India pollutes the oceans with plastic more than all other nations

Regarding the disposal of plastic into the oceans, India has been identified as one of the leading contributors. The nation faces significant challenges in managing plastic pollution. The accompanying image was generated by artificial intelligence, drawing inspiration from a sculpture titled 'The Giant Plastic Tap' by Canadian artist Benjamin Von Wong, which was exhibited outside the Ottawa talks building.

Click on the image to see it larger - important for smartphones.

India plays a significant role to say the least in plastic pollution in our oceans. Here are some key facts:

1. Annual Plastic Waste Dumping: In 2020, India was the worst country for plastic waste in the oceans, dumping approximately 126.5 million kg of plastic each year. To put this into perspective, that weight is equivalent to over 250 thousand bottlenose dolphins, one of the most commonly found dolphin species in the ocean.

2. Comparison with the United States: Despite the United States producing double the amount of plastic waste annually compared to India (42 billion kg), only 2.4 million kg of it ends up in our oceans. This discrepancy could be due to the fact that the U.S. exports a significant portion of its waste to countries like India, which may have less effective waste management systems.

3. Exporting Plastic Waste: In 2018, the United States exported 157 thousand shipping containers filled with plastic waste, equivalent to approximately 1.07 million kg of plastic. While some of this waste went to countries with good waste management systems, a substantial amount was shipped to countries like India, which struggle with plastic waste management.

4. Collective Impact: The top five plastic waste dumpers globally contribute an astonishing 314 million kg of plastic into the ocean each year. India’s contribution remains a critical environmental challenge.

Here’s the list of the top 10 countries based on plastic waste dumped into the oceans:

1. India: 126.5 million kg
2. China: 70.7 million kg
3. Indonesia: 56.3 million kg
4. Brazil: 38 million kg
5. Thailand: 22.8 million kg
6. Mexico: 3.5 million kg
7. Egypt: 2.5 million kg
8. United States: 2.4 million kg
9. Japan: 1.8 million kg
10. United Kingdom: 703 thousand kg¹1

Efforts to address plastic pollution are crucial to safeguard marine life and ocean ecosystems. 🌊🐬

How bad is plastic pollution in India?

India faces a significant challenge when it comes to plastic pollution. Here are some key facts:

1. Annual Plastic Waste Generation: India generates approximately 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. This staggering amount has almost doubled over the last five years, highlighting the severity of the issue.

2. Per Capita Plastic Consumption: While the per-capita plastic consumption in India is relatively low at 13.6 kg, compared to countries like the U.S. (108 kg) and China (56 kg), the impact is still substantial. Plastic pollution adversely affects our ecosystems and is also linked to air pollution.

3. Recycling and Collection: India collects only 60% of its plastic waste, with the remaining 40% directly entering the environment. This lack of proper collection exacerbates the problem.

4. Single-Use Plastics: To address this issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India’s pledge to phase out single-use plastics by 2022. These single-use plastics include items like straws, cutlery, earbuds, and packaging films.

5. Recycling Challenges: Despite efforts, a large fraction of plastic waste in India still ends up in landfills or waterways, posing a significant environmental threat.

Efforts are being made through initiatives like the National Dashboard on Elimination of Single Use Plastic, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Portal, and more to manage plastic waste effectively and create a better future.

Sources: extensive search of the internet. India Today is one source. Another is Euro News. Many more. 

 
P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Are there cheetahs in India? YES, from September 17, 2022.

Until September 17, 2022, you would have to answer the question in the title with a very positive NO because the same subspecies of cheetah that is found in Iran in very small numbers, was also present in India in the 1940s but the last cheetah in the wild in India was recorded in 1948 and they were declared extinct in that country in 1952. 

Image: ANI/Unsplash

The last cheetahs were shot in the Sal forests of Koriya District, Chhattisgarh, which seems incredibly careless of the authorities and the individual person who shot them because they were the last ones in the country! An example of anti-conservation of the highest calibre.

But you may have heard that the authorities have taken the bold step of relocating cheetahs from Namibia, Africa, which is essentially the home of the cheetah in the world. A special cargo flight bringing eight cheetahs landed at the Indian Air Force Station in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. India's Prime Minister, Miranda Modi, will release them into Kuno National Park. Update: he had his camera with him with a telephoto lens to capture the moment of release.

He will release them on his birthday, which is this Saturday. The cheetahs have travelled more than 8000 km in a specially modified passenger 747 jumbo jet.

Below is a video of one of the cheetahs about to be flown from Namibia to India. They make such a sweet meow sound. I feel sorry for this cat. He or she is upset and wants to be back where she belongs.

The eight cheetahs are made up of five females and three males. Modi wants to revitalise and diversify India's wildlife under "Project Cheetah". The project is described as the world's first "inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project".

