Nice Try!

Yet another ghastly incident takes place and a tigress is shot dead and hacked to pieces in a zoo in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh (India). Sharing its border with China, there is little doubt that the state of Arunachal Pradesh is a hotspot for poachers. A rather gloomy antecedent to the Wildlife Week which begins on the 1st of October.

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

It's World Rhino Day!

Rhino horns find felonious uses in a variety of objectionable commodities- as aphrodisiacs and ingreditens of Traditional Chinese Medicine used to treat fever, rheumatism, gout and other disorders.  In the Middle East, it is carved into ornamental dagger handles known as 'jambiya', considered a sign of manhood that is presented to adolescent boys. These have led to indiscriminate killings and populations have plummeted to shocking numbers over the years.

Here's one for the rhinos on World Rhino Day!

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

More of Green Humour in Saevus

The September issue of Saevus looks terrific (it had to, being the 'bird's special Issue'), with a stunning cover image of Little Owls by wildlife photographer Baiju Patil, brilliant articles, awe-inspiring pictures by some of the best photographers in the country and some great work on the design by Jagan Ramalingam. Here's a glimpse of the Green Humour page (right), and the illustrations I did for the birding guide written by bird man Sumit Sen, which comes as a free supplement with this issue. Catch your copy now if you haven't yet!

When Bearded Vultures Miscalculate

About 90% of the Lammergeier/ Bearded Vulture’s diet consists of bone marrow from carcasses. The Lammergeier carries the bone to a height and then drops it on a rock to crack the marrow open. This technique requires great skill and the bird may take upto seven years to master it!

Lammergeiers or Bearded Vultures are the only members of the genus Gypaetus, an old-world variety of vultures residing in the Himalayas both in India and Tibet, and in the high mountains of Europe, the Caucasus and Africa. They are unique among raptors, along with the Egyptian Vulture in having lozenge-shaped tails.

Catch this cartoon and more in this month's issue of Saevus magazine!

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The 'Pun Loving Pantheras'

There has been much debate about tourism and its impacts on conservation following the Supreme Court's decision to ban tourism in core areas of tiger reserves. While some conservationists think that tourism helps keep a check on wildlife crimes, others feel that its overall impacts on conservation are negative. Whatever the outcome of this debate turns out to be, allow me to present to you the POV of the national animal.

Let me simplify the issue a bit.

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Once a Vulture, Always a Vulture!

Vultures have several adaptations to serve as such efficient cleansers of nature. Unwanted pieces of rotten meat and bacteria that would otherwise adhere to a feathered head are discarded easily owing to their bald heads. Their gastric enzymes are very strong and potent, helping them digest rotting meat. The sharply curved bill pierces through the toughest of hides, allowing them access to the meat on the carrion. Vultures posses exceptional eyesight and the Turkey Vulture also has a well-developed sense of smell.

Today is the International Vulture Awareness Day. 

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.