September 1998 News Bulletin

More Information About IPAN Animal Refuge Veterinary Services Education Animal Conditions Project Reports "Loki" the Indian Elephant and related issues How you can help

Our aim is to inform and inspire public support for IPAN’s work to improve the welfare and health of domestic animals, wildlife, and aboriginal peoples in one of the most beautiful and bioculturally diverse regions on the planet.

In this Newsletter:

• Activities at the IPAN Animal Refuge
• Nilgiris Elephant Situation
• Continuing Environmental Threats to the Nilgiris
• Animal Protection Laws Not Enforced
• Promotional Materials
• More Information
• Thanks

Activities at the IPAN Animal Refuge

Almost 400 dogs have now been neutered in the village of Masinagudi. Hats off to our veterinarian, Dr. M. Sugamaran, who had a 100% recovery rate without any wound infection or suture breakdown.

IPAN Director Deanna L. Krantz is working with local authorities on many fronts from improving the care of a wild elephant recently captured by the Forest Department and severely injured by gross mishandling, to bringing in government support for her single-handed efforts to provide free veterinary services and medicines. The entire region at this time has no adequate government veterinary infrastructure for an estimated 8,000 cattle, 4,000 sheep and goats, 2,000 - 3,000 poultry, and some 2,500 dogs and cats.

The recent case of cruel treatment and incarceration of a "rogue" bull elephant is an ongoing issue. All four of his legs have been cut four inches deep down to the tendons by road-worn and razor-sharp tame elephant drag chains put on him for the 2 day journey to the Elephant Camp in the Mudumalai Sanctuary. Deanna was instrumental in getting proper veterinary treatment and food to this suffering creature whom she says is a picture of "nauseating horror". Old gunshot wounds on the poor animal were also treated. The intent is to use him for breeding purposes to maintain a malnourished herd of captive elephants used to take tourists on jungle rides. It is twisted logic to call it conservation by reasoning that the captive elephant gene pool must be enhanced by taking fresh breeding stock from the last of the wild. The captive elephants in Mudumalai need better nutrition, not better genes, to help them reproduce. Deanna, in collaboration with Compassion Unlimited Plus Action of Bangalore, recently succeeded in having the elephant circus at the Camp that was put on as a tourist attraction in the Wildlife Sanctuary, closed down.

Treating maggot-infested wounds, severe cases of malnutrition and parasite infestation, and educating animal owners on the basics of animal husbandry and first aid are everyday activities. IPAN’s dedicated staff are on 24-hour call, and had many late night and early morning emergencies during the July and August monsoons which made the dirt roads to remote villages and tribal settlements almost impassable, even for our four-wheel drive jeeps. Calving difficulties and bovine obstetrics were our most frequent emergencies. Also, livestock attacked by panther and tiger.

The aftermath of a widespread outbreak of foot and mouth disease has meant frequent visits to care for crippled cattle with post-virus maggot infested feet. We continue to educate farmers not to use DDT and other pesticides, kerosene, and turpentine on these kinds of foot and skin infections.

Traveling partway on foot over rugged terrain, our staff succeeded in saving one of the few remaining Toda buffaloes from foot and mouth disease. This breed of buffalo is sacred to the Todas and plays a vital role in their temple rituals to the degree that the extinction of this rare breed will likely spell the collapse of the ancient Toda culture.

The Animal Refuge is caring for a herd of almost 70 donkeys, 100 cattle, a resident pack of some 15 dogs, as well as other animals requiring intensive care.

Beautiful stables have been constructed for the donkeys to provide shade and shelter. The healthy and happy donkey herd is the talk of the region, visitors never having seen how well cared-for donkeys behave. They play, groom each other, and have a morning chorus of braying that carries for miles and is a clear expression of their joy and spirits. All males have now been neutered (the herd coming from the adjoining defunct Nilgiris Animal Welfare Societies’ Deans’ Animal Sanctuary.) Still one more foal was born, and the staff and village were awakened at 3:00 a.m. when the entire herd began braying to celebrate the new birth. Several adults were later seen surrounding the infant and "talking" to him on several occasions.

We hope to secure the necessary funds estimated at $7,000 - $10,000 to make a bore-well at the Animal Refuge because the supply of water is inadequate during the dry season.

