canis: Ranebennur blackbuck sanctuary- once home for the Great Indian Bustard

Last month i had gone Ranebennur Black buck sanctuary from daroji,700 kms from Chennai. Harish told me that he will show me the place were the Rreat Indian Bustard which was once found in the sanctuary. he had told many incidences about bustards and Ranebennur. so i was keen on visiting the place.
Ranebennur blackbuck sanctuary was declared a wildlife sanctuary on the 17th of june 1974.It was created to protect the majestic blackbuck. Spread over the sprawling area of 119 square kilo meters,it is divided into three blocks viz; hulathi,hunasikatti and alageri for administrative purposes.it has a core area of 14.87 kms and a buffer zone of 104.13 km wherein the tourists are allowed. The vegetation here comprises mainly of scrub forests and extensive eucalyptus plantations. Located in haveri district. The fauna here comprises wild pig,fox,jackal, wolf,blackbuck etc.

Accompanied by the ACF, Ranebennur we reached there late in the night. An awesome dinner was arranged by him n he was telling about the efforts taken to protect the bustards.
Next morning with a great excitement n worry I entered the sanctuary. Excitement because I will be seeing blackbucks for the first time and there r good chances of sighting my favorite animal, the wolf, and worry because I am driving my dad’s sedan in the thorny and rugged mud roads of Ranebennur. After driving in and out of the sanctuary I was totally exhausted. I couldn’t sight even a single blackbuck. After leaving the sanctuary harish was explaining how the blackbucks would raid the crop fields in the night. They enter silently after sun set, graze peacefully in the fields n get back before dawn as though nothing had happened. A typical robbery style :) Heading back to the forest IB i did some birding in the near by area.

Next day we left to the sanctuary very early by 4 am. On my way I had a very nice sighting of the black naped hare. It was resting in the open area n my car provided a very good hide to photograph it. But the light was very very low and shutter speed was 1\30th of a second. I Managed to get a record shot of it in the open. At this situation the VR really helped.
Driving few feet away we came across a jackal out in the open but again the light was not fortunate for me. I managed to get some shot of the blackbucks. But everything was a record shot. I didn’t expect wat I wanted. Heading back in the evening I was accompanied by the forester Hiramutt. He saw a shepard.his sheep was grazing the area. He got down to catch him but he ran. When he came back he was carrying a goat from the herd so that the Shepard will collect it by paying fine. We put the goat in the back seat and reached the IB. on our we just couldn hear anything because the goat which was on the seat was bleating like hell.

That night we had a very good touching conversation with Harish and ACF. They we talking about the existence of great Indian bustards in this area. They were lot of them in the nineties and it was depleting due to heavy encroachment and the habitat of the great Indian bustards was grazed complete by 5 lakhs sheep in that area. Bustard prefers open grasslands but this place was planted with eucalpytus trees which was a very big hinderence to them. They breed very slow and lays one or two eggs a year. As they lay in the land which r prone to predators. They r none other than us, humans, the most greediest n senseless species in the world. At the end the numbers dropped down as count down and reached zero. Harish made a awareness’ film on bustards in Ranebennur. In one of the clipping a Shepard was narrating how he cooked the bustard egg for food. All this were very evident that the great Indian bustards will be viped from Ranebennur. Its very disheartening to see the habitat without the bustards :( the forest department is planning for a captive breeding programme here but we don know how effective it will be. we lost most of them without knowing the importance. Atleast now people should wake up to help conserve one of the greatest endemic bird of India,THE GREAT INDIAN BUSTARD.
Finally before everyone left harish told me a touchy quote with mosturising eyes. Ram “We people now atleast know something about the bustard but it took us a long time to know about it. Now around 400 birds survive in 7 states of India. All the places r filled with biotic pressures. One thing is for sure ram, we are now holding the bustards tail. Its upto us, humans to bring the bird back from the brink of extinction or just to bring the feathers from the tail” It was very touching and I promised harish that I will do my maximum to influence people about the status of bustards.

I hope after reading this article u would have got an over view of the status of bustards.I think I am doing a bit of conservation. R u doing it?