Blunder of Bharatupur
The Bharatpur wetland, famous for the large heronries in the rainy season and the enormous flocks of migratory birds visiting in winter, was one of the first wildlife sanctuaries to be created after independence at the instance of Salim Ali in the 1950s. He had worked for years at Bharatpur, banding thousands of migratory birds. I had the privilege of accompanying him on several of these trips. At the end of the day, we would go for long walks and would see large herds of buffaloes walking back to their homes. Salim Ali would gaze at them with great disfavor and would say, Madhav, once these wretched buffaloes are banned the wetlands would be safe for birds. I knew he had never thought about or studied the functioning of the Bharatpur ecosystem and his remarks were grounded in sheer prejudice, but I kept quiet. After all, Bharatpur had been subject to grazing by buffaloes and other uses such as collection of khus grass by local people for centuries and had remained a biodiversity rich habitat. It was here that Lord Linlithgow, British Viceroy of India had shot 4273 birds on a single day, 12th November 1938 at the height of the massacre of India’s wildlife by the British while they ruled India.
Dr Salim Ali’s recommendations supported by those of the similarly prejudiced International Crane Foundation led to the declaration of the locality as a National Park in 1982. The rigid regulations applicable to a National Park called for total cessation of livelihood activities of local people, so buffalo grazing was banned without any alternatives being offered. There were
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