It appears that the first discussions about this translocation took place in 2009 when officials of the Cheetah Conservation Fund based in Namibia entered into discussions with the Indian government and subsequently the government ordered the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department to develop a separate space within Kuno National Park to accommodate the cheetahs.

It is worth mentioning that female cheetah ranges in Namibia are extremely large measuring 1500 km². However, the majority of male cheetahs in the Serengeti living coalitions and establish small territories of about 30 km² with good vegetative cover and a locally high abundance of antelope. The point that I'm making is this: is there enough space in this national park to accommodate eight cheetahs from Namibia?

The park is spread over 748 km². There are no human settlements in the park. They believe that it can sustain 21 cheetahs. The authorities relocated villages from inside the park to outside its boundaries perhaps in preparation for this translocation.

The relocation of these cheetahs is also a big move for Namibia as it is the first time the wild southern African cheetah been translocated anywhere else in the world. The project has a budget of US$5 million over a period of five years.

The big question is whether the cheetahs will survive or fail to reproduce over the five-year period. Some experts have voiced major concerns. One of those is Valmik Thapar. He is unsure whether they will survive in the wild in India.

He believes that India does not have the habitat or prey species for wild re-roaming cheetahs. And he believes that the authorities do not have sufficient experience or understanding to make it work. He believes that they will survive in the short term provided they are provided with food. He says that India was never the natural home of the African chetah.

Here is a BBC video on the topic:

Leopards move on to land reserved for new cheetah arrivals in India

You may have heard that the Indian authorities want to reintroduce the cheetah into India after they became extinct in that country in 1952 due to persecution by hunters, diminishing prey and a loss of habitat. It is a brave policy to reintroduce the cheetah into India perhaps primarily because there might not be enough space for them. They are fussy about where they live as they like open grasslands and scrub forests and there is not much of it in India.

The beautiful cheetah. Leopards have moved onto land reserved for new cheetah arrivals in India. It has caused some consternation among the rangers.

They've chosen the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary a.k.a. Kuno National Park. And sadly, their efforts to bring cheetahs back to India for the first time in 70 years have been undermined by native leopards as they have moved into the enclosure set aside for the new arrivals.

The plan was to bring eight cheetahs from Namibia in Africa which is the place where most of them currently exist on the planet. But park rangers at the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, have been forced to jump into action having discovered that six leopards invaded the 5 km² fenced area of the National Park allocated to the cheetahs.

The rangers have managed to trap and tranquilize three leopards and moved them to a different area of the park which is located 60 miles west of Shivpuri in central India. The three remaining leopards have yet to be trapped and the rangers are becoming nervous.

Amritanshu Singh, who is in charge of the enclosure, said: "The camera traps show us the path the leopards are taking and where they are. We have set up leghold traps, which do not hurt the animal but set off an alarm telling us they are inside the cage".

The last cheetahs in India were hunted down by a maharajah following decades of declining numbers. Narendra Modi's government was very proud in declaring the reintroduction of cheetahs into his country after a deal with the authorities in Namibia.

The plan is to import more from South Africa over the forthcoming five years to a maximum of 50. Wildlife campaigners have questioned the practicalities of this project and whether the conditions are right for cheetahs to return to India. They have described the project as a "vanity project".

The authorities have prepared for the reintroduction of the fastest land animal by moving about 100 deer into the area so that they have access to prey in what will be initially unfamiliar surroundings.

They fear that the cheetahs may struggle to acclimatise in part because they would have to compete against the big cats. They mean tigers and leopards. I don't know whether tigers are in this part of the park, probably not. I suspect that cheetahs will purposefully avoid leopards but it will curtail their movements.

Singh said: "African leopards do not typically like cheetahs so it may be the same with Indian leopards, who, moreover, have never seen a cheetah in their lives. It will be interesting to see their reaction."

New Delhi, India: controversy over keeping pets in a luxury apartment complex

There is a luxury apartment and house complex in New Delhi, in the prime East Delhi area of Mayur Vihar I. It is called IFS Apartments. It was built by a co-operative society formed by IFS officers.

They've had a rule there since 2011 that leaseholders of the flats i.e. the owners, and the tenants who rent their flats cannot keep cats and dogs or other pets. They let this rule become a little bit slack by which I mean they appear not to have enforced it very carefully. This has allowed some apartment dwellers to keep cats for instance and in one case a woman living there has had a cat for three years. She found the cat particularly helpful during the Covid pandemic lockdown. 

Delhi’s IFS Apartments. Image in public domain.

New tenants who rent from landlords have to sign an agreement that they are fully aware that they cannot keep pets.

The residents of the complex say that the rules governing the keeping of pets are unconstitutional because the Animal Welfare Board of India said, in a circular of 2014, that the ban interfered with a fundamental freedom which was guaranteed to all citizens of India. There is a clash of rules, one at a apartment complex level, and one had a higher level.

