WCB Field Notes

Pratik Chaudhary, M.Sc (Zoology)

There are several un-protected areas which are not much explored for their biological wealth and the presence of some rare and endangered species there in. This unawareness or ignorance may be a reason that why such areas getting degraded due to immense biotic pressure and encroachment.

I am working in one of such un-classed and unexplored forest area locally called as Vagadipolo which is located near the village, Vithoda of Kheralu Taluka of Mehsana, Gujarat, India (N23.9377, E72.5150 & N23.9353, E72.5337). The area is surrounded by agriculture land owned by the villagers who used to exploit this land for cattle grazing and trespassing. Though highly degraded the area harbours good faunal diversity including reptiles, terrestrial birds and mammals. I am studying here the denning of Indian fox (Vulpes bengalensis), one of the unappreciated and least studied small sized carnivore of the area. I look for their dens, breeding sites and their feeding habit in this area and trying to understand how they live in such a degraded and human dominated landscape. I found 15 dens within the area of approx 1.5 km² area, out of which around five were the active dens. The fox dens are very interesting to study, observe and explore as they have two to 30 openings, sometime you can see fox pups coming out and popup their head and curiously looking towards you and again hides into the dens. I came across such situations many times and found myself lucky to witness the successful breeding of fox in this area. But here there is a sad news, once I was searching the dens and fox scats for my study I found a dead male fox, with a bite marks on its body. The fox was looking so healthy but the local herders told me that this may be a case of dog bites during the territory fight. I also heard many stories from locals about illegal hunting and poisoning of other animals who are considered as agricultural pests and the innocent creatures like this fox become a victim. Not only this, but other anthropogenic activities and encroachment on the land can be lethal for such small and isolated population of wild mammals. I found a great sense of conservation among the locals for the biodiversity due to mythological and ethical understanding along with the social responsibility to protect the land for grazing. My study is about to finish, but the scrubland, people and the cute little fox pups have attached me emotionally with this area and I personally feel that many such degraded lands demanding study and conservation action for mother nature and her naive creatures. Someone rightly said…. “Conservation is the harmony between the man and the land”