In Deep Waters no longer Still....

The recent spate of floods in the state has affected man and animal alike, uprooting them from their homes and rendering them shelter-less. A tenuous struggle for survival and escape from the rising waters has taken a toll on lives - both human and animal. This is just a collection of pictures of the flood-laden landscape of animals and accompanying little vignettes.

Take a close look at the picture above of villagers gathered around their precious few possessions in a country boat as they paddle to higher ground. The bottom right corner of the pic shows a man perched upon what looks like a little mound, and something resembling maybe a tree stump in front of him. A closer observation reveals that the stump is actually the tip of the trunk of an elephant thrust upwards by the pachyderm to breathe in air, and the man is the elephant’s mahout clinging on precariously to the great beast’s back. The Asiatic Elephant is on an average, 9 feet tall at the shoulder; so the ground must be submerged under atleast 9 feet water.

Deer like the ones shown here sheltering on an embankment, are particularly at threat in the present situation. Deer in the wildlife parks of the state are being compelled to escape from their protected environs. Reports suggest that a large number of deer have entered villages at the fringes of such parks, where some have been bitten by dogs while many others have been injured after getting entangled in fences surrounding people’s homes. A great many number of deer, being the naturally jumpy, nervy animal that it is, have been struck down by speeding vehicles on highways. Added to all these, poachers are having a field day killing large numbers of deer which have ventured out. Venison is highly regarded as a local delicacy and with the deer forced closer to human habitations, they have become exposed. However, while at one end, there are wantonly careless drivers who are mowing down hapless animals and opportunistic poachers killing the animal for their meat, due recognition has to be accorded to the efforts of wildlife guards and conservationists who have rescued and saved stricken animals – deer, rhino and elephant calves, primates. I saw a news footage of a herd of deer that had taken refuge at a football ground besides some cows contentedly munching grass, alongside a group of village kids playing ball nonchalantly in the background.

The rhino featured in the pic here stopped traffic in the busy national highway (NH 37) for almost half a day when it strayed out of Kaziranga park, searching for shelter on the highway. Forest guards fired blank rounds in the air in a bid to chase the rhino away into the adjoining hills. Even as the guards’ efforts proved futile, the busy traffic on the highway slowly and gingerly weaved its way forward under the watchful eyes of the foresters, with the rhino being at times, hardly more than 20 feet away from some of the vehicles. The rhino took its own sweet time however, in moving away from the scene after some hours.

In the midst of all these – nature’s fury, tireless efforts by wildlife personnel and the grimy acts of unscrupulous poachers – I hope and pray that animal (and man) emerge from the present ordeal triumphantly stronger and hopeful.

If a rhino could goose step

What would the unicorn be without its distinctive pointed horn? Probably just a horse or maybe, even a pony. Just as that large, spiraling horn gives the mythical unicorn its entire identity of invulnerability, purity and grace, so do the other individual oddities and bits in the animal kingdom lend their own touch of distinction and class to their holders. Just think – would anyone recognise a tiger if not for its singular black-and-yellow stripes, will kids ever draw pictures of elephants without their massive trunks; can you imagine a rattlesnake without the customary tchik-tchik of the rattle at the end of its tail? The answer to all these is ‘no’.

So imagine my surprise when I went to the city zoo last month and saw a horn-less rhino contentedly munching grass in its enclosure. It was a massive African White Rhino (the largest of all the rhinos) which naturally has not one, but two horns on its snout. The specimen I saw in the zoo however, was without its two traditional accessories. At first sight, I felt a strangeness cos it was the first rhino I’d seen without a horn. I experienced a funny feeling and later, I felt a bit sad too. Governments in Africa where the White Rhino is found, have undertaken de-horning of their rhino population in some measure in a bid to prevent them from being poached for their horns. Of course the humaneness of such an exercise is under scrutiny - to what extent, you may tamper with nature to protect it from man’s greed? Further, the rhino’s horn regenerates (the horn is solid keratin, the same stuff our hair and nails are made of) and so, de-horning does not serve as a lifelong safeguard.

