It’s been 38 years but for Dr.Asir Jawahar Thomas Johnsingh, the most adrenalin pumping moment of his life is still as fresh as yesterday. It was in May 1978 when he took and what possibly became the first ever best tiger picture.
It was in Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Karnataka, where in Jim Corbett style, he climbed a mango tree near a nallah which was frequently used by tigers and waited for an hour barely breathing with a 100 ASA B/W film loaded Pentax camera in hand. “The dholes (the Indian wild dog) gave the first warning sound and I heard an animal walking through the tall grass. It sounded as if a woman was swishing past in a new silk saree,” he recalls. And then the majestic animal was right in front of him, hardly 30 feet away!“I took seven quick pictures of the tiger walking in shade and then whistled in anticipation to get a better frame in better light. The tiger stopped with a puzzled expression and looked directly at me,” he says.
In his five decades of work, the wildlife conservationist has not had another photographic success like this with the majestic cat.
“The mango tree is still standing,” he smiles, “and also when I compare the wildlife abundance of Bandipur Tiger Reserve today with that of the late 1970s, I find there are many more tigers now.” “But the population of elephants and cows is affected as a result of abundance of invasive species and insufficient regeneration of palatable species,” he adds.
If he feels happy about the wildlife conservation efforts across the country, he also rues about the lack of continuity in thought and action of those concerned. “We have 600 protected areas now and five per cent of our land is under protection but with too much focus on elephants, lions and tigers,” he says.
“Where are the bats, the gangetic dolphins, the ghariyals (fish-eating crocodile), the golden mahseer? We need to rework on our conservation methods urgently,” he asserts.
As a child when he was growing up in Tirunelveli with his teacher parents, says Dr.Johnsingh, he used to watch his mother catch fireflies, which were in abundance those days and put them inside an empty torch for light! “Do you see the jugnus anymore and where have the jackals disappeared from the countryside?” he asks.
The Padma Shri awardee wonders why other species facing extinction are not worrying us. There are less than 100 brow-antlered deer or the sangai left in Manipur, the Kashmir stag or the hangul and the great Indian Bustard are critically endangered species, he reminds. Dr.Johnsingh feels wildlife biologists are an island each possessive about their respective areas of work only.
“Conservation needs single unanimous voice but at present we have too many voices as a result of which the small crucial problems that need to be addressed immediately end up ignored,” he points out. “Nature is too fragile today due to our continued abuse,” he adds, “and to keep the ecosystem in balance we need to stop wasting time and firing misdirected missiles.”
The outdoors streak rubbed on him early in life due to parental influence. “I grew up playing in the wilds of the Western Ghats what is now the famous Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve. I went for swimming in village tanks and my curiosity about wildlife made me search for answers by observing animals.”
Dr.Johnsingh studied zoology and became the first Indian vertebrate ecologist to do a ground-breaking research on dholes in mid 1970s.
“People thought the free-ranging animal could not be studied,” he says, “but my turning point came when I was encouraged by J.C.Daniel of Bombay Natural History Society and Romulus Whitaker from the Madras Snake Park.”
Author of three books, Dr.Johnsingh is also the first Indian environmentalist to study the threat caused to the Western Ghats.
He says though there is lot of conversation now about wildlife on the social media with large number of photographers and trekkers going into the forests and taking excellent photos, but unless people behave responsibly, politicians are sensitised and officers have accountability, the biologists can help only up to a limited extent.
While there is more awakening now, Dr.Johnsingh says, States like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Kerala, which are possessive about their landscape and nature’s bounty are doing far better in conservation efforts.
“It is very important for the Centre to react and the State Governments to act on suggestions,” he notes and cites several pending proposals as case in point.
“Corridors for animal movement are crucial to wildlife preservation but we have been tardy in working on the Ariyankavu Pass on Madurai-Kollam highway, or establishing the Upper Nilgiris and Mudumalai corridor, 30 years have been wasted on the Chilla-Motichur corridor in the Rajaji National Park across the Ganges,” he lists, having been a faculty at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun for more than two decades.
The only hope and easiest solution is to help children appreciate nature, he says, if we want to save our future. “Teach them to learn from nature, grow more trees and live without plastic,” is his advice and that is what also brought him to Madurai to address the young members of the Voices of the Wild club.
As an ardent admirer of books written by Jim Corbett, Dr.Johnsingh recommends the same to all children, “Unless curiosity takes charge, the active conservationist will never come out,” he says.
