SHAlINI SAKSENA caught up with Dr Bhaskar Choudhury, a national award winning wildlife veterinarian from Assam, to find that he is a vet on a constant mission to rescue and rehabilitate orphaned baby animals, especially rhinos and elephants
Talk to locals about the rhinos in the Kaziranga National Park, Assam, and they tell you that the person who knows them best is Dr Bhaskar Choudhury, co-ordinator and head Vet North-east, Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). The man himself shies away from the accolades bestowed on him. He was conferred the National Award by the Association of Indian Zoo and Wildlife Veterinarians in 2007.
“It is nice that people have such good words to say. I feel it is all because of my experience as a vet treating wildlife,” Bhaskar says.
Hailing from a small town in Assam, Bhaskar completed his graduation in Veterinary Sciences and Animal Health from the Assam Agricultural University in 1999. He joined WTI in July 2000 as the first of WTI’s existing team of experienced wildlife veterinarians.
It was chance that Bhaskar got an opportunity to work as a vet with WTI in the region. Back in 1999-2000, Kaziranga was looking for a vet. Floods in the region had taken its toll on the wildlife. Bhaskar, who was in his final year decided to apply for the post that was open for three months. It was his interest is wildlife health and rehabilitation and his goal to work for wildlife conservation as a wildlife veterinarian that he finally landed a full-time job at the IFAW-WTI-run Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) near Kaziranga National Park.
In a career spanning 18 years, Bhaskar has rescued many animals including two Clouded leopard cubs back in 2009. “Actually, the cubs were not my first animals that were rescued and rehabilitated in the wild. Though we had been rescuing animals since 2000, the aim has always to release them back from where they were rescued. This to make them comfortable with their surroundings. The first baby that we rescued and released into the wild was a rhino calf,” Bhaskar recounts.
The first animal to be rescued was a rhino — Mainao, back in 2002. She was traumatised and injured — only a few weeks old she was found stuck in branches during the floods. Then two more rhino calves were rescued — Ganga and Jamuna. “All three were nursed back to health and when old enough, shifted to Manas National Park. It was a proud moment for the entire team which had hand-reared the three, to finally see them released in the jungle where they belong. What made me the happiest was when I received the news that Ganga had become a mother. Nothing can beat the joy one feels when the animal you have rescued has finally grown up into an adult. It was history in the making — first rehabilitated rhino to give birth in the wild in India, not once but twice,” Bhaskar recalls.
He also tells you the rehabilitating of rhinos and elephants is very different. Rhinos are solitary and hence to release them in the wild is much easier. Elephants are the social animals and have a hierarchy in the herd. One can’t just introduce an elephant which has been hand-reared into the herd, it will be rejected.
This could be the reason why the team has a poor record when it comes to rehabilitating to elephants. Of all the animals that team has been rescuing and rehabilitating animals, elephant number stands at 38. Of this, only 17 have been rehabilitated with a 38 per cent chance of survival.
Then in 2009, two Clouded leopard cubs were brought in. There was no question of sending them to the zoo and since the aim is to rehabilitate, the team decided to raise the cubs and teach them what their mother would have taught them in the wild. Once they were grown up and were able to fend for themselves, the two were collared and released into the jungle.
“Collaring is done for all animals that are released — to track their movement and see how they are faring in the wild. After all, some of the babies are hand-reared and fed milk through the bottle,” Bhaskar says. Collaring also lets the team know the success rate of the rehabilitation. After the two Clouded leopards were released, one was tracked alive a year later, in 2010. But since then, there has been no trace of the two.
“But this is good. We feel that if the animal is able to fend for itself in the wild for the first two months, the chances that it will live its natural life are high. This makes me happy. I believe that the second cub survived too and is healthy,” Bhaskar opines.
What makes the survival of these two cubs in the wild important is that the animal is classified as vulnerable because of habitat loss and poaching for skin, etc. The exact numbers of this cat is not known but it is said that there are less than 10,000 adults left in the wild world.
Though Bhaskar rescues deers, reptiles, birds, wild buffaloes, it is his rescue and rehabilitation of rhino and elephant calves that shot him into prominence.
However, what Bhaskar knows today — of treating, rescuing and rehabilitating wild animals stems from pure hands-on experience and what the locals have to tell the team about a particular wild animal.
“Most veterinarian colleges only teach and talk about domesticated animals or treatment of cattle and or horses. There was no specialised field back then that taught me how to deal with wild animals or how to treat them when they were injured. Today, there are a few courses, but it is at a nascent stage. But the good part is that students can now gain experience by working at the National Parks,” Bhaskar says.
Of course, Bhaskar had no such fall-back and when he started rescuing rhino calves. “It was going by the ear and what I had learnt in the college. I applied what knowledge I had gained on treating domestic animals on wild ones. Most of the time, it was by trial. I was lucky that it worked on the animals,” Bhaskar tells you.
Some came with trial and error. An innovative effort by the IFAW-WRC teams needs to find a mention here related to elephants calves.
“The idea was not mine but a WRC veterinarian. When a baby elephant is born, it draws its warmth by standing under its mother and within the confines of the herd. In human setting, this is not possible and the babies find it difficult to maintain their body temperatures. The rescued babies were not doing too well. The person came up with a solution — he made pyjamas for the babies. The baby was made to wear socks, then the pyjamas and finally boots. After this the calves slept like babies and there was a marked improvement in their health as well,” he shares.
