Sambar deer in Srisailam forests (NSTR)

[Subhash Shrivastava]

Nikon P510, 1/250, F4.9, 78 mm, ISO-320, hand held

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Subash,
Nice to see a sambar from NSTR. It used to be huge before a large portion was denotified from the tiger reserve. Also, fortunately the proposal for the YSR memorial got shelved. How many sambars did you sight? The prey base is important for the survival of tigers. The following discussion can throw more light about NSTR. http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7169

Slightly more space at the bottom would have been better as the hoofs of the sambar appear to be cut off. Our mind always wants to complete the cycle. In psychology it is known as closer effect. So even though the legs might be hidden behind rocks, our mind wants to see space below to account for the space for legs.

Pulling up the shadows a bit and slightly increasing the brightness would be of help. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Nice to see a healthy Sambar stag in NSTR. Good details. I am missing the ' brow tine' in the left antler. It looks like it had sore patch earlier, which has healed up fully. May be the antlers are in the midst of growth after shedding. All these have made it an interesting image to me. Thanks for sharing.SaktiWid

[Subhash Shrivastava]

Hi Sabyasachi, thanks for your feedback, I am very happy that this image drew your attention. I visit NSTR pretty frequently, at least once a month. As per me, the herbivores population is quite healthy, once can find herds of Cheetals not far from road even in daytime. I regularly see cheetals, Sambars and wild boars; occasionally Hares and porcupines. Most of the sightings are in night. Once saw a jungle cat, but no other carnivores till date.
I think forest is not in the order of priority for the state government. There is proposal to covert the road into Hyderabad – Nandyal National Highway, this will surely be a disaster and YSR memorial may get a go-ahead anytime. The worst pressures that NSTR is facing are the so-called pilgrimage / merrymaking traffic and overgrazing, one can find castles even in deep areas.
Regarding the space at the bottom, there was a Forest Department made waterhole there, its cemented portion is visible in the other images with better offsets.

Dear Sakti sir, thanks for the keen interest. I had been thinking what happened to one of it's antlers. Thanks for sharing the information.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Nice to see this Subhash. It was only a few days back after reading a post on IW, picked up my old anderson compendium and reread the Lame horror of Peddacheruvu. I had spent some time in NSTR long ago (92) , it was more or less in the same state even then…. It was my first real jungle outing and was very excited, having read Andersons adventures in the area, I was waiting to bump into a tiger..:laugh:.

It is so sad that a beautiful piece of tropical deciduous forest which was supposed to be teeming with wildlife in Andersons days has turned into this. There seems some hope that the prey base is improving, but with very few predators left in a huge land mass it will be some time before they make a come back...that is if we leave them alone.

TFS
Roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice to hear that about the deers, sambars and others who constitute the prey base for the tigers and leopards. When there is anthropogenic pressures on the habitat like human intrusions for wood cutting, grazing etc along with poaching the wildlife tend to become nocturnal. Give them protection for a few years without these disturbances and then one can again see them in the day time.

Unfortunately, our forests are seen as a resource. In the childhood days we used to read that forests give us so much rupees worth of wood etc. That woodcutter mentality has remained even after the British have left.