I have not checked out the argument. Certainly, the management company who run the apartment complex appear to have ignored the Animal Welfare Board of India circular and continuing with the ban after the circular was issued. I have to say that no constitution states that citizens have a right to keep pets. I belive that the circular is ineffective in this instance.

Some tenants and leaseholders are moving out of the complex. They are aggrieved with the anti-pet policy. One of them is a lawyer, Vasudha Mehta, who is moving out with her husband and two children. They have lived there since 2014. They appear to have rented initially and then they bought their home in 2016. They signed the agreement not to keep pets but didn't really apply their minds to it.

During the lockdown period and with children in the home constantly they decided to get a puppy to ease the mental strain, she said. They found that the management committee started to harass them by reminding them of the agreement that they signed.

On August 29, 2020, there was a problem with dog poop at the complex and a notice was put up by the management committee saying, in capital letters, “NO NEW DOGS MAY BE BROUGHT INTO THE COMPLEX BY RESIDENTS. DOG-OWNERS ARE REQUESTED TO SHOW CONSIDERATION FOR OTHER RESIDENTS AND RESPECT THE NEED FOR KEEPING THE COMPLEX CLEAN.”

The problem here is that in the past it wasn't an issue to keep pets despite the rule. Now the rules are being enforced and the residents don't like it. On the basis that the Animal Welfare Board of India circular is not enforceable (and I don't think it is) then I'm afraid the residents will have to put up with the rule or leave if they want to keep a pet.

One domestic cat in India put eight people in hospital!

NEWS AND COMMENT - DALAIPETA, INDIA: The Indian news media reports on something astonishing but I don't have a lot of detail to allow a decent analysis but here it is. In a village in India called Dalaipeta, which is towards the north-east coast of the country, it's reported that a domestic cat went on a mad attacking spree at midnight. 

Scared cat fights back. This is not the cat in the story because we don't have pictures but I expect the cat that injured 8 people behaved like the cat illustrated. Picture in public domain.

The cat attacked eight people leaving them with minor injuries requiring medical attention at a hospital in Dalaipeta village. The police officer said that "A mad cat did attack people indiscriminately in Dalaipeta village and seven people require treatment in a nearby hospital whereas one person was admitted in Chinameringi CHC."

They say that the cat went on a biting spree at Saturday midnight. The cat then vanished. One official thought that the cat bit the people out of fear or they had consumed something intoxicating from the forest. They will increase their surveillance of the area to avoid another attack. No one has mentioned rabies which is a possibility and because it has not been mentioned I will ignore that possibility.

Comment: I'm going to have to guess what happened. And I think it's not too difficult actually to guess reasonably that the cause of this domestic cat attack is the behaviour of the people concerned. I suspect it all started off fairly innocent with one person mishandling the cat which provoked him or her to attack defensively. 

PLEASE CLICK FOR MANY PAGES ON CAT ATTACK!

Then his friend stepped in and maybe attacked the cat and so the cat attacked that person as well. Then others became involved and there was a melee and at the centre was this poor cat. The animal must have been terrified and I suspect there was violence on both sides until the cat ran away.

I think that those are the only circumstances under which I would have thought a domestic cat would be attacking eight people unless it was rabid. It is almost impossible to envisage such a scenario. Domestic cats simply do not do this unless heavily provoked. And I am, by the way, making the presumption that this is a domestic cat without further information. I think that, too, is a reasonable supposition because feral cats normally run away from people and this cat got very close, close enough to do some damage.

I suspect, too, that the injured people went to hospital as a precaution but if you get bitten by a cat, even if it is quite a nasty bite, you don't automatically go to Accident & Emergency in your nearest hospital. You watch your wound and wait to see whether an infection develops and if it does you immediately see your doctor for antibiotics which cures it 100% of the time. And you do that promptly.

I've got to deduce, therefore, that it is likely that these people dived into hospital unnecessarily but nobody can criticise them for it because they were taking precautions without knowing more about the potential issues.

Note: We are told that at this time the hospitals are flooded with Covid-19 victims as the pandemic is out of control in India. Attending hospital for a cat bite would be a bad idea under these circumstances.

More cat bites in the USA per human population than there are in Kerala, India

In a single month, January, the State Health Directorate of India tells us that there were at least 28,186 cat bites in the state of Kerala, India. In that same month there were 20,875 dog bites. Going back further, in 2016, there were 160,534 cat bites for which people sought treatment. In 2017 it was a very similar number and in 2020, 216,551 people sought treatment for cat bites. There has been a 128% increase in the number of people who've sought treatment for cat bites over the six years since 2014. The number of dog bites is less at 160,483 in 2020 as per government figures (source: The Hindu).

Stock image of a stray kitten. 

So, there are more cat bites in the Indian state of Kerala than there are dog bites. And the numbers seem extraordinarily high, but are they? There are about 34.6 million people in this state which about half the population of the UK. Normally there are far more dog than cat bites, such as in the UK. When a person goes into A&E in the UK for an animal bite, about 85% are dog bites according to my research. About a quarter of a million people attend A&E annually for a dog bite in the UK.

