India.
India introduced the diclofenac in 1993. The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) has been campaigning against diclofenac since 2003 because diclofenac, which is used to treat cattle, is toxic to any vulture that feeds on the carcass of recently treated cattle.

In 2006, the Government of India banned the manufacture and import of diclofenac – but only for veterinary purposes. Nepal and Pakistan followed the ban.

In 2008, the Government of India placed more stringent restrictions on diclofenac for animal use, making contravention punishable with imprisonment.

But diclofenac, which continues to be legally used and sold for humans, is available across the counter in most medicine shops, and is illegally used for animals.

Dr. Vibhu Prakash, the principal scientist for the vulture conservation breeding programme at BNHS, Mumbai found that, over 75% of vultures which were discovered dead or died of visceral gout had diclofenac in their tissues.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/vultures/ 

The Indian Veterinary Research Institute also conducted tests and detected heavy content of diclofenac, in samples of dead vultures.  

Diet of the vultures

Vultures usually feed on carcasses of livestock and wildlife.
They do not hunt living animals, though sometimes, they attack and  kill wounded or sick animals.

A mature vulture eats almost half a kg meat everyday. Vultures detect dead animals faster than any other animal, and follow migrating predators and other large animals feeding on the dead and help in keeping the environment clean.

Captive Breeding

The BNHS advocated the captive breeding of vultures as the only viable option to save the creatures

“By bringing some vultures in captivity, the life of these vultures is saved and once they start breeding, they would augment their population. The vultures will be released back in the wild once we are sure that there is no diclofenac available in system,”

The Govt. of India permitted BNHS to run three vulture conservation breeding centres at Pinjore of Haryana, Rajabhatkhawa of West Bengal and Rani of Assam. BNHS is supported by a number of international organizations like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK), Zoological Society of London , Peregrine Fund (US), and the newly-formed consortium Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE).
(There are conservation breeding centres linked to the SAVE programme also in Nepal and Pakistan.)

The three conservation breeding centres in India have 271 vultures. And they have successfully bred of all the three endangered species. 

2011 has been the most successful year for the Indian captive breeding centres.
The number of fledged chicks is almost double than last year’s. 
Eighteen vulture chicks were successfully reared, 15 at the Pinjore centre in Haryana, and the remaining three at Rajabhat Khawa in West Bengal.

Four fledged birds were a direct result of ‘double clutches’: some pairs produced a second egg after the first was removed, hatched in incubators and reared by BNHS staff.

Some experts are against captive breeding of vultures. But the three breeding centres are making very good progress.

An exclusive sanctuary for the Vultures

The Tamil Nadu Government is now examining a proposal  to set up a home for vultures in the Sigur Plateau in the Nilgiris. This would be the first of its kind in the country. 

Why should we be concerned about vultures

About a year back, I saw a large group of vultures flying over the Fort in Jodhpur. Someone explained that this place was one of the biggest nesting and breeding places of these vultures.

Why should we be concerned about vultures?
For one, they are nature’s scavengers.
There are other scavengers, but they are not as efficient as the vultures.  The vultures are usually the first to detect dead carcasses and others follow them. Besides  they carry a host of diseases like rabies, which can easily be transmitted to humans.

Love them or hate them, vultures are uniquely adapted scavengers and their loss would have numerous negative repercussions for other species inhabiting our planet, including us.
http://blogs.peregrinefund.org/pages/article.php?eid=683

Manicured Tea Gardens

I had heard a lot about Munnar, the beautiful hill station in South India.
And although I had visited places very close to Munnar, such as Theni (Tamil Nadu) – only about an hour’s drive from Munnar – due to shortage of time, I could not visit the place.

So, in early 2011, I decided to visit Munnar,

Munnar is a wonderful getaway in Kerala, nestling at an altitude of 1,829 metres, amidst luscious tea and coffee plantations, hills, valleys, lakes, waterfalls, forests, exhilarating walks, birds and animals. It is nicknamed the Kashmir of South India.
I booked a small suite in one of the finest resorts there. My RCI membership comes in handy on such occasions. I had to pay only nominal charges. I also booked return flights from Mumbai to Kochi three months in advance. So those too were cheap.