To come back to our zoo rhino, I was so taken in by its strangeness that I ventured close to get a better look. The rhino must have already been de-horned when it was brought to our city zoo cos I don’t imagine such a procedure being undertaken here. There was a five-feet sturdy parapet all around the enclosure but I found a high mound of soil alongside where I could look down on the rhino. A few other people had also gathered around that spot. There was a man who lifted up his son on his shoulder so that he too, could get a closer view of the rhino. The kid asked, “Father, what is that?” His father replied, “Why son, that’s a rhino.” The kid was puzzled, “But where is its horn?” The father had no answer. As I climbed down from the mound, I honestly wished the rhino’s horns would grow back soon and it would reclaim its proud majesty.

A rhino’s horn grows back in typically, two to three years.

‘Yogi-c’ Bear!

I had the opportunity last week to go to the city zoo. The Guwahati zoo is to say the least, quite large and juxtaposed against the heaving concrete mass of the city just outside its walls, acts as an oasis of green resplendence. I have seen pictures of zoos worldwide, especially in Europe and America where the facilities are immaculately designed and maintained, lawns are manicured, and the zoo enclosures are extremely animal- and viewer-friendly. I remember seeing a programme about a rhino in some zoo in America where the animal was barricaded within metal rods so designed to almost look and feel like bamboo stalks, while at the same time, being strong enough to restrain. It was an African White Rhino and his enclosure was spotlessly clean; even some of the foliage on a trellis beside his enclosure was amazingly life-like but artificial. The animal looked quite happy too. It is with some sense of regret mixed in part with no small measure of pride, that I say that our city zoo is unlike the other zoos I had just talked about. You see, the Guwahati zoo itself rests within a reserve forest which means that for a large part of your trekking within the premises, you do feel as if you are in a forest and not a man-made facility. The topography of the zoo is also quite unique; the terrain is undulating fringed by small hillocks on the northern side, ringed by bamboo thickets in places. The zoo also has natural water-bodies though I confess that they may definitely be better looked-after. The terrain slopes down from north to south with the lower southern side (the part untouched that is) somewhat marshy, where some of the water-loving animals are kept. As we entered through the shining new gate of the zoo, we were greeted by the loud (almost vulgar-sounding) hoo-hoos of the Hollock Gibbons, and therefrom started a magical 6 hours. I present before you here, the story of one particularly sage Himalayan Black Bear who blessed us with an unique visitation that hot sunny day. He sat on his haunches with all the utmost seriousness of a person contemplating the more subtle stuff in life; he looked so much like the ‘Laughing Buddha’ figurines sold and bought these days that it was decidedly uncanny. Lets call him ‘Yogi’.

Leopard in the City

I had been meaning to write on ‘Urban Wildlife’ for some time now; an urge driven mostly by my experiences in our national capital, Delhi. It was in 2000 that I remember being astounded by the sheer number of squirrels traipsing on trees, buildings and on the pavements in delhi. I was staying near Connaught Palace at that time, and squirrels were omnipresent; with their cute brown fur, their tiny forelimbs clutching at food. Years later when I was staying in South Delhi, we had a tract of protected forest right behind our college – an extrusion of the Delhi ridge. Peacocks, foxes, Nilgai (blue bulls, a type of antelope) and squirrels of course, were to be found in plenty in the forest, which is open to public. We used to roam in the forest sometimes, looking out for peacocks with their majestic plumage all fanned out and collecting their pretty feathers from the ground. Once when I was climbing down a small ridge in the forest, I must have startled a family of nilgais for they burst out from behind a thick green wall of foliage, and galloped right down below me, not more than 10 feet away. Congested Mumbai too, has its share of wildlife and a large protected forest in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, home to an astounding range of flora and fauna.

Guwahati located along the southern bank of the Brahmaputra, is bounded by hills on the other sides. The expanding city corridors and the main city itself now form the largest metropolitan area in north-eastern India. For a city that has 11 forest reserves, including 2 wildlife sanctuaries in its vicinity, Guwahati may very well boast of the highest concentration of wildlife.  Guwahati and Greater Guwahati are home to several rare mammals like the elephant, tiger, leopard, primates etc. With shrinking living spaces and a tentatively-shared habitat it is common for these animals to stray into the city sometimes.

The latest such incident occurred this January 7^th, when a male leopard strayed into the city, mauling and injuring 4 people before it was tranquilised by Forest personnel and whisked away for rehabilitation. What happened that day is a stark reminder of the sad drama that gets invariably played out in man-animal confrontations. The animal cowed and unsure of a city environment, wants to pass through and finding his escape difficult, attacks the first thing he sees, in this case, humans. People on the other hand, being informed of such an animal in their vicinity, congregate and surge towards the spot where the animal was seen. The unsure animal now further cornered and feeling threatened by human sounds and sights, becomes more aggressive and goes into a frenzy. In this case, the unruly crowd that had assembled to see the cornered animal, made the task of tranquilising the leopard all the more difficult. A procedure that should have clinically taken 5 minutes took 45.