In the USA, which has a human population of 326 million (2020) there were an estimated 400,000 cat bites annually (source: LegalMatch.com). This is 1.2% of the human population. For Kerala this figure is 0.64%. So, there are more cat bites in the USA per human population than there are in Kerala, India. What do you make of that? It surprised me. Perhaps the basic stats are wrong?

Associated:

• How do I know I have an infected cat bite?
• Antibiotics for a cat bite.

Pseudo-melanistic black tiger photographed in Odisha, India

ODISHA, INDIA, NEWS AND COMMENT: A lucky amateur photographer, Soumen Bajpayee, captured a black tiger, more particularly a tiger with thick dark stripes almost covering the tawny/orange background because of a genetic mutation described as pseudo-melanism. These tigers are said to be incredibly rare (as reported by the Daily Mail) which is why the photographer was incredibly lucky. I hope that he was able to sell his photographs for a decent amount of money. They also report that melanistic black tigers are only found in Odisha state and that the numbers have declined dramatically, especially recently according to a 2018 tiger count.

Pseudo-melanistic black tiger in Odisha state India. Photo credit per embossing lower left.

Most black tigers can be seen in the Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha. They first reported melanistic tigers in this reserve in 2007. A wildlife expert and scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India said that he believed that there were only 7-8 of these tigers left. They are said to be smaller than the standard-coloured tigers.

There is constant pressure on tiger numbers in India because of the continually growing human population, which squeezes out wildlife. I'm referring particularly to human activity which increases as the human population increases. It makes sense. Human activity is anathema to tigers in the wild.

Sarah Hartwell, an expert on cat genetics and unusual cats both wild and domestic, tells us that pseudo-melanistic tigers might be becoming more common due to inbreeding which in turn is caused by habitat reduction which in turn is caused by, as mentioned, increased human activity.

In the fact that pseudo-melanistic black tigers are smaller than the normal tigers also indicate inbreeding. Inbreeding promotes anomalous coat patterns and/or colours. This is because recessive genes are able to manifest themselves in phenotypes. Also, totally black melanistic tigers have been reported. Sometimes people misidentify a melanistic leopard which is totally black, or very dark charcoal coloured, as a tiger which may account for the assessment that melanistic tigers are smaller.

Sarah reports on some old accounts of black tigers. For example, in an ancient Chinese Encyclopaedia written circa 300 BC called Erya, there is a mention of a black tiger in a chapter headed "Explaining the beasts". It starts "The shu is a black tiger."

The book reports of a small black tiger with fur that was dark and luxuriant but "bore spots/stripes". The Tower of London menagerie which was founded in the 13th century by Henry III at one time had a black tiger from the East Indies it is said, but it is more likely that it was a black leopard.

The Daily Mail report is dated Nov. 2020.

Indian celebrity actresses such as Disha Patani indirectly promote cat welfare

We are seeing more news media articles about celebrity Indian actresses with their domestic cat companions in loving embraces and I love it because it will boost cat welfare and I would hope animal welfare generally in India. 

Disha Patani with her purebred cat. Photo: Instagram.

It appears that the best-known Indian actresses are admired by Indian citizens and therefore they have a role to play in modifying the behaviour of people. They can lead the way and we often see, nowadays, these wealthy Indian actresses living in fancy apartments in cities with glamorous, full-time indoor, purebred cats. 

They make for good photographs but the underlying message I would hope comes across which is that cats should be treated in a kindly way and looked after well. They should not be street cats living miserable lives as so many do in India and of course in other countries. I'm not going to criticise India for this because there are far too many unwanted, stray and feral cats in the world for my liking. It is a symptom of a failure in the domestication of the cat. It is time we made more effort to stop it.

So here we have Disha Patani, an Indian actress who works primarily in Hindi films I'm told by Wikipedia. I am also told that this is her real name and it seems that she is trained as an engineer. Is that correct? It might well be.

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In the photograph on her Twitter tweet, we see her cuddling what I believe to be a Himalayan purebred cat which is a pointed Persian cat. In this instance I think this is a lynx-pointed Persian. Or the cat is a Ragdoll. The cat is certainly purebred. The photograph has received 1.6 million likes in 19 hours!! She has 44 million followers! That is the power of female celebrity. Let her use it to the betterment of animal welfare, please. She can do so much. I don't know whether she is involved in animal welfare matters and whether she campaigns on animal welfare issues. I hope so because, as mentioned, she has the clout to make some changes in the right direction. And there is a real need in India to improve animal welfare.