Over the years, he and his team have worked with thousands of animals and it takes a dedicated set of people to do what they are doing. Bhaskar tells you that while getting the right people for the job is not easy, what matters is how one treats the team members and leads them that matters.
“The last couple of decades have been kind to us. We have had some great mentors who have worked with us and that helps us to keep what we are doing,” Bhaskar says who is also part of the WTI’s Mobile Veterinary Service (MVS) team.
He tells you that the main reason for setting up these MVS units was to ensure that the animal got timely treatment. There is always a time gap before the vet can actually reach the animal. There is need to minimise the time between detection of an affected animal and aid that it needs to be given. The units are strategically placed in areas from where they get maximum cases and rush to the spot as and when the need arises.
In this case, gun-shot wounds, electrocution of elephants due to fencing by the villagers and or even a hit-and run by a vehicle which is common in the region.
“Most of the injuries I treat stems from this and that is the reason why I attend to them. While I am the first person to not interfere with the laws of nature — a tiger hunting or an animal dying of old age. But a gun-shot or electrocution is not natural, it is man-made. I need to step in and nurse it back to health,” Bhaskar says. Hence, there is a need for public awareness, he stresses.
“One has to be sensitive to Nature in order to save the wild animals. This means not taking any plastic into the jungle on a visit to any of the National Parks in the country,” Bhaskar says, who finds several plastic bottles on the jungle floor especially in Manas National Park. So much so that he had to lead a campaign to clean up the jungle.
When this dedicated doctor is not treating and rescuing, he is busy in the office catching up with paperwork and writing articles. “This gives me a break. Not that I need it. Every day that I enter the Park is like a new day for me and I feel like a tourist who sees a wild animal for the very first time,” Bhaskar says.
An elephant called Banomala
She is 49 years old and carries a weight of around 600 kg on her back. She has a red Trishul made on her forehead all the way down to the trunk. Tourists often mistake the red colour as blood and end up berating her mahout for beating her. Meet Banomala the elephant which takes tourists inside the Kaziranga National Park.
Captured from the park when she was just a few years old by her mahout Ravi Das, when there was no check on such activity, Banomala makes three trips daily inside the Park — carrying four people on her back and the mahout. When she was captured, she was a wild elephant roaming freely, today, four-and-a-half decades down the line Banomala has mellowed down.
“Of course, she is mellow. She has had to be trained for at least two years before she was even allowed one person to sit on her, let alone four and then walk the path that she has to,” Ravi Das, her mahout, tells you as Banomala taking advantage of Das’ distraction stops and uproots a bunch of tall grass to eat.
This immediately draws Das’ attention and he hits her with an ankush — a sharp metal hook used in the training and handling of the elephant by stabbing it on the head and in areas like the mouth and inner ear. These, Das tells, you are the elephant’s sensitive areas.
He is quick to defend himself. “It is safety of the people too. You can’t have an animal this big decide where it wants to go. You have to show her who is in control. Elephants have a good memory. This hit on the head will remind of all the previous beating that she got when was younger and didn’t obey orders,” Das explains. On cue, Banomala corrects her path.
This doesn’t mean the Das is insensitive towards Banomala, which he says is like a family to him. “She and is the reason why my family is able to eat two square meals a day. I have to take care that she doesn’t fall ill. If that happens, the park officials won’t let me work her till she recovers,” Das says.
This means that Banomala makes a weekly trip to the vet for a thorough investigation. This costs Das Rs1000 per visit. She falls ill the expenses go up. Then there is the matter of her diet. An elephant, in the wild, on an average eats 200 kg of grass, leaves, etc and spends 12-18 hours looking for food. In captivity, it is a bit different.
Not that Banomala’s diet in weight is different, just her diet is different. It comprises of large wheat balls mixed with leaves and grass. She is even fed jaggery and bananas.
“It takes a better part of my day to prepare food for her. like all elephants she loves sugarcane. So I give her jaggery. She even loves bananas that are fed to her after each trip into the jungle by the tourists,” Das says.
All this costs money and Das and Banomala have to work hard so that they are paid at the end of the month.
A park official tells you that each elephant mahout is paid Rs8,000 a month, food for the elephant and any medical expense that may arise. Das, on the other hand, is the owner of not just Banomala. He has 10 other elephants who work the park. So he is paid a total of Rs30,000 per elephant. Here, Das is the one who has to take care of the elephant — the food and the medical bills that may arise.
All the while that Das is speaking Banomala has not even once deviated from her path. She has been doing it for decades. She also remembers the recent hit with the ankush.
To make things comfortable for the elephant and the rider, a few years back, the metal frame that was put on the elephant’s back to seat people has undergone a change. Interestingly, Kaziranga is the only place where tourists can sit sideways and not cross-legged. This change means that elephants now carry less weight on their back. This new seating metal frame weighs around 60-70 kg as opposed to the earlier one that weighted over a 100 kg. It also means that women can now wear sarees and sit comfortably.
Once the ride is over, Banomala walks up to the machaan and leans against it so that her passengers can get off easily before she is off again with yet another four passengers into the jungle.