Wildlife Exploration When Going to the Mountains is not an Option

Dr. Yash Veer Bhatnagar

“No single mountain ever came to me...” said the artist-writer Erik Tanghe, “so I always go to them”. All of us would agree with this, but what can we do when this is not possible? Maybe sit and read about new areas or brood about not being able to go. But there are other options. More on this later…

Wildlifers, much like mountaineers, are driven by a wild and perhaps insane passion of the outdoors. There is this lust for unravelling the unknown secrets of nature, in far flung inhospitable terrains, despite uncertainties and many hardships.

Neither of these communities are large, particularly in India, but the wildlifers are ostensibly much fewer and only a small proportion of these are interested in the Himalaya. I can think of only a dozen veterans who have been working for decades in the Himalaya, and of a small (but growing) number of younger researchers.

To all these people “The mountains are calling, and I must go¹” is a constant beckoning of the mountains and most would agree with Janice Anderson that “Nature is one of the most underutilized treasures in life. It has the power to unburden hearts and reconnect to that inner place of peace”, a spiritual connect to the mountains that all of us pine for.

The extent and value of the Himalaya are well known to the readers of The Himalayan Journal, but in brief, we are talking about over 2500 km of the Greater Himalayan range from the Namche Barwa in the east, to the Nanga Parbat in the west, which is flanked by the cold deserts to the north and the Middle Himalaya and Shivalik to the south. This, approximately 500,000 square kilometres of stunning mountains, houses incredible biodiversity. These peaks are ‘water towers’ for scores of people in the Himalaya and downstream, regulate the climate of the entire Subcontinent and are home to some incredible cultures.

Most may know about the astonishing diversity of medicinal and aromatic plants of the Himalaya, but few perhaps know that wild relatives of all our domestic livestock also occur here. The majestic Kashmir markhor and Asiatic ibex are true goats of the genus Capra; the handsome Tibetan argali and Ladakh urial, are true sheep of the genus Ovis, relatives of the latter, the moufflons, considered to be the ancestors of all domestic sheep; wild yak or dong, and the Tibetan wild ass or kiang, relatives of domesticated equids. And then there are the ubiquitous wild pigs in the Middle Himalaya and the feral double humped camels of Nubra, to complete all relatives of domestic livestock. All these sturdy and well adapted animals are an unharnessed genetic resource of livestock with a huge potential to improve livestock production.

Over the decades I have been giving popular and scientific talks to a variety of audiences—from primary school children to graduates to armed forces and government officials. I often begin with a quiz where almost everyone can identify lions, tigers, chital deer, African vs Asian elephants, hippos and even the duckbilled platypus. Practically no one however is able to identify any of the Himalayan species (mentioned above), even relatively common ones such as the ibex or flagships such as the snow leopard. My message here is precisely this, that there is little knowledge about the denizens of these high mountains compared to exotic fauna.

A few quick points here on the uniqueness of the high mountains. Most areas are non-forested or with naturally small, scattered woody patches with a continuum of steppe, meadows, and rugged mountain habitat for wild species all along from east to west, south to north along the Himalaya. The people, mostly pastoral and agropastoral communities, also use these meagre resources quite pervasively. This creates a large interface between them and wildlife. So, compared to tigers, which are mostly confined to forested areas, the ‘hard edge’ with cultivation and habitations is often a barrier to the species, but in the case of snow leopard and most other mountain fauna, few such human made barriers to free movement are present.

Knowledge generation on wildlife and conservation has remained with few institutions and people, often restricted in space and scope. For example, while several studies have happened in the Hemis National Park of Ladakh, Spiti in Himachal Pradesh and parts of Uttarakhand, over 90% of the high altitudes of the Indian Himalaya remain poorly studied (see Map).

This limited knowledge base is occuring at a time when the threats to the Himalaya are at an unprecedented level, mostly from manmade causes. Climate change related uncertainties and disasters are increasing and affecting the livelihoods of local people and sustenance of wildlife (THJ 76, pp 97-107). There are water shortages in many parts, often compounded by a huge influx of tourists. Tourism, a potentially positive development for the local economy, has been possible due to improving interest and access to the remoter parts of the high altitudes compared to just about a decade ago. However, this has come with the usual package of unplanned development, poor garbage management and a tremendous increase in the free-ranging dogs, fast replacing the iconic snow leopard as the top carnivore of these highlands. These dogs indiscriminately hunt out livestock, wild herbivores and also compete with native carnivores (THJ 74, pp 138-147).