Some days back, a tiger was killed by police bullets outside Kaziranga. The tiger has strayed out of the park and was resting in a bamboo grove by the highway when it was spotted. Predictably a crowd gathered at the spot and a media photographer trying to get a good picture of the tiger, got in the way of the animal trying to escape. The tiger finding its way blocked lunged at the photographer, and the armed police beside felled the animal like a mad dog. A wildlife personnel said, “Point a camera at a tiger or a leopard and it thinks it is being attacked. After that it will lunge at you. That is cat behavior.” It is pertinent to note that where Nature has given the leopard claws and teeth, it has given us humans, the brain and the demeanour to think and act sensibly. The leopard stays true to its nature but do we?

How Austin Stevens helped me

Austin Stevens

For regular viewers of Animal Planet, Austin Stevens is a familiar name and a known face. I myself came to know him not more than 6 months back. I was more interested before while watching nature programs, with the animals rather than the presenter. Somehow though, this saffron-shirted (mostly) free spirit fascinated me with his sheer energy, simple narratives and almost-schoolboy passion. Austin Stevens is a herpetologist and wildlife photographer who travels across the globe in search of nature’s wild treasures, photographing them and making short films. His chief interest lies in snakes and he is better known as ‘the snakemaster’.

When handling snakes, Austin is always careful, respectful and very deft. In his commentary and through his movements while handling a snake, he explains the characteristics of the reptile and wherever possible, describes the unique physical attributes of the snake, mostly fangs, scales etc. There is a common thread which runs through his commentaries in snake programmes which is basically this – the snake will not harm you unless you advertently or otherwise, exhibit behavior which it might construe as threatening. Since man is not the natural prey or predator of the snake, it shies away from us. Also, if you follow Austin’s shows, you will see that it is the snake more often, which is trying to get away and Austin who is the one compelling the snake to stay/ react. It dawned on me eventually that it is the snake who is more afraid of us.

This brings me to my own story. Years ago when I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, we were residing in a small town (my father was posted there). I was in kindergarten and our government-provided quarter was a large single-storey house with a large backyard which was over-run by weeds and shrubs. There was no running water but there was a tube-well in the backyard to pump water and carry it back inside the house in buckets. The tube-well was constructed on a cement plinth and served as a nice platform to wash clothes and dishes. Also, being a small kid, I mostly used to perform my ablutions there rather than inside the bathroom. A nullah existed beside the plinth for draining the dirty water from all the washing. It was my custom then to take a long afternoon nap after school and one evening, as I woke up, I remember I was feeling particularly groggy and disoriented from waking up. So groggy in fact, that I had thought that I had woken up in the morning. So, I took my toothbrush outside and went to the tube-well to brush my teeth. My father was away and mother was in the kitchen. As I was intently brushing my teeth with my head down and still-heavy from all that sleep, I heard a loud hiss.

I looked up and saw a hooded cobra not more than a foot away from me; to my small eyes, its hood looked almost as tall as myself. The cobra’s hard glinty eyes stared at me, it seemed and then it just climbed back into the nullah and raced away from me, its hood still high and its scales making a swishing sound along the wet surface of the nullah. To this day, I can see the back of that long dark hood swaying from side to side as the cobra weaved its way through the nullah. I stood like a statue for I know not how long; then uttered a long scream, and then with my toothbrush still in my hand and foam still in my mouth, ran to my mother inside. I clutched at her, shaking all over and not being able to utter a word after that one scream. My mother did not know what happened, and I was dumb for as long as it took my father to reach the house after work.

Cobra sketch by Karen Murray

That one childhood incident impacted me in a way that I found any pictures, mention of snakes terrifying. Their long sleek shiny bodies, forked tongues and hisses pervaded my dreams. Many a night, I have woken up in cold sweat after a nightmare in which a raised hood had stared at me and then moved away. This dream had continued all these years, the only difference being that sometimes they came regularly and sometimes, after long intervals. In fact, they had continued till well into this year but then, around July, I discovered Austin Stevens and his snake-wisdom. In the last 6 months, I might have seen many snakes on TV – sidewinding over sand dunes, flying (or falling with style!) from tree to tree, coiling around each other’s bodies during mating, baby snakes and many other facets of a snake’s life. I have seen too, Austin Steven’s wonderful presence in my mind’s eye and his cool collected words of wisdom.