Deanna has had several meetings with village and tribal leaders to assess their animal husbandry practices and the future they see for themselves in the Nilgiris. In conjunction with this, we have been reviewing the voluminous literature on the history and traditions of the Todas, Kotas, Kurumbas, and other indigenous tribes in the Nilgiris region.

A paper dealing with the interrelated threats to the region’s cultural and biological bio-diversity and the linkages between wildlife conservation, domestic animal health, and sustainable living is being prepared for the World Wilderness Congress that will be held in India in October.

Having won the trust and confidence of the tribes in the region, Deanna has a network of informants on several activities that are now threatening the wildlife in the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary. These include land encroachment by farmers and resort developers, wildlife poaching, and poisoning and electrocution of elephants. With a close working relationship with the Mudumalai Wildlife Warden, Mr. Udaian, who is a dedicated conservationist, and with the forthcoming field visit by conservationists from around the world (following their participation at the World Wilderness Congress in Bangalore), she hopes that this region will gain international support and recognition as being one of the most biologically and culturally diverse places on Earth in urgent need of preservation. (For further reading on the biology and ecology of the region, see M.W. Fox The Whistling Hunters, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, 1984, and for cultural and anthropological studies, see Paul Hockings Blue Mountain: The Ethnography and Biogeography of a South Indian Region, Oxford University Press, New York, 1989)

Nilgiris Elephant Situation

(Synopsis from The Hindu Newspaper 6/29/97 & 8/1/98):

The present elephant situation in The Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, home of the largest Asian elephant population in the world, is dire indeed. Unabated habitat destruction from mining, agricultural, and resource collection activities, with resulting forest fragmentation, is shrinking and breaking up what little cover remains for these magnificent creatures. The "corridors" linking remaining habitats, which enable the elephants to move about unimpeded, are being encroached upon and in some cases completely cut off due to these very same activities. This frustrates the breeding bulls’ natural propensity to move about and impregnate various females in different parts of the Reserve. The number of "tuskers", full adult males with tusks, is declining rapidly as poachers, aided by an almost total lack of effective forest protection, have a field day slaughtering these bulls for their tusks for the overseas and black markets. Poachers recently shot one forest guard, are reportedly well-armed, and are now even targeting younger males as the number of adult tuskers has plummeted. Shooting, poisoning, electrocution, and harassment of crop-raiding rogues by farmers thins out the elephant population even further and leads to increased incidences of human-elephant conflicts. As a result of all these combined factors, the male-female ratio is now so lopsided and the viability of the remaining gene pool so poor that it is feared the elephant population may never be able to recover.

Continuing Environmental Threats to the Nilgiris

A government operated Tribal Forest-products Cooperative in the Mudumalai Sanctuary area has been privatized. Tribal gatherers of various forest plants, mosses, fruits, seeds and other products like soap nut, tamarind, honey, and beeswax, are being paid more to harvest more. The tripled off-take is totally non-sustainable. The damaging consequences to trees of hacking off various mosses, and whole branches cut off to get the fruits and seeds, have been pointed out to IPAN Director Deanna Krantz by her concerned tribal field assistants.

Members of the Badaga peoples from the adjoining state of Karnataka, who settled in the region prior to British colonialism, helped enslave these tribal communities by linking them economically with the exploitative and destructive activities of British colonialism, and subsequently with the post-colonial exploitive economy. Tribal communities are encouraged to keep large herds of "scrub" cattle that graze in the reserve forest and spread diseases to wildlife, to provide manure as a "cash" crop that is illegally trucked out daily for sale elsewhere as fertilizer, essentially robbing the ecosystem of recycled nutrient wastes. Huge plantations, massive deforestation, and now, hydroelectric dam development are devastating the entire watershed and the small and precious, 260 square mile Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary. Rivers entering the Sanctuary are loaded with pesticides and herbicides and illegal irrigation schemes to raise cash crops, from cabbages to tobacco, mean less and less water for wildlife and for aboriginal peoples.