There are too many sad, street cats for my liking but, as mentioned, that applies to very many countries in the world. So, we can't single out India as that would be unfair. India does have a fledgling cat fancy by the way. I think I may be partly responsible for instigating the beginning of the cat fancy in India. They do like their purebred cats but they seem to be confined to the Persian which is by far their favourite and which they call the "punch-face" Persian. Not a great description because it implies that you punch the face of a cat to squash it and make it flat which is the requirement under the breed standard (the flatness not the punching!). That is another story because flat faces are not healthy faces! It distorts the facial anatomy leading to breathing and other problems.

Veterinary medicines sent from India seized in Belfast

Two boxes of Toxo-mox 250 (200 tablets) and 10 boxes of Drontal plus tablets (200 tablets) were detained and seized by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs at a Belfast depot after these veterinary medicines were identified by a courier company based at the depot. The parcel was addressed to residential premises in Belfast, County Antrim. The parcel had been shipped from India. The medicines are not authorised UK medicines. There is a UK authorised version of Drontal plus and it is used as a dewormer for cats and dogs. Toxo-mox is an antibiotic for cats and dogs. The medicines were seized under Regulation 25 (Importation of unauthorised veterinary medicinal products) of the Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013.

Toxo-mox is available from an India online pharmacy for veterinary products.

Comment: The information comes from the UK government website. It's interesting in one way because what immediately came to mind was whether a person in the UK can order veterinary medicines online from a retailer in India. I checked a couple of Indian websites selling animal medicines and one of them stocked the above-mentioned medicines but they only shipped within India.

I suspect, therefore, that in this instance a person in India bought the medicines online from the Indian retailer and then sent the parcel to their contact in Belfast. It indicates that a person in the UK can get their hands on discount veterinary medicines without going through a veterinarian. I'm particularly thinking of the antibiotics which to the best of my knowledge can only be obtained in the UK on prescription from a veterinarian.

I have made a presumption that the prices in India are cheaper than those in the UK. This may be why the medicines were shipped to the UK. That and the fact that the receiver probably couldn't get hold of them any other way than from India.

Is India creating a reservoir for Covid-19 in its animal population?

It has been mooted before that there is a potential for a reservoir of the Covid-19 virus to be built up within the animal population both domestic and wild and this issue needs to be addressed. It comes to mind particularly because I was a little shocked but perhaps unsurprised to read that 35 zookeepers at Hyderabad's Nehru Zoological Park have tested positive for the virus. As a consequence eight of the zoo's Asiatic lions contracted the disease. It is believed, and it's entirely plausible, that the lions contracted the disease from zookeepers, surrounded as they were by a large number of infected humans.

Asiatic lion that caught Covid-19 from one of 35 zookeepers who tested positive for Covid-19. Photo: Jam Press.

The experts still say that there is no evidence that lions and other animals can transmit the disease back to humans but it seems entirely possible and indeed likely that they do because as this disease can travel between human and animal, it can move between animal and human. After all that's exactly how humans got it in the first place i.e. from a wet market in Wuhan ostensibly from a pangolin which got the disease from a bat but because China has been so secretive about it we don't know for sure.

The idea of animals, regrettably, forming a reservoir for the disease is brought into focus by this story from Hyderabad, India. India is suffering an enormous surge in infections at over 400,000 per day at the date of this post. They are grossly underestimating, or misrepresenting for political reasons, the deaths which everybody realises. The pictures of funeral pyres in car parks tells the true story. The death rate is probably 10 times higher than the official figures whoch are at around 3,500 dead. This would make the true figure near 35k.

Indeed, the BBC reported on 13 funeral pyres outside, I believe. Modi's residence and the government declared that there were just seven so a blatant misrepresentation has been perpetrated but the news is obviously distorted.

The point though is that when there are such vast numbers of infections, and the infection level is probably much higher than the high level stated, it seems highly likely that animals are being infected at a similar rate but nobody knows what is going on because India is overrun by this virus.

The Indian government does not want to put the country back into lockdown because around 80% of the 400 million Indian workforce are casual labourers being paid by the day. If they don't work they don't earn anything and they can starve to death. In the last lockdown they all went back to their homes so Modi and his government can't lock the country down to try and curb the virus.

Despite being the global centre of vaccination production, India is running out of vaccination and their rate of vaccination is incredibly low because of catastrophic logistics. It just seems to be a complete disaster, top to bottom, and there is going to be a long, long journey back to normality if and when it happens.

Jacqueline Fernandez meditates on the balcony of her apartment in Mumbai with Bengal cat in background

Jacqueline Fernandez and her white Persian showing tear staining due to tear duct overflow. Photo: Instagram.

Jacqueline Fernandez is a Bollywood star born in Sri Lanka and a former model. She likes animals. Thank God for that because the more celebrity animal lovers we have on the planet the greater likelihood that humankind can gradually start to live in harmony with animals. We are very far from that at present. Jacqueline Fernandez lives with four cats we are told. I know that one of them is almost certainly a Bengal cat (see below) - the one you see in the photograph on her Instagram page - another is a pointed Persian A.K.A. a Himalayan cat and a third is an all-white Persian. Both flat-faced with associated health issues such as tear duct overflow.

