Madhai May Not Be Barasinghas’ New Home

Lalit Shastri

(The Hindu (New Delhi), 17 June 2007 )

Madhai is protected area and an excellent living forest on the backwaters of the Denwa River near Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh. It is part of the Satpura Tiger Reserve and the Pachmarhi Wildlife Sanctuary. It is also in the vicinity of the Bori Sanctuary, which was declared the first Reserve Forest by the British in 1861.

Madhai is located at the foothills with the Satpura range forming a perfect backdrop. One has to leave the Bhopal-Pachmarhi highway just before Sohagpur and take a sharp bend to drive 17 km through agricultural fields and scattered villages before coming face to face with the endless serenity of Madhai that unfolds itself across the blue waters of the Denwa. A motorboat ride and one is soon on a hillock where the Forest Department has set up its small infrastructure to manage this area.

Just behind the forest guesthouse one could spot a herd of chinkara roaming freely on Thursday evening. Not far away as one drove through the undulating forest terrain and canopies of teak and sal stretching on either side, one came across big herds of cheetal, smaller packs of sambhar, black bucks and wild boars.

This correspondent also sighted herds of Indian gaur at different places within a short time. The accompanying forest guard said that if one is lucky one may even sight a tiger or a leopard here.

There has been a proposal to relocate the endangered barasingha to Madhai from the Kanha National Park. When the Satpura Tiger Reserve Director S.S. Rajput was asked about this proposal , he said there has been evidence of the Barasingha’s presence around Madhai and at Jhela near Pachmarhi more than 100 year ago. He said Captain J. Forsyth had even recorded seeing a barasingha in the Pachmarhi area in 1862. Asked whether or not Madhai could be an ideal habitat to relocate the barasingha from Kanha, he said that the Khakrapura- Sakot area in Bori Sanctuary which can be reached either from Madhai or from the Betul side, would be ideally suited for this purpose because it comes under the submergence of the Tawa river, where the submergence is more widespread and shallow, whereas the area coming under the submergence of the Denwa river around Madhai is much less and also deeper.

Habitat has to be considered from many angles for translocating the barasingha, wildlife experts point out, adding that the Kanha meadows have grass round the year. But the grasslands in the Madhai and Khakrapura Sakot area come under submergence during the monsoon and remain sumerged till February. When water is released for the wheat crop, only then this area is free from submergence. Besides, they also point out that during the mating season, the male barasingha plucks a typical grass with its antlers and displays it for the purpose of natural selection. This grass is missing in the Madhai and other areas being considered for translocating the endangered species.

It is also being argued that aquatic ponds near Madhai or in the forests of Bori do not have the vegetation which is palatable to the barasingha. The water bodies at Madhai are infested with crocodiles.

The Central Indian barasingha (Cervus duvauceli branderi) is highly endangered. The Central Indian sub-species (Cervus duvauceli branderi Pocock) whose historic range covered several districts of the present states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, is now endemic only to the Kanha National Park and forms the only world population.

State wildlife officials point out that it is only due to long-term concerted efforts under Project Tiger that this subspecies has been saved from extinction.

There is evidence (Balaghat district gazetteer—C.E. Low, 1907) that the barasingha was found in all parts where sal forests existed. Capt Forsyth also gave a vivid account of the abundance of the Central Indian barasingha. At that time, the species was found widely distributed from Hoshangabad in the west of Chhindwara, Seoni Balaghat, Mandla (Kanha National Park, Motinala and Karanjia ranges), and Durg, Bilaspur, Rajpur and Baster districts of undivided Madhya Pradesh.

Barasingha was also found in bhandara and Chanda districts of Maharashtra and several

areas in Bihar and Orissa contiguous with bordering forest tracts of Madhya Pradesh.