Tigers roamed the city’s outskirts once. No kidding. Trawling through The Hindu archives threw up a report dated October 1, 1934, detailing how a police hunt party was mauled by a tiger in Kamakshipuram in Ponneri taluk.
In his chapter on the city’s wildlife in the book Madras, Chennai - The Land, The People and Their Governance , edited by S. Muthiah, naturalist S. Theodore Baskaran wrote that a land survey carried out by the British in the 1800s indicated that there were sightings of tigers in the Vandalur hills.
So, till about a century ago, tigers did roam the city’s present-day outskirts. The Hindu also has reports, from the 1940s and 1950s, of panthers and leopards attacking humans in places like Gummidipoondi and Sriperumbudur. A few references are made to cheetah attacks as well. Forest officials though rule out the possibility of cheetahs here as they inhabit grasslands.
On July 27, 1983, there was a report on a black panther, on the prowl in Chingleput district, shot dead by DSP K. Manova. And, as recently as 2004, there were reports of a leopard roaming the city’s outskirts. Forest officials confirmed that the leopards at Vandalur Zoo had not escaped. So, this was a free ranger!
Missing species
Mr. Baskaran remembers seeing sea eagles, very big birds, nesting in the Theosophical Society campus in the 1970s. They have since stopped visiting. “People also used to throng the tamarind trees near the State Guest House [in Chepauk] to see a large number of Brahminy kites in the 1960s. Now that population has dwindled greatly,” he says. Jackals and foxes were found in the Theosophical Society and Madras Christian College forests. While the foxes have disappeared, jackals are still found in Guindy and Theosophical Society, he adds.
One of the original residents of this coastal city’s scrub jungle was the blackbuck, found in its original habitat in the Guindy National Park (GNP), he says, warning that the city’s flagship species has almost gone now as stray dogs, which have invaded these forests (in GNP, Indian Institute of Technology and Raj Bhavan), hunt in packs to kill the deer.
Preston Ahimaz, another naturalist with roots in the erstwhile Madras, still remembers the first night of the monsoon after he moved to his new house in Madambakkam (near Tambaram) about 30 years ago. “We were terrified by the sound of the frogs. It was such a loud din as our house was surrounded by fields. We also heard jackals howling under a group of trees nearby. Four types of dangerous snakes, including the cobra, could be found. Now, they are all gone,” he says. “Only a few isolated pockets including the GNP, Theosophical Society campus and Nanmangalam survive as wildlife hotspots,” he says, demanding strict implementation of forest laws.
Despite the threats, the city's beaches continue to be a nesting ground for the endangered Olive Ridley turtles in the first three months of every year. From October to March, the city's birders can catch all the action at Vedanthangal and Pulicat bird sanctuaries, where migratory birds come to feed and nest.