Fernandez mediating on her flat balcony with her Bengal cat. Photo: Instagram.

The Persian is a contemporary bred cat with a flat-face. They are called "punch-faced Persians" in India because it is as if they have been punched. Not a great description I would hasten to add. Perhaps the description might, just might, encourage cat abuse. But a strong counter to that is Jacqueline Fernandez and her love of animals and cats.

Yoda, I believe, a pointed Persian with a flat-face (Himalayan). Photo: Instagram.

Of the four cats that she lives with, one is also a Ragdoll in my opinion. The cat appears to be a seal-pointed Ragdoll. I don't know the breed of the fourth cat. But please read more about that if you want to by clicking on this link which takes you to the main website.

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Stray dogs save life of tiny baby thrown into drain

Forgive me, but I want to write about dogs today and I need an outlet for it so I have chosen this website. This is a story from India where female infanticide is not that uncommon because it is linked to extreme poverty and the need to provide a marriage dowry.

Screenshot from video. The dogs paw at the package containing the premature baby.

In this instance a woman was caught on a security camera throwing a plastic bundle into a muddy drain in the Indian town of Kaithal, in the state of Haryana in the early morning. She disappeared immediately.

The baby started to cry and a pack of street dogs picked up the sound perhaps instinctively searching for something to eat. They pulled the crying child out of the drain and pawed at the plastic package and started to bark. This alerted passers-by who discovered the child. They called the police.

The police are examining the security camera footage to try and find the woman. They want to identify her in order to charge her with a criminal offence. It is said that the baby was born prematurely after about seven months of pregnancy judging by her size and weight.

They are keeping the baby under observation and don't want to transfer her to a larger hospital because that might be in life-threatening to her.

The baby weighs 2 lbs 4 oz and was in a serious condition. The story is about dogs saving the life of the baby. They saved the baby's life accidentally in truth. It wasn't a deliberate and consciously made decision to save this baby's life. They simply alerted people to what was going on. But it is nonetheless an interesting story of life in India, on the ground and at the sharp end.

I'll mention cats just to make this article relevant to this website. In India there are community cats. Yes, people do own domestic cats and sometimes they keep them in their apartments just like they do in the West but there are many more stray cats wandering around the community scavenging and surviving and occasionally being fed by shopkeepers et cetera. It's a very harsh life for community cats.

I recall the director of PETA in India mentioning how harsh it was and how the cats can be injured and killed by traffic and cruelly abused by some people who dislike them. As a result PETA in India decided to operate a TNR program which somewhat goes against the grain for this organisation because they tend to believe that feral cats should be euthanised in order to put them out of their misery. That's a misdescription really because in America PETA does advocate TNR provided the cats can be properly cared for and are in an environment which does not make their lives intolerable. That must be a difficult decision.

Clearly a lot needs to be done about domestic cat ownership in India. To me, it is way too careless and thoughtless. There far too much suffering by cats and dogs who end up as strays. It's frankly quite horrific. That's not to take anything away from genuine cat loving cat guardians of which there are probably a good numer in India.

Meeting the Asiatic Lions of Gir Forest

By Rudolph.A.Furtado (Mumbai, India).

I have been on a four day "Lion Safari Camp" with B.N.H.S (Bombay Natural History Society) tour group  between Wednesday (16-5-2012) to Saturday (19-5-2012) to the Gir forests of Gujarat in India.

The Gir Forest is home to the last species of the Asiatic lion in the world numbering only about 400 approx. It is situated in the north-west of India (see map).

We visited the "Gir National Park" on 5 different occasions on 3 different days, lucky to spot the rare elusive lion. On the last day we saw an entire pride of 6 lions, sitting across our jeep trek road, approx 50 meters away from us. It was a life scene straight out of a "National Geographic Documentary".

Pride of lions walking in a single file

A young lion spotted in the undergrowth bushes of Gir Forest

The pride sighted on Friday (18-5-2012). A rare situation

Doesn't cat Matata my Persian cat resemble a miniature lion?

What baffled and surprised me was the behaviour of these totally wild lions towards the Guards (Wild-Life rangers) of the park. When a lion was spotted in the forest undergrowth by a guard  the tourist jeeps were allowed to approach closer to the lion for photography and viewing. We spotted a lion on all 3 different days of a 3 hour safari ride inside the jungle and every time a forest ranger kept watch on the tourists and the lion.

These guards were familiar to the lions akin to our house-hold cats, hence allowed the guards to approach them on foot and a ordinary wooden baton within a 50 meters distance.

Remember, these are genuine wild forest lions that prey on other jungle species for survival including the nomadic Maldhari's tribal cattle. Yet these same lions have never ever attacked a forest ranger, very strange and also demonstrates that all wild species are basically scared of humans.

