The Hindu : Spotted deer, a problem of plenty on MCC campus

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 07, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Spotted deer, a problem of plenty on MCC campus

By Akila Dinakar

CHENNAI Sept. 6 . Spotted deer or Chital that are a graceful species to watch nibbling at leaves on IIT Campus, the Guindy Park and at the Madras Christian College scrub jungle have now become a problem of plenty. Conservationists are wondering how to perform the balancing act between the ubiquitous deer and the vegetation they feed on.

At the 363-acre MCC campus adjacent the Vandalur Reserve Forest, the habitat diversity includes wildlife such as blacknaped hare, common mongoose, jackal, jungle cat, monitor lizard and a variety of snakes. With 140 kinds of birds, occasional visits are made by porcupines, striped hyena, small Indian civet, toddy cat, binturong, leopard cats and pangolins.

P.S. Sanjeeva Raj, a professor who lived on the campus for four decades, said in the early 1980s a small herd of about five spotted deer (Axis axis) strayed into the campus. Beginning to feed on the rich grassy lawns and scrub jungle vegetation, and without predators or human interference, the herd has now multiplied to more than 150, the animal being a prolific breeder reproducing at six-month intervals. Now they have become a domesticated species because they are found around houses and hostels, as on the IIT campus. Ecologists said allowing chital to breed in a confined area where there were ornamental vegetation, they were likely to feed and multiply having no predators.

Even at the Guindy National Park and the IIT, annual surveys of the deer revealed a fast increase. However, the Chief Wildlife Warden said at the GNP, the young chital fawn was preyed upon by jackals. In an artificial ecosystem, proliferating chital were bound to pose a problem, he said suggesting that the animals, which were in excess, could be let into the GNP.

An MCC old-timer said that while they wait for the lily buds to bloom in the morning, the hungry deer would nip them off. ``In the last 20 years, they have totally destroyed all vegetation on the ground, as well as up to the reach of their neck. Now, the once impenetrable and difficult to see-through undergrowth of vegetation is shaven clean by this populous deer which multiply beyond the carrying capacity of the campus,'' said a former MCC staff. Eating up the germinating seedlings and saplings by the deer resulted in reduction of scope for natural regeneration of the scrub or even trees. Ground life fauna such as lizards, snakes and insects were declining because of loss of food and shelter.

Birds feeding on berries, wild seeds and insects were fast disappearing. Leaf-litter which lead to mulching and harboured a variety of soil organisms was reducing annually, said a soil biologist studying the biodiversity on the campus.

The solution according to ecologists was to confine the animals and release the excess into the forests.

With the forest predators such as leopards and tigers not having enough deer to eat, they strayed into villages to catch goats and dogs, he said pointing out that it was the task of the Forest department to consider judicious management of spotted deer.

The other solution would be to fence them around stormwater drain to be developed into a deer park for study, research and natural trails for school children rather than allow them to roam into residential localities where they tend to feed on left-over food from open bins thrown in polythene bags.

R. Hemanth Kumar, Regional Deputy Director, Wildlife, said the exploding chital population in protected areas was a national concern and when in excess they got killed in road accidents.

A forest researcher said the subject should be taken up for a short-term research study to find out ways to manage the eco-system balance involving chital.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Southern States

Stories in this Section

Spotted deer, a problem of plenty on MCC campus

GH waits for new building

Infected cattle still to be deported

Chathurthi rallies on last year's route

Mentally-ill woman found abandoned

Children hospitalised for food poisoning