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species
such
as Iris
clarkei, Rosa
In Haa, we were given a refreshing hot stone bath: large stones from the
riverbed are heated in a raging fire and used to heat the water in a wooden
trough. After a wash in the warm water, we were asked to sit one by one in the
trough as long as we liked. This bath is supposed to be therapeutic for joint
pains.
The main point that emerged in the coordination meeting was livestock
predation by carnivores: the dhole, the black bear, the leopard and the tiger.
Livestock are crucial to the lives of Bhutanese as 69 per cent of them depend
upon livestock rearing and agriculture. Currently, the government offers
compensation for the livestock killed by tigers and snow leopards, but kills by
other carnivores are not compensated. In the meeting, the officer in charge of
the livestock department talked about an incident of dholes killing seven yaks in
a month. This constitutes a serious loss to livestock owners as each adult yak
costs around Rs.40,000-Rs.50,000, and as of 2012, Bhutans per capita income
was $2,420 (Nu.1,38,132 for 2012; one Bhutanese ngultrum is equivalent to one
rupee).
An officer representing the Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation
(BTFEC) said that the government was mulling over the idea of giving
compensation for all predator kills, which however would be prohibitively
expensive. The BTFEC was established in 1992 as a collaborative venture
between the Royal Government of Bhutan, the United Nations Development
Programme and the World Wildlife Fund. Now several other nations have
become partners in this fund. Today, it is an effective conservation grant-making
organisation independent of the government and has an all-Bhutanese
management board.
If the kills are not suitably compensated for, angered herders could poison the
predators and several other carnivores in the area that are likely to scavenge on
the kills. One major problem with livestock grazing in Bhutan is that unattended
livestock are left in the forest for several days and so are naturally prone to
predation. An endowment fund was established with the BTFEC in 2010 for
Human Wildlife Conflict Management as a viable financing mechanism to
minimise human-wildlife conflict. This fund helps in alleviating poverty and
empowering the community as conservation partners.
On June 15-16, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Himalayan
kingdom and strengthened the age-old relationship between the two nations by
assuring Bhutan support to strengthen education and trade and help it achieve
the goal of building a 30,000 megawatt hydel project. Building the hydel power
project not only would strengthen Bhutans economy and provide India with
power but also serve as a small contribution to the fight against climate change,
he said.
Cheri
monastery
vegetation was used to block the animal trails and leave gaps for the snares.
Although the nylon rope snare may not be able to kill adult takin and sambar, it
can kill their young and all other ungulates. If this could happen in the premier
park of Bhutan, we wondered what the situation would be in the numerous
unprotected valleys in this country.
King
on
cycle
Dzong, built in the 17th century, against the backdrop of white clouds and blue
and green mountains is memorable.
We travelled on this road on June 26 and 27, staying in Tsachu (Gasa hot
springs) for a night and spending some precious hours sitting in the hot springs.
The hot sulphur water is supposed to have curative properties for skin and joint
problems. Therefore, it is a popular place for the Bhutanese, who stay in the
basic facilities available, with flush toilets, and spend hours together in the pool.
Gasa schoolchildren have placed signage pleading with people to keep the place
clean, which is respected by the Bhutanese with utmost sincerity. In winter,
there may be lots of snow around, yet the hot springs are extensively used by a
large number of people, who pitch tents and stay nearby.
It was disappointing for us not to have sighted mammals along the 100-km
drive. We were told that if we drove at night we might see animals such as the
wild pig, the serow and the sambar. The takin, which moves to the upper regions
of the park in summer, is likely to be seen in winter along this road.
A
variety
of
cats
Large mammal sightings in the daytime may be rare in Bhutan, but camera-trap
studies involving 600 cameras have brought out the mammalian richness of the
country. Eleven species of cats (jungle cat, fishing cat, leopard cat, marbled cat,
golden cat, Pallas cat, clouded leopard, lynx, snow leopard, leopard and tiger)
have been photographed in Bhutan. Camera traps have captured tigers in places
where they had not been recorded earlier on the basis of surveys conducted
using the traditional pug-mark method. If wild ungulate prey is protected from
snaring and from free-ranging dogs, then Bhutan has the capability to support
nearly 100 adult tigers. On June 24, a sambar took refuge in the Thimphu chu
near the royal palace, almost in the heart of the city, to escape free-ranging dogs.
The Bhutanese should be extremely proud that Thimphu is the only capital
where the sambar and the tiger range within 5 km of the city limits. The number
of snow leopards in Bhutan may vary from 100 to 200 and its main prey is the
bharal, or the blue sheep (in India, another major prey is the ibex). Marmots and
musk deer are hunted by the snow leopard in both countries, but the Himalayan
tahr is not available for the snow leopard in Bhutan as the tahrs eastward
distribution stops with Sikkim.
As Bhutan has 70 per cent forest cover, the Bhutanese proudly say that they do
not contribute to global warming, but they are aware that they are vulnerable to
climate change. They are also aware that their beautiful country can be