On the last day we spotted a pride of 6 lions  relaxing on a mound, later walking in a file alongside the tourist road. The pride was led by a matriarch lioness and there were 3 cubs, a juvenile male lion and another mature lioness.

They resembled a mother cat with her kittens, reminding me of my own cats back home in Mumbai. For the first time in my life I got to observe natural wild lions and realized that our small house-hold cats mimic the behaviour of the "Big Cats".

Read my blog " The Last Asiatic Lion in Gir Forest":-

http://delhionasolobackpackersbudgettour.blogspot.in/

Rudolph.A.Furtado

Time for a Cat Association in India

I have just posted two articles about purebred cats for sale in India - here is one. They both relate to Siamese cats of course although Persians and Russian Blues are available and more perhaps.

It is time to create a new Indian cat association to register these cats and record their pedigree to make them formally purebred cats.

There is one of two things to do. Either start a new cat association in India or ask TICA - The International Cat Association - to open a branch in India.

The Expanding Purebred Cat MarketPlace

Cat Breeder in Delhi India

I have found a purebred cat breeder in Delhi, India. Living in London, England, I wondered whether there were breeders of purebred cats and dogs in India. That might sound silly to Indians who know better but I was unsure of the development of the idea of breeding purebred companion animals in India.

This breeder is called CLASSIC KENNEL. They have a website.

They appear to breed cats and dogs - mainly dogs perhaps. Actually I am not sure if they breed animals of just sell them.

They have some nice looking purebred Persians and Siamese cats. And Russian Blues.

Siamese Kittens - Photo copyright Classic Kennel

You can see some more Siamese cats in India on this page.

Location:

Siamese Cats For Sale in India

India is a growing market for purebred cats. That must be a natural consequence of the growth in their economy and greater ties to western economies. The India nation is becoming more westernised it seems to me. Beware of the lifestyle in the west! It ain't all that good.

Anyway, as an example of how the lifestyles are changing in India you can find purebred cats for sale on the internet. The Persian seems to be the most common purebred cat. The Siamese is also advertised. I find it interesting - the attitude of the Indian people towards purebred cats. Rudolph a contributor to my website keeps Persians and they are good rat catchers! Persons in America just like to sit around looking pretty. I prefer the working purebred cat.

Siamese Cats for sale in Mumbai, India

These kittens are chocolate pointed traditional Siamese (Applehead). The asking price is 10000 Rs but negotiable. At the time of this post 1000 rupees is worth about $22 (USD). Cheap. This must be because of the exchange rate. Purebred cats in the US will cost in the order of $400 - $1000.

This breeder does not ship internationally and accepts cash.

An interesting point is this. These are purebred Siamese cats but as far as I know there is no cat association in India so they can't be registered.

If you want to get in touch this is the name and phone number: Ariff Bham - 02223888849.

The location:


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Election Fraud Kills the Tiger

Indirectly but surely, election fraud kills the tiger in India and Asia. I have already mentioned in a post called, cats and corruption how corruption in government and government agencies in India severely diminishes the effectiveness of any strategies in relation to the preservation of the tiger. That post was not critical of the fact that there is corruption. I was simply quoting people living in Asia. It is the people of India who are critical of the corruption. For me, it is more a sadness that it continues to happen and the tiger population continues to decline.

A recent Time news article (2nd April 2009, "Election payouts were charity, not bribes") supports what I have said, not directly, of course, in relation to wildcats but they quote as an example, Manish Tiwani a spokesman for Congress who told the Times that it was "absolutely preposterous [that it was happening]". Mr Tiwani clearly believes that one of the top leaders of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Party, Mr Jaswat Singh, has been openly trying to bribe his way into Parliament two weeks before the elections.

This seems to be symptomatic of Asian politics and it is in Asia where the tiger has its home. Where there is corruption on what seems to be a significant scale they is little hope of protecting the tiger as big business is invloved in the export of tiger body parts. Where there is business there is money and politicians migrate towards money and business to serve self interest only. And frankly, the tiger gets in the way of making money unless it is being used to make money. It could be argued that the tiger is a financial burden unless used as a supply of body parts in breach of CITES. CITES seems to be openly breached.

It has been claimed that the criminalisation of Indian politics began in the 1980s when the dominance of Congress crumbled and regional groups started to determine the composition of fragile coalition governments. The competition to get votes became tougher and this lead to any means possible to get elected including fraud. The criminal courts are hopelessly inefficient so even if someone is charged with election fraud or vote rigging it may take up to 30 years for the case to be concluded.

In India it seems that the lawmakers are also lawbreakers and under these circumstances it is very hard to make real progress on what might be considered a secondary matter the preservation of the wild tiger in India. Ultimately election fraud kills the tiger.



