There is that kind of loss where one has an acute sense of something fading away. There is the other, more dangerous kind where the loss is slow, the result of an insidious process, and is hardly noticed. In the latter case, usually, when the realisation dawns, the moment of redemption is well past.
Let us hope that the latter is not happening to the golden jackal, currently considered safe. The mammal ticks the “least concern” box of the IUCN species status grid, suggesting that there is no cause for concern.
The golden jackal is an open-habitat creature; and found in grasslands, scrub and on the periphery of wetlands. Naturalists focussing on tracts in and around Chennai say that there are some stable golden jackal populations in some pockets. It however can’t be denied that the mammal is beating a retreat, around the urban environment, due to factors such as habitat fragmentation and loss.
“There is a stable population at the Guindy National Park. During 2016 and 2017, when I was working on a project to document birds and butterflies at GNP, along with birder Rama Neelamegam, during every visit we would have a golden jackal sighting,” points out Vikas Madhav, a member of Madras Naturalists’ Society (MNS).
“There is a pair of golden jackals on the Madras Christian College campus,” he adds.
It is likely the same pair reported by a faculty member of the college a few years ago — the report of the sighting even appeared in the pages of The Hindu .
However, anthropogenic activities may be arrayed against the golden jackal. There are also cases of human-animal conflict involving the golden jackal in and around Chennai.
“In villages in the Kancheepuram-Chengalpattu region, I have encountered cases of golden jackal poisoning. Once in a while, golden jackals would attack goats and chicken and residents would place poison in the intestines of a dead chicken to lure and kill the golden jackals. Eating them, golden jackals have died,” says M. Yuvan, an MNS member.
T. Murugavel, also an MNS member, points out that golden jackals are not seen in the Adyar estuary as often as before.
“Around a decade or so ago, seeing a golden jackal cross the estuary at low tide would not be rare. There used to be islands in the estuary with prosopis juliflora trees. These jackals would be resting under the shade of these trees when it would be very hot. The prosopis trees, which are an alien species, were removed without any new native trees being planted in their place. It just illustrates that when an alien plant species is being removed, the exercise has to be carried out in a phased manner, with alternative native plants planted in a section where the alien species has been cleared, and only then move to the next section. Now, due to the lack of cover, the golden jackals could have moved into the Theosophical Society region or the Adyar Poonga,” says Murugavel.
“Fifteen years ago, around the Adyar estuary, golden jackals could be sighted frequently. Besides, at the adjacent Theosophical Society campus in Adyar-Besant Nagar, they would be a common occurrence. Now, on the Besant Nagar side of TS, golden-jackal sighting has become close to none for the last eight years or so. Across TS itself, the number has dwindled. The Ennore-pulicat bio region supports golden jackals. On the pulicat side, there is still a healthy population. However, in the Ennore region, they are hardly seen, due to habitat loss,” says Yuvan.
