Kanha : March 1975: 'Once they roamed free in Kanha Meadow'

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Praktica LTL, Image 200mm

[Debasis Bose]

Kanha in 1975! just after project tiger was announced by Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the forest must have been pristine without much tourist movement, and freedom to move in the forest was much more exciting. People associated with forest must have been neither commercial minded nor corrupt.

Beautiful image of black buck that use to then roam in Kanha.

Kanha national park was created in 1st June 1955, with its creation slowly habitat loss of black buck commenced, as it prefer the dry open plains and edges of farmland. Naturalists speculate the black buck came to Kanha by following human cultivation. And with creation of Kanha National park followed by up-gradation to Tiger reserve in 1975, the small population that was stranded got cut off from others, and started declining because of short of ecosystem they enjoyed were being promoted into tall grass conservation and expansion, as the more abundant deer preferred them. This is called unscientific way of doing something good and we are really good at it. Understand, slowly black buck were extinct from Kanha. Though a re-introduction process is on inside an enclosed periphery with the Kanha Tiger reserve, but I have my doubts over its success.

Thank you Saktida for sharing, if you have more images of 1975 please post, would love to view them.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Its amazing to see an image from 1975. I can only imagine what it would have been then, less tourists, less disturbance and animals in the wild in abundance. Lovely sighting of these black bucks. Please do tell us more about your experience in Kanha then. Thanks for sharing this rare image.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Great to see a 40 year old image and a species that has been wiped out. The blackbuck is a species that used to be numerous throughout India and was a major food of the asiatic cheetah which has long been extinct from India.

It seems there are 5 blackbucks in the frame. I hope that blackbucks for be seen in more areas of their former range. Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Shyamala Kumar]

Image makes us ponder over what we have lost by thoughtless and unscientific conservation.Very few countries possess what we once had in plenty.The only difference is that we as a people do not appreciate or value our natural wealth.Preservation of what we have left comes very low in the list of national priorities.Thanks for sharing these rare images.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Lovely Shaktida...you are truly blessed to have seen and experienced these wilderness areas long before the tiger chasers came in.
TFS
Roopak

[Subhash Shrivastava]

Sakti da, thanks for sharing the image from the vintage. We need more images from bygone era to keep up our spirits.

Sabya sir, . I am witnessing the wiping of blackbuck from Bidar environs on a large scale. I have been thinking of documenting it for a year but am too dejected to attempt it.

1) The grassland adjoining the IAF academy is being converted to an Industrial hub, more than half of the grassland is already gone in last 1 year. Now, it has an isolated population of about less than 50 BBs fighting a losing battle. Two years back this grassland was supporting upwards of 400 B Bs along with Hares, Foxes, Harriers, Raptors etc. and was one of the best grasslands between Hyderabad to Solapur. It’s the same place where JLR used to carry out their Blackbuck safaris, am not sure where they are doing it now

2) Something has happened in the grasslands of Manahalli (about 20 Kms for Bidar city), this used to support about 200+ BBs along with harriers , raptors etc. I am not able to see any group of BBs here for past 6 months, only solitary males sometimes. There are farmlands creeping into grassland and aggressive farmers, they try to scare off me also sometimes. Not sure what happened to Blackbucks of this area.

3) Kamthana (about 15 Kms for Bidar city) has a sizable population of BBs, may be more than 500, some biggest herds I have seen here. This monsoon, the portions of grassland have been ploughed out, severely fragmenting it. When I visited last time, in Aug beginning, the BBs where not in herds but were scattered in small groups over the still unfarmed pieces of land, I saw the smallest number of BBs since I started visiting this place over 1.5 years back

Sometimes I wonder why, nowadays, I remain so detached to news monsoon failures.

With Regards;
Subhash

[Murugan Anantharaman]

Great image Saktida. The year 1975, while you were busy taking these pictures I was just born :). I never knew there used to be black bucks in Kanha. Today its all about Barasingha in Kanha but no one values what we have lost. I hope other animals remain and are not just seen in vintage pictures like this. Whenever I see a blackbuck it reminds me of the gazelles in africa and how year on year their count keeps increasing thanks to a lot of support for conservation. If conservation can be achieved for an entire continent how difficult would it be for a country(read India). How I wish, how I wish!!!! Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Shri Sabyasachi,
I could locate one postcard size print. You are correct, it had five black buck but only the hind portion of the lead one was in that print. While scanning the print the same was dropped.
Kind regards, SaktiWild