I have not had any nightmares involving snakes for a while now. I do not know if they will start coming again in the future but somehow, the vision of a person named Austin Stevens re-assures me. “The snake will not harm me”.

A Heart Purple

With living spaces shrinking for man and wild animals, both are becoming increasingly violent and their spreading conflicts are turning progressively ugly. The loser in most cases is the wild animal. So when I read the newspaper front page on 27^th July, I was dumbfounded.

The usage of the phrase ‘into the lion’s mouth’ is merely connotative of knowingly and willfully doing something dangerous, like approaching a feared person, especially in order to ask a favour. The literal usage of ‘into the lion’s mouth’ has now been exemplified by a man, who undertook this dangerous task not to entertain an audience (à la the lion trainer in a traveling circus) but to save the beast’s life.

The Centre of Wildlife Rehabilitation & Conservation (CWRC) based out of Kaziranga is committed towards the protection of wild animals; they rescue and rehabilitate animals who come into conflict with man in shared habitats. On 26^th July, a team from CWRC set out for a village near Kaziranga on hearing reports that a leopard had been trapped. The team comprised of veterinarian Abhijit Bhawal, Raju Kutu and Tarun Gogoi (both animal keepers). The female leopard had attacked a villager earlier in the day, and was now facing imminent death at the hands of the agitated villagers. Armed with sharp weapons, the mob converged at the spot and surrounded the leopard in a vegetable field, but it managed to outwit the mob momentarily by jumping into a drain. The CWRC team equipped with a tranquiliser gun and a net, attempted to tranquilise the animal when it was inside the drain but the visibility was too poor to take a shot.

The leopard jumped out of the drain and took shelter inside a bamboo grove with the mob hot on its trail. Tarun ran along with the villagers to the spot where the leopard was taking shelter, trying to persuade them not to attack it. When the mob did not pay heed to his pleas, Tarun jumped on the leopard and held it tightly to save it from being beaten up. By the time Abhijit and Raju arrived on the spot and netted the leopard, Tarun’s right hand upto his forearm was inside its mouth. On seeing the netted down leopard, the villagers calmed down and the team extricated Tarun’s mauled arm from the big cat’s mouth. Injuries to both Tarun and the leopard were not severe – Tarun was hospitalized and subsequently discharged; the leopard was tranquilised and shifted to CWRC, undergoing treatment for a minor injury. Even as I am writing this post, the rescued and rehabilitated leopard must be going through its paces back in the wild.

Tarun aiding another big cat

Speaking to the media after the fateful incident, Dr. Abhijit who was in the CWRC team that day says this of with Tarun says, “He had put his hand inside its mouth to protect his face and head. Had it not been for Tarun’s courageous effort, the leopard would have been beaten to a pulp by the irate mob.” In recognition of this extraordinary act of selflessness and superlative courage, a NGO engaged in wildlife activism, Nature’s Beckon has instituted the ‘Green Salute Award’ and presented it to Tarun Gogoi.

I wonder what citation has been presented to Tarun in the Green Salute Award but there is a very poignant commendation which is commonly used in awarding military Medals/ Decorations/ etc., especially a line which goes something like this – “….Awarded For Extraordinary Heroism above and beyond the call of duty”. What Tarun has done, the qualities that he displayed in saving the leopard in that bamboo grove that 26^th July, his sense of what he probably thinks is ‘wildlife conservation’ goes beyond any touchstone elucidated, expected and exhibited.

Appended  below is a news clipping of the incident;  it does not show actual footage of the rescue but is informative.

No matter how strong II.

The final tale involves a mother elephant and her calf who found themselves by a cruel twist of fate, pressed against the sides of a rocky ravine. This happened around 28^th April in Karbi Anglong district when the duo fell into a 30-foot gorge beside a hill. The mother and her two-month old calf stayed trapped in this rock tomb until local people and then, wildlife vet teams reached them. Reports say that the two got trapped very close to each other, with the mother being hardly able to move and only using her trunk to caress her calf. The mother even tried – unsuccessfully – to suckle her calf. A vet at the site says this of the mother, “Despite being trapped between two huge rocks she tried her best to suckle the calf but in vain. We saw it but were helpless.”
 

