By Gaurav Shirodkar
Taking a late-night train from Pendra road near Achanakmar in Chhattisgarh, I reached Ambikapur in the northeastern part of the state in the wee hours of the morning. A few months ago, before I was part of a recce trip for the Wild Chhattisgarh Project for Sanctuary, I knew little about the state and certainly not that it was home to an elephant reserve. That was reason enough for me to be excited at the prospect of arriving at Ambikapur, the nearest rail station to the Sarguja Elephant Reserve, in Chhattisgarh’s Sarguja and Jashpur Districts.
Looking out of the train window, expecting to see a vista of green, my first glimpse was of murky roads running parallel to the tracks, packed with coal-lugging trucks. Ambikapur it turns out is a huge coal-hauling station. I hoped that Sarguja would be different.
I was met by Saurabh Verma from the Chhattisgarh Tourism Board at the station and after a quick breakfast we headed straight to the Tamor-Pingla Wildlife Sanctuary, one of three sanctuaries, the other two being Badalkhol and Semarsot, that constitute the Sarguja Elephant Reserve. This was late June 2016, and the monsoon had followed me through my journey. The air turned fresh, small puddles accompanied the earthy aroma of first showers and I smiled inwardly, though the vehicle was soon to complain about the tough-going on the monsoon-rutted forest tracts. After a mandatory entry in the register, I chatted with the forest guards on duty, asking about the number of visitors that frequented the park. The guards chuckled, replying, “zero!” I checked the register; there really were no tourists here in the last season, save for guests of the Forest and Tourism Departments. Though Tamor-Pingla was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1978, seven villages are still located inside the park.
Thankfully, all except one have under 20 households. Much of the buffer and area around the village I was passing through to enter the park had been converted to fields with cattle grazing all around.
I asked about tiger and leopard sightings at Tamor-Pingla. The forest guard said there has not been a tiger sighting since the 1990s. Poaching for the pot was rampant then and prey populations had been decimated. Logging was also a huge problem. Nevertheless, leopard and sloth bear spoor was evident and I stopped frequently to examine scats and claw marks on trees on either side of the forest road.
Around me I saw sal, and mixed deciduous trees, interspersed with bamboo brakes. The terrain was rough and hilly and the soil rocky and loose. Like a sponge, the forest had soaked the south-west monsoon and small rivulets could be seen flowing through the leaf litter. It was quite magical.
In the verdant surrounds I spotted an array of birds – the ‘metallic tingling call’ of the Racket-tailed Drongo, the whistle of the Tickle’s-blue Flycatcher, and the crackling of a Jungle Owlet. White-bellied Drongos, White-rumped Shamas, bulbuls, mynas, bee-eaters and a lone Kestral suggested that the insect-abundance was keeping the avians well-fed. At one point I saw a couple of monitor lizards partaking in the monsoon insect harvest. The jungle was alive! Orchids and other flora were in full bloom, driving butterflies and other insects and birds into a nectar-driven mania.
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The rains ensured that flowers such as the beautiful foxtail orchid Rhynchostylis sp. (top) were in full bloom when the author visitied the reserve. Photo Courtesy: Gaurav Shirodkar
Chhattisgarh’s neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Odisha are famous for their wild elephant herds and for human-elephant conflict. The loss of prime forest habitat in these two states to mining, urbanisation and agriculture has forced herds to seek new feeding grounds in the forests of Chhattisgarh. But here too, human-animal conflict is an issue that must be dealt with.
Quite naturally, I was keen on spotting elephants, but was informed by guards that a herd that used to be spotted regularly had shifted across the river after the monsoons arrival. It seems that some 35-40 elephants in Tamor-Pingla continue to stay in the park and around 50 or 60 elephants visit as per the availability of food and water. By some estimates, the Sarguja Elephant Reserve can support as many as 240 elephants if the Badalkhol-Tamor-Pingla-Semarsot landscape is taken into account.
A two-hour drive across tough terrain and we finally arrived at the Pingla river. A small chhatri allowed people to sit by the river, protected from sun and rain. As I walked to the river bank, an Oriental Darter, a White-throated Kingfisher and a few Pond Herons took wing. I saw small fish breaking water as they swam upstream, possibly to lay eggs. What would the impact of climate change be on these little-noticed jewels of biodiversity? Back at the chhatri, some forest guards had gathered after their morning patrol and sat together to have a simple lunch. There was a woman forest guard among them. I learnt that they walk four times the distance I had just covered by vehicle, every single day. They were proud of what they did and all lived in nearby villages. They felt a sense of ownership towards the forest. Every one of them said that they wanted to create circumstances in which tigers will choose to return.
The guards spoke of a large elephant herd they had spotted on the riverbank just two days ago. I went down to the river, where they had come to drink and saw their footprints and wondered what it would take to offer them a secure home. Above me, a Crested-serpent Eagle soared and more exploration revealed large quantities of elephant dung.
It had started to rain by now, and I offered to take the guards with us in the jeep to camp. We squeezed inside, talking about our experiences and adventures in the land of elephants.