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There are no Wildcats

I say that there are no wildcats left because there are no wild places left. We differentiate between cats in the wild and cats in captivity but in the modern world, the here and now, these two extremes seem to me to be part of a continuous spectrum. A wildcat in captivity is obvious. There will be a fence somewhere. It might be a cage or a fence could enclose a relatively large area for us but a small area for the wildcat. Take a cheetah, its home range depends on availability of prey but varies between 34 km² (13 sq mi), to 1,500 km² (580 sq mi) in Namibia. How many enclosures enclose 13 square miles?

The tiger and lion are similar. What is the the size of a major game reserve? The Kaziranga National Park in India is a major reserve and covers 430 square kilometers. But a road runs through it. Tourists are welcome. And tea estates are in the reserve. This is a large area, almost large enough but it is not a truly wild place. The wild animals live with human animals.

In Namibia the cheetah lives on farm land. How can a large wildcat live on farm land and hope to remain wild? It doesn't. It often dies at the hands of farmers (see Farmers Killing Cheetahs). There are no wildcats anymore because the truly wild places have all gone. The wildcats including the big cats are forced to live with people and that cannot work because we are frightened of each other.

For a wildcat to be truly wild it has to be able to behave in a manner that is exactly in tune with its character. In a space that is too small it cannot do this. The larger wildcats need lots of space as the cheetah figures above show (src: Wikipedia). For example, a tigress could have a territory of 20 square kilometers. The male territory is larger, covering 60–100 km². Do you think that there is that kind of space left in the countries that is the tiger's range?

In the Kaziranga National Park, in India, tigers will wander to the borders of the park and at that point there will be a direct interaction between human and tiger. See Poisoning Tigers, for example. There are many others. I really do not believe that there is sufficient space to accommodate the big cats in Asia. It is a highly populated (for humans) part of the world. There is a correlation between human population increase in Asia (the home of the tiger) and tiger population decrease.

Date	Human Pop. Asia	Tiger Pop. Wild
1900	947,000,000	100,000
2008	4,054,000,000 (4+ times increase)	2,000 (50 x decrease)

I may be exaggerating, slightly, when I say that there are no wildcats left but they are not wild in the true sense. I have just made a post about a leopard that "terrorized villagers". The two have been forced together. Unfortunately it is the leopard that occupies the human land not the other way around. That means that the leopard is the one that is beholden to the top predator, man, with the usual consequences.



There are no Wildcats to Home Page

Man Eating Leopard

What makes a man eating leopard? It is the activities of people, the human animal. We create the situations in which leopards are forced to attack people, usually, perhaps always, children and women. So what do we do?


"Panar Leopard" -- Famous man eating leopard shot dead 1910. This cat was forced to attack easy small human prey because it was injured by a poacher.

We:

• expand human population without any thought for the wider implications for sustainability of resources on the planet. This leads to leopard habitat loss. This then leads to a lack of prey for the leopard and the leopard is forced to live in close proximity to people.
• provoke hostility towards the leopard being fearful of the fact that leopards are "man eaters". The classic clichéd fear response.

It is said that no one knows why leopards become man eaters. Well there is one thing we know. If there was sufficient prey for a tired and old leopard it wouldn't need to go near people and I am sure leopards are happy to steer clear of people. So one reason is, as mentioned, human activity in reducing prey populations either by killing leopard prey ourselves or eroding the habitat in which the prey lives.

Beyond that obvious reason there is then the fact that for an injured or old leopard, a child is easy prey. If that is the case why don't we take precautions? I keep saying this but we created the conditions under which a man eating leopard develops so we owe it to the leopard to solve the problem but not at the expense of the leopard. The trouble is it takes a certain mentality to do that and that mentality does not exist very often in villages in India.

Take the oak jungles of Danpur, where a man eating leopard once roamed about 35 years ago. There is little natural prey there, apparently. I guess there was at one time. This leopard attacked children and women. Indians feel that once a leopard has eaten human flesh it will come for more and they fear most the female man eating leopard because they think that she will teach her young to attack and eat people. I know of no scientific research to support this. This is most likely to be anecdotal or just plain story telling. I don't know but my gut feel is that a leopard will simply take the most convenient prey. The easiest available prey. It will not bypass easy prey just to have a taste of human flesh - come on guys. "The leopard consumes virtually any animal it can hunt down and catch" (src: Wikipedia). The preferred prey weight is 25 kg (55 lb). In southern India the preferred prey is the chital, a deer. The leopard will only resort to attacking people if conditions demand it.

Even today when the leopard is formally declared Near Threatened (NT) under the IUCN Red List, we still don't know enough about this cat. I also think that NT is an under assessment brought on by political and business pressure. I am not sure about the Red List. It can work two ways. It can highlight problems with species loss and mask problems. I really am not sure about its accuracy. We rely on it too much, I think.



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Man Eating Leopard - Photos: upper photo of dead leopard published under Wikimedia® creative commons license license = Attribution-ShareAlike License. Lower photo of chital by vandan desai published under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs creative commons License -- this site is for charitable purposes in funding cat rescue.