Rucha Karkarey is a research scholar with the Oceans and Coasts Programme at NCF. She has spent the last seven years stalking groupers (these really interesting fish) underwater, trying to understand how they are coping with climate-change. She took over our Instagram for a week, and shared stories about curious behaviours of groupers from her fieldwork in […]
A snow leopard family album!
Our camera traps have captured a series of photographs over five years of a snow leopard family! In the remote Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh, we’ve been working on a variety of projects to better understand snow leopards and implement conservation initiatives in collaboration with local communities and governments. Camera traps are one of the […]
Sulli the unknown bird
Reaction from the bird community on the news of Chief Minister’s chopper making an emergency landing after a bird hit (see news reports below). By Birds Press Trust of India (BPTI) | May 07, 2017. Possible image of Sulli. For representation purpose only, actual bird may look completely different. Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons Sulli is […]
Elephant Early Warning Systems now in Gudulur!
Our early warning systems—which inform people about the presence of elephants to avoid surprise encounters—have now been set up in Gudulur, Tamil Nadu! NCF’s M Ananda Kumar and his team have been running these systems in Valparai, Tamil Nadu, since 2002, in collaboration with local people, plantation companies, and the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. In […]
Basheer’s Hawk Eagle
Read the Tamil version of this article here. The car was moving from Valparai towards Pollachi through the Ghat road with curves and hairpin-bends. Sitting in the front seat, I was looking out at the roadside of the forest area. When we passed Attakatti we came upon a bare open space . A few metres […]
World Wildlife Day Special: Creatures that deserve more attention that they get!
For World Wildlife Day 2017, we asked our staff for their favourite underappreciated species and why they deserve some of the limelight as well! Here’s what they had to say:
A frozen world, hoofs and copious cups of tea
by Munib Khanyari It is a surreal experience when you are nearly 6000m high, on top of a mountain pass, looking down at the blanket of white that envelopes the valleys around you. It’s peak winter and all but your will seems frozen. Then your eyes pass over the frozen river that you just traversed, […]
A village mourns a snow leopard
by Kalzang Gurmet This post first appeared on Snow Leopard Trust’s website. When a wild snow leopard died of old age near the hamlet of Kibber, the community came together to pay their respects to the cat. Our local field coordinator, Kalzang Gurmet, shares this heart-warming story from his home village. One February morning, […]
My first good photograph of a wild tiger
by Dr AJT Johnsingh May 1971 was exceedingly hot in the plains of Tamil Nadu and some of us were holidaying in a cardamom estate in the Kalakad hills (now part of Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve), nearly at the southern end of the Western Ghats. It turned out to be the turning point in my […]
A New Year’s Snow Leopard Encounter
This post first appeared on Snow Leopard Trust’s blog. Our team in India’s Spiti Valley was treated to an extraordinary sighting of the elusive Ghost of the Mountain on a recent field visit. For Research Associate Ajay Bijoor, it was the first encounter with the cat he’s dedicated his life and career to. Read his account of […]