It is hard to imagine large swathes of forests on land made up of anything other than plants, isn’t it? Just thinking of giant mushrooms sprouting from the earth, dwarfing everything else by a long shot seems like a scene … Read More
“Every contact leaves a trace” says the ‘Locard’s Exchange Principle’, a simple and powerful premise on which forensic science rests. Any scene of crime, even wildlife crime, is replete with different forms of evidence waiting for a trained, forensic eye … Read More
“What exactly is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?” I meekly ask, cutting in on my colleague Aniket’s articulate, but jargon-filled explanation about an intriguing project he and his Conservation Behaviour team at the Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) are working on, which involves … Read More
My new home overlooks an old cemetery. Surrounding the gold-plated finial atop the dome of a Sufi’s mausoleum in the centre of the cemetery are crowns of palm trees, interspersed with a mix of natives and exotics. Surrounded by a … Read More
On a rainy July evening in the Kanha National Park in Central India, forest guard M. P. Kartikey was returning to the anti-poaching camp after patrolling his beat, when he accidentally came uncomfortably close to sloth bears – a female … Read More
We have no idea what lies frozen in the ice sheets and permafrost of the Arctic where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. Last year in 2020, as the world was reeling from COVID-19, … Read More
The Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) recently concluded a year-long occupancy survey for four large carnivores in the vital Sahyadri-Konkan corridor. Wildlife biologist Girish Punjabi, who is in charge of the project, speaks to WCT’s Conservation Writer Rizwan Mithawala about valuable … Read More
As I write this, sitting in Mumbai, one of the most crowded, polluted, and noisiest cities on Earth, an excruciating noise emanating from a drilling machine plays in the background, frustrating me no end. That is not the only man-made … Read More
Periyar’s maintenance engineers After walking the length and breadth of Periyar, Dr. Anish Andheria writes with both knowledge and passion about the array of wildlife that has made this tropical forest a home. From termites and dracos, to tigers and … Read More
Extraordinary sense of smell, limitless zeal, and love for the job. With these unique traits, dogs have been assisting humans for thousands of years. As we grapple with poaching, forest fragmentation, and other human activities that harm wildlife and ecosystems, … Read More
“To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing that we’ve removed. It’s the only way out of this crisis we’ve created – we must rewild the world.’ – Sir David Attenborough What if … Read More
A few years ago, I typed three words in the Google Alerts search box, and pressed ‘Create Alert’. The words were: leopard, road, and killed. Since then, I have been getting email alerts almost every 4 days. While all news … Read More
An expert’s take on wildlife rescue in India What is it that draws people to scenes of accidents, crimes, and calamities like moths to flames? Those that gather to spectate a person or animal in distress seem to be in … Read More
I could smell the salty sea in her heavy breath, filled with exhaustion and the quiet pain of giving up. A full-grown Olive Ridley sea turtle, she was washed ashore a beach in Dahanu, a seaside town over a hundred … Read More
“The lifting of the snake’s head had caught my eye and it was not until the head had been raised some two or three feet from the ground and the hood expanded that I realised it was a hamadryad. It … Read More