Eventually the vet teams with the assistance of the locals, were able to rescue the trapped calf, digging a 100-metre trench removing several rocks to reach the stricken calf. They fit the calf on a sling and lifted it, while the rest of the team and some villagers pulled it from outside. The severely traumatized and injured calf calf was carried down the hill on a stretcher and rushed to the nearest Range Office where it was treated.

Rescue attempts to save the mother were complicated by the terrain, inclement weather and the sudden appearance of a wild elephant herd in the area. Eventually after four days of being trapped, the mother succumbed to her injuries. The body of the mother elephant will forever stay entombed in this rocky grave because it proved impossible to retrieve her carcass.

As per latest reports, the calf was recuperating from its injuries in CWRC at Kaziranga.

It seems that with all the speeding trains, falling rocks and man-made obstructions, not to mention deliberate human action like poisoning water-holes, fate has dealt Assam’s elephants a very bad deal. However, this conclusion in itself, is deficient and hasty. In the ever-hard struggle for living space in a confined environment, both the elephant and man are losing their cool – rapidly. According to records, wild elephants have killed about 279 people in Assam since 2001, while 289 elephants have died during the period, many of them victims of retaliation.

The Trapped Mother-calf

It is this no-winners battle that gets highlighted in This Land We Call Our Home – Man Elephant Conflict of Assam, a short film that has got selected in the competition segment of this year’s Cannesfestival. This film shot by husband-wife duo, Vikeyano Zao and Indrajit Narayan Dev is their second film-making venture that has got shortlisted by Cannes. Their first film, The Last of the Tattooed Head-hunters exploring the head-hunting practice of the Konyak Nagas was the first film from North-East to make it to Cannes last year.

In this film shot all over Assam in the forests, sand-bars and estates that are the last bastion of the elephant, the conflict between man and the beast is examined in detail. The film is said to portray some very poignant and blood-curling scenes, shot in a matter-of-fact style. The outlook is not encouraging as filmmaker Zao says, “When we talk about national parks, many of us know only about Kaziranga. But what about the other forests? The situation is very bleak in Assam.”

The elephant may be strong in itself, but perhaps now more than ever, it needs our help.

[The title of this and the preceding post has been borrowed from the opening lines of Rufus Wainwright’s “Dinner at Eight”.]

No matter how strong I.

At around 5,000 kgs and standing 9 ft. tall, the Indian Asiatic Elephant presents an imposing picture and seemingly brooks no nonsense. India is home to just under 30,000 elephants with half of them in the North-Eastern states, particularly Assam where they eke out a very precarious existence. In the fortnight starting 20^th April, this magnificent beast with this gargantuan frame and girth has been hit by locomotives, found itself encircled within concrete walls and entombed by rocks in my state.

The first jumbo incident occurred in the second week of April in Gibbon wildlife sanctuary along the Assam-Nagaland border. The elephant, a young male around 10 – 12 years old, got injured after being hit by a train near the sanctuary. With its injured left foreleg, it found the strength somewhere to limp about for a week, painfully keeping up with its herd until it was forced to stop. It was then spotted, tranquilised and treated on 20^th Apr by a vet team from Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation & Conservation (CWRC) based in Kaziranga. On closer observation, another wound on the rear of the elephant’s head was found and treated.

The Gibbon Elephant

And at that spot, the poor animal stayed immobile for a fortnight from 20^th Apr to 4^th May, until it finally succumbed to its injuries. It must be said here though that the local forest authorities tried to save the jumbo, keeping it under constant observation all the while. Forest officials even had a muddy pit dug close by to where the jumbo lay, filling it up with water from a fire tender, dragging the animal to the comfort of the artificial pool. The diagnosis was grim, a second tranquilising and treatment was undertaken, a round-the-clock surveillance mounted up to guard the defenceless jumbo against carnivores, and even saline bottles administered to replenish the animal’s failing strength. Ultimately however, all these efforts came to naught, the Gibbon elephant eventually adding to the tally of elephant deaths caused by locomotive hits. It is poignant to note that from 9^th Apr (the date on which it was hit) to 4^th May – a period of almost a month - this magnificent animal limped, suffered and starved until it met its merciful end.