Local opposition is now being fomented against the Forest Department’s decision to provide land for cattle keepers well outside of the Sanctuary. This would be the best solution to a major wildlife conservation problem – diseases and resource competition with livestock and their owners. Unfortunately, the Forest Department has not worked well in the past to build community trust and cooperative programs like social forestry. IPAN is developing a People and Nature (PAN) Initiative to help reduce the cattle population and provide alternative, economically viable and sustainable livelihoods for the local peoples. Unfortunately they are being used as pawns by those who have a vested interest in opposing the excellent initiative of the Forest Department and in maintaining the status quo that is antithetical to the protection and conservation of wildlife in the Mudumalai Sanctuary.

The Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary is currently closed to tourism because the fugitive bandit and sandalwood poacher Veerapan and his gang is in the region and officials fear he may kidnap visitors for ransom. Veerapan is responsible for the deaths of several police officers and a reported 2,000 elephants.

Monsanto has now moved into this bioregion with its tin-plate signs promoting ROUNDUP "THE HERBICIDE" nailed to trees on the road down from Ooty into the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary. This next, on top of all the DDT, organochloride, and organophosphate agrichemicals, and other agripoisons made in India, that are used on all the cash crops being grown where the Todas once grazed their now almost extinct sacred buffaloes in once greener times, means further contamination of the entire watershed.

Animal Protection Laws Not Enforced

Neither the municipal (Ooty) Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the Collector (chief municipal authority), or the Animal Welfare Board of India, or the local police have ever helped Deanna enforce India’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Her earlier appeals to stop the cruel and indiscriminate rounding up of dogs by the municipal authorities in Ooty in the name of rabies control, that recently killed some 350-400 dogs, including some that IPAN had vaccinated, by offering IPAN’s spay-neuter and anti-rabies vaccination services for free, were ignored by all the above parties.

The latest complaint she has against the Nilgiris Animal Welfare Society (NAWS) is that the ponies she had been caring for for two years before she was forced out of the NAWS 52-acre sanctuary, are now hobbled (front legs tied with ropes) to stop them from crossing the river to her new Animal Refuge that is the only place where they can get any nutritious food. They are now starving and suffering. "The lights in their eyes have gone out and no one will do anything to stop it", was Deanna’s last word to me on this issue. (For further background details on the NAWS Animal Sanctuary problems, see report India Project for Animals and Nature: Battles and Victories - A Brief History.)

IPAN would welcome visits by and support from the few international animal welfare organizations involved in India, notably England’s RSPCA and The World Society for the Protection of Animals.

Dr. Michael W. Fox
Project Consultant

Promotional Materials

India’s Animals: The Sacred and the Suffering

• 22-minute video reviewing animal welfare problems and the role of religion and ethics in humane work and conservation.
• $20.00/each

The Sacred and the Suffering Art Card Series by Verona re-Bow

• Each card is 4"x 6"
• An assortment of 4 cards is $10.00

Biomusic For Wild Hearts and Deanna’s Refuge

Didgeridog Productions, a division of Fox’s Pen Inc., Washington, D.C.

This 90-minute cassette tape, recorded from my wife Deanna Krantz's Animal Refuge in the South Indian jungle and from my woods-close refuge in Washington D.C., is a lament and celebration of all creatures, and for our healing and atonement.

On this tape there is much hissing rain, running water, and sounds of various creatures. To the ear unfamiliar with the bio-music of ecstatic insect harmonies, monsoon rains, and didgeridoos, this tape will, I hope, be a pleasant introduction to the communion of soul and sound. Bio-music can enchant and take us beyond ecstasy into the eternal here and now of Mourning doves cooing in the rain.

The homespun, far from recording-studio quality of this tape comes directly from the field and all from the heart. Included are songs of wolves, loons, whales, Indian jungle birds, insects, frogs, and Deanna's ever-changing Refuge dog pack, led by bright and golden "Dean" who, along with many other spirits wild and tame, made this recording possible. They are accompanied by Australian and home-made didgeridoos, Japanese and home-made shakuhachi flutes, Native American prayer flute and drum, Tibetan Buddhist prayer bowl and bells, African Bushman kalimba or "sand piano", Indian one-string ectara, Chinese brass reed flute, and a wolf-bone flute.

• Each cassette is $10.00. All proceeds from the sale of this recording will go to support Deanna's Refuge and work for animals wild and tame.

"Every child must become a tree before he or she can feel the chi, our life force, and so become mature and protective of the roots and branches of the Tree of Life."