A two hour drive (120 kms) from Kochi airport took me into the heart of tea country. I was passing through beautiful tea gardens on all sides.

Tea

I recently read an article that tea drinking originated in India. Much as I would love to believe this,  this is not true.
Tea drinking originated in China almost 4750 years ago. It was known there as Ch’a. The word has been copied by India, Japan, Russia, Iran and the Middle East.

In A.D. 780, the Chinese tea expert Lu Yu published the first exclusive book on tea ‘Ch’a Ching’ meaning ‘Tea classic’. In this book, he has described various kinds of tea, their cultivation and manufacturing in China.
Though we had indigenous tea plants in India, commercial cultivation of tea entered India much later. In 1834, Lord William Bentinck, then Governor General of British India, appointed a Tea Committee to advise him on the feasibility of commercial tea cultivation in India. The first experimental samples of tea from indigenous tea plants were sent to Calcutta in 1836.
The rest is history.

Today, India is the world’s second largest producer (India was number one, but China overtook India to become the number one). And we have all kinds of tea….from the good old time tested orthodox “Britisher’s….cuppa tea” to all kinds of delicately flavoured exotic concoctions.

History of Munnar and its tea plantations

Munnar was discovered by John Daniel Manro, a British lawyer and planter, in the 1870s, when he visited the area on a hunting expedition. He immediately recognised the agricultural potential of the region.

In July 1877, Manro leased 581.12 sq kms (125,000 acres) of land from the Raja of Poonjar and formed a co-operative society called ‘North Travancore Land Planting and Agricultural Society’. The members of the society started farming coffee, sisal and cardamom.  
Another European, A.H. Sharp, experimented with different crops such as coffee, cinchona, sisal and cardamom and concluded that the area was best suited for tea. He started tea plantations. Over the years, more and more tea plantations grew up.

In 1964, the Tata Group entered Munnar.  By 1980s, Tata Tea Ltd. had acquired most of the tea plantations to become the second largest integrated tea manufacturing facility in the world.

On 1st April 2005, Tata Tea Ltd. exited most of its plantations in Munnar and were succeeded by Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Limited which now owns 7 extensive gardens covering 24,000 hectares, with an annual production of 21 million kgs of tea.
An interesting feature of this company is that its 12,000 plus employees are its shareholders.

What to see

There are a number of places in and around Munnar which you can visit. During the rains, the place becomes a fairyland enveloped in fog and mist andfull of cascading waterfalls.

But where ever you go, when ever you go, you will see beautifully manicured tea gardens. Left to nature, the tea plants grow quite tall. But for tea cultivation, they have to be continuously cut to 1 metre or so to encourage the growth of new shoots. The fresh tea shoots are pinched or clipped every three or four days from which tea is made.

The tangled leftovers of dead tea plants make wonderful show pieces. They are dried, sand papered and given a coat of varnish. You can put a sheet of glass on them and use them as beautiful ornamental tables.

Tea Museum  (2 kms from Munnar)

The Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Limited maintains India’s first tea museum which is a must visit site for all visitors.
Here, you can learn about the growth of the tea industry – from the simple tea roller to the present fully automated tea factory of Madupatty.
You can learn about various aspects of tea processing and the operations that go into the making of black tea. You can also do some tea tasting.

 You can see old-time bungalow furniture, iron safe, magneto phone, wooden bathtub, iron oven that used firewood, etc., and antique office equipments such as antiquated typewriters and PBX.
The museum has an iron-age burial urn from the 2nd century B.C. exhumed in the 1970s.

 Near the entrance of the museum is a granite sundial, made in 1913 by the Art Industrial School at Nazareth in Tamil Nadu.