Geopolitics and the need for local development has increased thrust to improve the appalling connectivity and other infrastructure Kartik Locals and tourists waiting to be rescued after flashfloods in Jahlma disconnected lower Pattan and Tindi sub valleys from the rest of Lahaul Frequency, Intensity of such events is on the rise projects since the mid-2000s in these borderlands. Large contingents of outside labour who come into these sparsely populated areas for helping with these projects often collect considerable amount of fuelwood and frequently poach animals of every form, from fish to marmots to ibex.

Captions from pages 28 and 29

1. Ladakh urial (Karma Sonam)
2. Bactrian camel
3. Kiang
4. Urial (Udayan Rao Pawar)
5. Snow Leopard (GB Schaller)
6. Tibetan wolf
7. Himalayan tahr (Some Ale)
8. Chiru male (Bivash Pandav)
9. Wild yak or Dong (GB Schaller)

The local agropastoral or pastoral communities have few other livelihood alternatives, though tourism is appearing as one in places. The arable land in these highly seasonal areas is very scarce (less than one percent of Ladakh’s geographical area, for example), and so are the pastures. These pastures can be overgrazed in some areas, particularly where large herds of livestock arrive from the foothills with nomadic herders and intensely graze the nutritious meadows in the three months of summer.

Nature has always been part of the local animistic communities, but there are studies that demonstrate negative interactions, or conflicts, are increasing in pockets with increased losses being suffered by people to their crops by wild herbivores and livestock by wild carnivores. While pressures from local communities are generally declining, most areas are seeing a tremendous increase in the ‘new’ threats mentioned above. There are certainly some positives of the development for the local community and national security, but most also adversely affect the local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation alike.

All these threats from development, local community use, and climate are dynamic and changing rapidly, often too fast for thorough research projects to understand and decipher properly. By nature of the work involved in these studies, they are mostly confined to small areas of a valley or two, which may have limited use to answer key questions that involve a combination of biological and sociological information.

While important to continue these detailed studies, more recent statistical advances allow us to understand some key questions of where species occur, their status and if and why there are declines. These relatively easy frameworks allow one to not just prepare robust distribution maps of species, but also assess and predict their ‘good’ habitats in un-surveyed areas too.

Now let us take the example of some basic questions on species occurrence. Despite available habitat, it is still unclear if snow leopard occurs in the Pir Panjal range of Kashmir, west of the Banihal Pass. Does ibex occur east of the Sutlej gorge and, if not, why? Tibetan gazelle now mainly occur in a small part of Hanle and argali in small pockets of eastern Ladakh. However, based on a small number of recorded sightings by hunters, they were known to occur more widely pre-independence. Are there more such records out there from the ‘70s and ‘80s?

Less than 2000 Ladakh urial are now confined to the lower, mostly rugged valleys of the Indus in Ladakh, but as a sheep, it should be on the more rolling slopes in the wide valley bottoms. Are there any such records from before development took over these habitats?

The Tibetan argali and kiang were confirmed from the upper Gangotri valley by researchers only recently. Are there any more records from these areas and other high altitudes of the State?

Has anyone seen the Himalayan tahr east of the Teesta in the northeast mountains? Where does the Mishmi takin occur in Arunachal?

Which are the best areas for snow leopard and other high-altitude species in the country? And an eternal question—how many snow leopards are there in the country?

We can continue with many more similar questions, involving other large mammals, birds and even plants. Given the extent of area, it may take decades for researchers to reach the entire breadth of the area to unravel these secrets. How else can we then obtain this basic information to help improve conservation planning and action?

The solution lies with ‘Citizen science’ (as stated in Wikipedia ‘…also known as crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, or networked science, which is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists’), where laypeople participate in structured but simple data collection, which can be analyzed and synthesized using robust statistical methods such as Occupancy Modelling . These use valley, village, district, or ideally grid-wise information on species occurrences from key respondents to create probabilistic maps of the species, while accounting for imperfect detection by contributors. Asking about past and present occurrences from respondents we can understand changes—local extinction, declines, status quo or even range extensions. Simultaneous information on threats can tell why species may have declined or increased in an area.

This is a robust way to capture local knowledge, process it through sophisticated statistical processing to estimate errors and come up with usable findings. Researchers are already using this approach for many years but recent partnerships with non-researchers have yielded some amazing information at huge scales, of entire countries and continents!

Today, such initiatives are being widely used to study a wide array of subjects: from mapping and recording the occurrence of birds in India (http://www.birdcount.in/about/) to reporting the movement of migrant bird species (http://www.migrantwatch.in/). These efforts have fructified into a comprehensive and authoritative documentation on bird range, status, migrations, and conservation in the country (https://www.stateofindiasbirds.in/), an effort that was spread across many years and multiple agencies. It is worth noting that these exercises have helped in not only preparing much more accurate species distribution maps, but have given rise to many hitherto unknown facts about range extensions and local extinctions of species.

