Merry Christmas!

Arctic wolves depend on reindeer or caribou for a major part of their diet. An adult, healthy reindeer is capable of outrunning a wolf, but the wolf adopts stealth, stamina and group strategy

to bring it down. Caribou avoid wolves by sleeping on the frozen lakes in winters. The lives of the wolf and the caribou are delicately intertwined. A wolf pack must make a caribou kill before the deer migrate in search of pastures, or else young members of the pack would be subjected to starvation. 

Maybe Rudolph’s shining red nose would make good ketchup for his canine Arctic foe! Merry Christmas!

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

'Boomsday'?

With the increasing incidences of meteor showers, this is quite a possibility! In a country like India, where humans populate the land exponentially each day, tigers, lions and all other fauna are losing their natural habitat; urban habitations are clashing constantly with natural and pristine spaces resulting in man-animal conflicts and ugly face-offs, and it is always wildlife that is at the receiving end. Leopards have suffered the worst, being more adaptable of the big cats.

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

A Tale of Two Territories

Cats both domestic and wild, communicate olfactorily through chemical messages in urine, feces, and secretions from glands located near the mouth, chin, forehead, paws and tail. Spraying urine on objects, cheek-rubbing, head-bobbing etc are all methods to deposit these signals. The urine of an adult male cat contains a sulphur containing amino acid called felinine, which gives cat urine its characteristic strong odour.

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

Wader Worries!

Waders are a group of about 210 shore-birds, most of which are strongly migratory. Some waders from the Arctic, like the Little Stint are among the longest distance migrants travelling all the way to the Southern Hemisphere to spend the non-breeding season.

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

Corri-doom!

Corridors are extremely critical in conserving wildlife, particularly large mammals like the tiger, as they facilitate animal movement and migration across forests. Forest protection policies often fail to cover corridors effectively and this has been a huge concern for tiger conservationists.

This month on Saevus, Green Humour speaks on the importance of protection of tiger corridors. I also had the pleasure to be a part of Saevus' bear special issue, illustrating an article by Mammal expert Dr. Vivek Menon, on the conservation status of bear species across the world. Read the article and my cartoons in the November issue of Saevus.

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

The Sanctuary Asia Young Naturalist Award 2012

Green Humour received some acknowledgement and recognition on 30th November 2012, in the form of Sanctuary Asia's coveted Young Naturalist Award for me for this year. I heartily thank Sanctuary Asia for not only identifying but also promoting cartoons as a tool for conservation and awareness. Met some extraordinary people including Belinda Wright, Bittu Sahgal, Dr. Asad Rahmani, Dr. Parvish Pandya, Dr. Anish Andheria along with all my fellow awardees. Do watch the coverage of the event by NDTV here-

http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/ndtv-special-ndtv-24x7/sanctuary-asia-wildlife-awards-2012/256685