 |
| Photo- Karma Sonam |
I reached my destination at 1.30pm. This was the same village we came to for the first time, five months ago with our partner organization, the Snow Leopard Conservancy. We were teaming up to launch a new conservation program aimed at securing the population of snow leopards and other endangered species in the area. During our previous visit, through our interviews with the local people, we had come to know of the serious depredation by snow leopards and wolves in the Sirul Valley. We had promised to set up predator-free corrals and I was nowhere, following up on the promise.
This valley belongs to very a small population of ten agro-pastoralist subfamilies. I came to know at Nyi, the neighboring village, that I may get shelter overnight there. Nonetheless, I was equipped with a good sleeping bag, SLT shoes with warm trousers, and a woolen glove for the walk. I started climbing towards the narrow SRIUL valley and crossed a bridge over the Indus River around 1.55pm. It was exciting this area is said to be a good home for the snow leopard. I was following the main zigzag trail, which intermittently vanished under solid and thick ice layers. Fortunately, the way was filled with Myricaria bushes and they helped over the slippery way of solid ice.
I was reminded of the delightful field trip to Kothagiri through Bhandhipur and Kargudi, inside the Mudumalai tiger reserve, and the exposure visit to Keystone foundation in Ooty and finally staying overnight at the forest rest house at Kargudi. We had walked through elephant country with Dr. Johnsingh and the entire NCF family from Sirur to Mangalapatti through the Moyar valley. That had been a really unbelievable trek at a much lower altitude and different temperatures from here. We had a sighting of many wild animals like wild pig, gaur, chital, sambar, blackbuck, a cute star tortoise, and a black-naped hare in the night, which was yet another excitement for us. However, here I will not be able to see them again, unfortunately. Of course, if I am lucky, I may possibly have an encounter with the elusive cat!
Likewise, I was fondly remembering the information Dr Johnsingh sir kept giving us through the trek. Indeed, I am blessed to have been enlightened by him! I don’t know how I can bow down and give thanks to Dr. Johnsingh sir for graciously sharing his knowledge with us. Our adored teammates Ajay, Ranjini, and Saloni took time to ask after our wellbeing and were giving us every update consistently, provided great and unbelievable moral support. I have observed a work culture developing within the NCF. Yash Veer le, Madhu le, and Pavithra, and particularly Deviya le, who took us to Valparia for an extraordinary and eventful New Year celebration which was another memorable moment, and Raghu who escorted us here, I don’t know how to thank them.
Here, in the frozen atmosphere and in the clean and chilled air of Sriul Valley, I can feel the same blessings raining down on me from the great one, but it is different. I am alone nobody here with nobody behind me. Tears quietly come to my eyes. A dewdrop of a tear falls along my frosty cheek at the thought of getting the Great One's blessings. Abruptly, I sit on a boulder and recall the moments that we had in the South. I visualize the same colleagues from NCF are following me and I pray for the longevity of Dr. Johnsingh and subsequently my all NCF family members. Silent for five minutes, it rejoices and rejuvenates me. My inner sense murmurs that today is a good and fortunate day and I am very happy that finally I could settle and pay my sincere gratitude to all. A distanced calling of a bird shattered my silence. I checked what it was. It was a chukar partridge.
I feel refreshed by my blissful moment and it has given me the energy to resume my walk. The track then passed through a dense Myricaria patch beyond the frozen stream. A little further on the trail, I came across some fresh pug marks and scrapes of a snow leopard. I scanned the entire valley for the cat but I have no luck. A little further, a herder came with a small herd of young livestock. She was coming from Sriul. I asked about the pugmark. She said, “the snow leopard wanders daily, up and down. It might be close by watching us but we won’t see them”. They are very clever, she added. I think she is right, as I remember Dr. G. Schaller stated somewhere “ note only it is rare, but it is wary and elusive to magical degree and so well camouflaged in the place it chooses to lie that one can stare straight at it from yards away and fail to see it. Even those who know the mountain rarely take it by surprise; most sightings have been made by hunters lying still near a wild herd when snow leopards happen to be stalking”
We split after a few minutes of conversation. The way was very steep and snow leopard pug marks were everywhere. I made a note of the GPS reading for the record. I hoped to see a snow leopard!
At 5pm, I finally reached Sriul Village. I was approached by an old woman who was thankfully the same Amale we had met five months ago. She recognized me and invited me to her house. Later, I came to know that her husband is a village Panchayat member. After some time, her husband also reached from Leh. I introduced myself and the purpose of my visit and then had a meeting with the village. There were seven villagers present at the meeting and among them was a young student. I told them about the proposed corral improvement and they were delighted. They said they would give all the help they could from their side.
We started measuring the existing seven corrals. As compared to Himya, this corral is quite big in terms of size. In Himya, the largest livestock holding was forty-eight and here the lowest was forty and the highest was three hundred and ten. While measuring I was wondering how they would put the mesh over the 36’x22’ dimension! We were only providing the mesh and door frame and not the wooden poles. I asked them this and they said that they would use the surplus water pipes which were not being used and were already in the village.
We were busy measuring the corrals, trying to finish the task before dusk, when some children started to cry loudly. I was wondering what was happening when they told me that there was a wolf chasing a dog. We rushed to the location before the wolf could escape. I tried to take a picture but the light was too low. I enjoyed the sightings and took a few pictures just for my records. They told me that the wolf roams here frequently. After this, we quickly finished the measurement work.
The next day, I walked back by the same trail. Before leaving, I scanned the slopes for some argali as the villagers said that they always have sightings of the argali on the upper slopes in summer. Interestingly, the villagers said it was just a two-hour walk from here to TsoKar lake. There were no signs of argali. This place is very important and for us with two endangered species, the snow leopard and the argali available here. I think the argali move through this area during their early summer transition period from Tsaba to the Tsokar region. I make up my mind that I would one day walk this trail.
On the way back, I again came across a fresh pugmark. The cat had walked this trail a few hours before me. I held my breath when I saw the cat had placed its enormous paw over my footprint, the previous day. I stopped and scanned again for at least fifteen minutes but there was no sight of the cat. When I was about to reach the valley mouth near the Indus, I saw that the cat had dug a very fresh scrape under a reddish cliff. I really wondered. I smelled and touched the spray. It was still wet, you won’t believe it! Nevertheless, I cannot meet him.
I then realized, indeed he is wary and elusive …
Comments
Post a Comment