But mountains are not a ‘cup of tea’ for the faint hearted, at least the wilder high altitudes. Apart from passionate researchers that are willing to take risks and hardships, who are the others who have the same or even better zeal and passion?

I think two clear winners here are local people, especially students, and the passionate mountaineers. The students have grown up in the mountains and in most cases can navigate and communicate better than researchers from outside, especially under exceptional situations such as the pandemic; and the mountaineers reach the remotest peaks where not even the snow leopard steps foot! To reach the peaks, they, however, need to traverse the valleys where most people and wildlife live (THJ 72, pp 92-106).

Students in local degree colleges usually are from the villages that include the deep, remote ones and bring in some untapped information on wilderness themselves as well as from their elders. With an interested faculty member, Mr Javed Naqi, from the Kargil Degree College for example, I have tailored a cooperative pilot effort that includes local and national government and non-government organizations. About 150 interested students went out and collected over 4000 records on species presence from Kargil in the winter of 2021-22 from more than 500 respondents spread over 95 villages! Kargil hadn’t got enough research attention compared to the Leh region of Ladakh, which has attracted attention for over three decades, and we hope that this study with the local stakeholders will allow us to generate the first authentic maps and related information for over ten species of mammals, birds, and plants.

One just has to see this map showing where most of wildlife research has happened vs. where the peaks are (Plate XX) to realise that most peaks are present in places that are ‘gaps’ in research, which opens a big opportunity for partnerships! As mentioned, the mountaineering community forms a significant constituency of passionate individuals, who regularly traverse much of these Himalayan heights. These expeditions focus primarily on the climb and several observations on flora, fauna or local culture made during the expedition, might never get told, a great missed opportunity for information from these rarely visited valleys.

A limitation regarding use of citizen science may be the absence of easily accessible information that can help mountaineers and local students to look out for and identify species. I thus feel that with some help in increasing basic awareness and skills to identify large mammals, other wildlife and plants, these key stakeholders could play an important role in generating credible information from the remotest corners of the Himalaya, thus assisting conservation.

Such efforts will be extremely useful in compiling existing knowledge on occurrences, status and, importantly, on their trends. Other key observations that can be recorded are on climate change related impacts on glacial retreat and changes in habitats. Further, observations on existing or emerging threats to the different regions of the Himalaya can be made.

We should also note here that in the early days of exploration of the Himalaya there were numerous explorer-mountaineers, who did provide invaluable information on natural history and wildlife occurrences. Some notable names are Hooker, Stockley, Burrard, Younghusband, Moorcroft, M.S. Gill, among others. This trend seems to have waned since independence, but it should be possible to revive interest in the wildlife aspect of mountain exploration with careful engagement and partnership.

I recognize that for such an effort to materialize and sustain, we need to work on at least three fronts with local students, mountaineers and maybe other stakeholders including armed forces, and tourists at a later stage to:

• Generate interest, awareness, and skills to identify important wild plant and animal species of the Himalaya, an effort already begun with our contributions in THJ Volume numbers 72, 74, 75, 76, especially # 70, pp 183-191.
• Generate information on occurrences and status of flora and fauna through a live database and web-based portal that has easy-touse resources, e.g. iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/) and displays existing results. This can also include information on glacial retreats and threats.
• Develop best practices to make mountain expeditions more environment friendly, which can be through workshops, collaborative efforts to reduce use of biomass and improve garbage management.

But in all this where is the theme of this issue and my title, When Going to the Mountains is not an Option? As described above, local educational institutions can give us access to skilled and trainable people who could provide information from their local knowledge or gather this based on minimal movement. With proper design and analyses, strong usable exploration of uncharted ground can happen with local partnership. Secondly, new data uploaded by mountaineers will of course be based on their current expeditions, but much of the initial effort is about capturing what wildlife they have seen and potentially recorded during past expeditions. Partnering with them so that they get back to their notes and the Summit Reports can help extract invaluable historic information on wildlife occurrences, threats, and climate change related notes, all without actually visiting the mountains.

I believe that such a partnership of passionate devotees of the Himalaya can ensure that we will know our mountains much better and have lasting impact for their conservation through an expanded constituency of interested stakeholders.

Of course, “great things are done when men and mountains meet²”, but “because it’s there³” doesn’t mean we always need to go there to explore it!

Summary

Dr. Bhatnager discusses the rise of ‘citizen science’, and how using these data collection and statistical methods can help to improve our understanding of the distribution and behaviours of wildlife native to the Himalaya. He also writes of the important role for mountaineers and other visitors to the mountains, who collect such data in places less-frequented by others, almost as a by-product of their expeditions.

 

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