The second jumbo tale is more in the nature of an inadvertent but nevertheless damaging human obstruction. On 25^th April, three wild jumbos were injured in Golaghat after they found themselves cordoned off between a concrete wall on one side and an electric fence on the other. Yes, this actually happened when the trio moving along a designated elephant corridor entered into a plot fenced off by a private company in alleged contravention of forest laws.

Man-made walls in Elephant Corridor

When it was observed that the jumbos were trapped, the forest authorities’ attempts to guide them towards an opening in the fence were very amateurish, to say the least. I saw this news clipping where a few very terrified forest guards burst some crackers (the sort we use in Diwali), and resorting to uselessly flailing their arms and shouting loudly. One forest guard was even seen folding his hands and mumbling something, obviously in prayer, seeking divine intervention to guide the jumbos to safety. It certainly seems that prayer forms a very important weapon in the local guards’ arsenal when it comes to assisting stricken animals.

So, it comes as no surprise that the panicky jumbos among all this ruckus, started banging themselves against the thick walls in an attempt to escape. After nearly three hours, the bruised animals finally managed to escape through the same opening in the wall through which they had entered.

Last heard, the forest authorities, the local administration and the company people were squabbling over the ownership of the plot cordoned off. Till its resolution, many more wild jumbos are likely to land themselves in similar trouble cos the land form parts of the elephant corridor.

(To be concluded)

The Raging Bull of Orang

Massive. Stolid. Ungainly. Your mind might very well kick-off with these words when you see a rhino for the first time. I know my mind did, when I first saw the rhino in the city zoo so many years back. Seeing one in the wilds, in its natural surroundings is however, quite different. For an animal which is the second largest on land, smaller only to the elephant, it gives off an aura of invincibility, given its size coupled with its armour-like hide. It almost looks regal and peaceful given that being a herbivore, you are likely to see it munching grass and leaves.

There’s an element of incongruity too about the rhino’s appearance; if you see one from the rear, it seems as one friend remarked ‘to be wearing shorts’! Its skin has many layers and folds, the last fold ending just above its rear knees.

Once found extensively in India from across the Indus Valley in the west to Burma in the east, the Indian or Greater One-horned Rhinocerous survives today in its natural habitat only in Nepal, Bengal and Assam. Assam accounts for the most significant rhino population, its ecological status ‘endangered’ due to poaching. Rhinos are killed for their horns, which are bought and sold on the black market, and which are used by some cultures for ornamental or (largely pseudo-scientific) medicinal purposes.

Orang the smallest national park in Assam, is home to around 68 rhinos as well as other threatened mammals. Perhaps Orang’s most famous inhabitant was ‘Kaan-kata’ – a feared and cantankerous male rhino (also called a bull rhino) who roamed the grasslands of Orang for close to 4 decades. Kaan-kata which means ‘the one with the cut ear’, owed its name to the fact that poachers’ bullets had chipped some portion of his left ear when it was younger. It has been said that Kaan-kata had survived other attempts by poachers since that fateful incident.

Owing to these unpleasant human encounters, Kaan-kata had developed a marked testiness towards people, charging at sight. Such was his sway that both forest staff and poachers were very wary of coming close to Orang’s most famous denizen, not daring to cross its path.

Lording over the grasslands of Orang in its lifetime, Kaan-kata breathed his last in Feb this year in his beloved and only home. The forest staff found Kaan-kata’s lifeless body in the morning of 16^th Feb at a spot, roughly at the centre of the park. The body bore no external injury and the horn was intact too. Post mortem confirmed that the aging patriarch had succumbed to the ultimate malady – old age.

In death, Kaan-kata elicited wistful reminiscences from local forest staff over his intrepid nature and post-16^th Feb I suspect, his exploits will become a part of Orang legend. Like the time that Kaan-kata charged at and attacked the vehicle of a divisional forest official (pretty much the top officer in a forest division) 3 years back. Poachers too, were at the receiving end as one forest official has said, “A poacher who was arrested a few years back had revealed during interrogation that Kaankata had chased him along with a few others for more than 2km.” In fact, Kaan-kata’s trepidations had spooked poachers to such an extent that they had stopped entering into Orang at daytime being fearful of Kaan-kata.

Kaan-Kata at his final resting place: At last, angry no more

The way I see it, Kaan-kata fought not only for himself but for the right of all animals everywhere to rid themselves of the yokel of human greed and interference. We need more Kaan-katas.