Wild and beautiful

On Jim Corbett's Trail and other Tales from Tree-tops by A.J.T. Johnsingh; Permanent Black, Delhi, 2004; pages 139; hard cover Rs.295.

WELL KNOWN for his contribution to the enrichment of wildlife studies, A.J.T. Johnsingh is one of the leading wildlife biologists in the country. His shift of career, from a college lecturer to a field biologist, has been fortuitous both for the science and for himself. A number of his students, inspired by his dedication to the subject, have blossomed into path-breaking scientists. Johnsingh himself is a proverbial self-made man. "I had no one to guide me, except George Schaller through his book The Deer and the Tiger," he said. In this book he has put down some of his observations of and insights into his chosen area. A field researcher's knowledge of the natural world is first-hand and Johnsingh succeeds in passing on the immediacy of his experiences to the readers through his first-person accounts.

The book basically consists of nine chapters on varied topics such as the dhole, the tiger, the elephant, the lion, the tahr, the goral and the mahseer. The best part of the book is the section on the dhole. Johnsingh's project on the wild dog was the first doctoral study by an Indian biologist on a free-ranging large mammal. As an authority on this predator, Johnsingh tells its story in a simple, reader-friendly manner in his study. The wild dog was a much-maligned predator, as one that competed with other predators like the tiger and the leopard. The study dispels this image of the dhole.

While a lot has been written about tigers and lions in India, we do not have much authentic material on mammals that inhabit the mountains - such as the goral or the tahr. Johnsingh has a chapter on each. His account of the status of the goats in Asia, including the Japanese serow, is new to wildlife enthusiasts. He and his team have collected a lot of new information on the goral, and he points out that the major threat to the goral in all its ranges comes from hunters.

The best essays in the book are those in which Johnsingh has done fieldwork, such as his account of the trip to the Agasthya hills, the southern most point of the tahr's habitat, to check on its population. The essays on elephants and tigers are informative. Talking about tigers, the author says that there were 40,000 tigers left in the country by the turn of the 20th century. Where does this number come from? Can it be substantiated?

WHAT pulls down the book are the pages devoted to Jim Corbett. And the title. The title serves as a window to what a book contains and many a good book has been discounted by its title. Why On Jim Corbett's Trail? What is the relevance? The author has devoted two chapters to Corbett and both make tedious reading.

Jim Corbett glamorised and popularised tiger hunting by accompanying dignitaries in their tiger pursuit. During the British Raj, tiger hunts became a bizarre ritual - often with Corbett as the chief priest - in which the predator became the prey. Long before big game hunters set foot in Africa, these nimrods were shooting tigers by the thousands in India. Not just the tiger but anything that showed up in the jungle, from the giant squirrel to the elephant, was shot. Johnsingh himself recounts an incident in which Corbett shot three gorals one after another. There were detailed how-to-do-it manuals on hunting. Brown sahibs followed their white sahibs and hunting acquired a snob value, quite like golf. After Independence, Corbett moved over to Africa and continued his profession there.

SHIKAR literature came out at a time when there was very little awareness about wildlife and forests. Now the situation has changed dramatically and we know that there was much yarn in this literature. Even when these books were published there were sceptical voices. Shikar literature may still sell, rather like Ian Fleming's novels. We have wildlife biologists now so why invoke the names of the Jim Corbetts and Kenneth Andersons? For those who still have the Corbett fixation, I recommend the chapter `Slouching from Kumaon' in the book Forster and Further (Orient Longman, 1993) by Sujit Mukherjee. It is unfortunate that while Corbett's contemporary W.H. Champion, a professional forester who formulated working plans, popularised wildlife photography and preached conservation, and Hugo Wood, who saved the Anamalai forests (Indira Gandhi National Park), have been forgotten, a national park has been named after Corbett.

Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, Johnsingh himself supports hunting and cites the United States, South Africa and Zimbabwe where it has been used for conservation. "India, however, has neglected this aspect of wildlife management," he says. It would be a matter of deep concern if a wildlife biologist believes that hunting could help conservation. Has not that myth been exploded long back? We now know that hunting accounted for 25 per cent of extinctions.

In the history of conservation not a single species has been saved by hunting. On the other hand, the list of species shot out of existence is long. The gaur was wiped out of the Javadhi hills (Tamil Nadu) mainly by trophy hunters. In India, hunters have pushed many creatures, such as the lion, the tahr and the grey jungle fowl to the brink of extinction. Which species is in such abundance as to be subjected to hunting?

In post-Independence India, a new brand of hunter appeared, who, unfamiliar with wildlife, could not tell a stag from a doe. Indifferent to seasons, he shot anything that moved in the forest. Large-scale carnage followed until we almost lost the tiger, along with other animals such as the tahr. Shooting by the armed forces in remote areas added to the decline of endangered species. Salim Ali once found the feathers of the Great Indian Bustard in an army mess in Kutch and protested against it.

The book should have been edited more closely than it has been. Phrases like `cowherd boys' could have been removed and place names spelt correctly. Clichd titles like `Vanishing Tiger' or `Mammoths at Love and War' would not have escaped a seasoned editor's pencil.

The book has been produced elegantly. The pixilated portrait of the goral on the cover is striking. However, there are no legends for the photographs. Whose pictures are these? Who is the person with an angling rod? Nor is there any information about the line drawings. Who is the artist? An anthology of disparate articles such as this one is incomplete without an index.