Mattupetty (13 kms from Munnar)

The Mattupetty lake and dam are situated at a height of 1700 mts. You can do some boating here.
You can visit the Indo-swiss dairy farm, which is close by. It has over 100 varieties of high yielding cattle.
Eravikulam National Park (15 km from Munnar)
PEERMEDE

There are other national parks around Munnar,  but the 97 sq. kms. Eravikulam National Park is the home of the endangered Nilgiri Tahr, a rare mountain goat. Originally established to protect the Nilgiri Tahr, the Park was declared a sanctuary in 1975. Its status was elevated to National Park in 1978.
The total number of Niligiri Tahrs here is estimated to be over 1300 – about half the world’s population.

The park is breathtakingly beautiful. The Anamudi peak (2695 mts), the highest peak in South India, is located in the Southern region of the park.
If you have the time and inclination, you can walk up to the top.

Marayoor (40 kms from Munnar)

Marayoor is the only place in Kerala that has a natural growth of sandalwood trees.
I visited the sandalwood factory of the forest department, the caves (muniyaras) with murals and relics from the New stone age civilization and the children’s park spread across a hectare of land under the canopy of a single banyan tree.
You can also visit the Thoovanam waterfalls and Rajiv Gandhi National Park nearby.

Dolmens

You can see muniyaras (caves) dating back to the New Stone Age near Kovilkadavu village. These caves contain rock paintings of great archaeological importance.
But what was more interesting for me were the dolmens, or old burial chambers, consisting of four erect stones covered by a horizontal capstone.

Neelakurunji flowers

You can also see the beautiful Neelakurunji flowers here, but there is only one hitch. The spectacular blue blooms cover the entire mountainside.
But they flower once in 12 years and the next flowering will take place in 2018.
So you will have to wait for another 7 years.

 Reaching There

 The nearest airport is Kochi.
Kochi also has a railway station and is well connected by road also.
You can see a map of the place and get other information from the
following site:
http://www.munnar.org/munnar-maps.php

Summer Resort

The word Munnar is derived from the Tamil words moon – aar meaning three rivers because Munnar is located at the confluence of three rivers – Mudrapuzha, Nallathani and Kundala.
The most appropriate description of Munnar would be tea country. But it is much more than that.

The Britishers of South India had made Munnar their summer resort.

And it really rains during the monsoons. The rains here are 2^nd only to Cherrapunji in Assam.

You will surely fall in love with the place during the rains.

Asiatic Cheetah

Once upon a time, the Asiatic Cheetah (a different sub specie from its African cousin) was quite common and  roamed all the way from Arabia to Iran, Afghanistan and India. The Asiatic Cheetah was also known as the hunting leopard, and were kept by kings and princes to hunt gazelle.
The Moghul Emperor Akbar is believed to have kept 1000 cheetahs.

 
Decimation of the Asiatic Cheetah

At the turn of the 20th century, there were several thousands of the Asiatic Cheetah in India.
But they were indiscriminately hunted.
The last three wild cheetahs in India were shot by the Maharajah of Surguja in eastern Madhya Pradesh in 1947.

After that, there remained a few cheetahs in different zoos of India.
But all of them died.
Since then, 35 cheetahs have been brought to India.
All of them died due to improper care and diseases in 6 different zoos – Hyderabad, Delhi, Kanpur, Calcutta, Trivandrum and Mysore. 

Cheetah from Numibia

The Government of India approached Iran for a pair of cheetahs.
Iran agreed to give a pair in exchange of a pair of wild lions.
But Gujarat refused to give the two lions from the Gir Sanctuary.

The Government of India then approached Namibia and Namibia agreed to give a pair of cheetahs to India.
But the Namibian cheetah is a different sub-species from the Asiatic cheetah, and scientists warn that no translocation should be done without proper studies.  

Final decision to be taken in September 2009

An international conference of experts from Africa and Europe will be held in September 2009 to move the project forward.
If the plan is cleared, the pair of Numibian cheetahs are likely to be translocated to Rajasthan.

A final decision will be taken by the Government of India after the expert meeting.
However, scientists want a very cautious approach because what is being reintroduced from Numibia are not the the Asiatic Cheetah but a different sub-species.  

We may soon see the Cheetah in our forests

As things are moving in the right direction, I am sure Cheetah will soon be reintroduced in our forests.