Zoological Explorations in Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary

15^th and 16^th August 2009, Bhimashankar WLS, Maharashtra

After a grueling 5 hour trek to Bhimashankar our team arrived at the house were we were supposed to stay for the night, it was a double storied house with the second floor rented to us. We had some food and as everyone got comfortable and decided to call it a day me and my brother got ready to explore the Gupt Bhimashankar Forest and left the rest house after 5.00pm.

As we moved towards Gupt Bhimashankar we crossed the Shiva Temple were Punekars paranoid by swine flu were queuing up with masks on their faces. The Gupt Bhimashankar trail starts exactly behind the temple and the garbage dumped by the pilgrims along with human feces were seen on more than 50 meters into the trail. The garbage included plastic bags, flower garlands, disposable plastic bottles, broken footwear and also disposable masks. We were really disappointed by such a terrible scene but the tall trees and thick vegetation ahead of us encouraged us to move on. It took us little more than half hour to reach gupt Bhimashankar were the Bhima river is believed to originate but this it seemed was

a false belief as the stream that we saw was flowing west down the mountain range and the Bhima is an East flowing River on the other side of the Ghats.

We explored Gupt bhimashankar for quite some time but were unsuccessful to find any interesting wildlife and when it started getting dark we decided to explore a different trail leading back to the village for nocturnal animals. While on the trail we noticed a Termite mound along side which, there was a ditch similar to the ones made by dogs, the soil was pushed behind on one side and the ditch extended into the wall of termite mound via a hole made into the wall. There are records of Pangolins also called Scaly ant eaters in Bhimashankar which are known to feed on termites by opening up their mounds; so could this be the work of this utterly strange looking insectivore?? However Pangolin burrows, which are used by these animals to hide during the daytime and are quite often seen in pangolin occupied forests, were not seen during our trail.

We moved ahead towards the village and searched the forest for another one hour without a single good sighting and just when we thought that our luck was bad, some rocks surrounded by lose and moist soil with plenty of earthworm cocoons caught my attention. We searched that area and found 3 shield-tailed snakes Uropeltis spp, 2 were seen borrowing under the rocks and one was seen on top of one large rock. These snakes are nocturnal animals and are active during the night and probably feed on earthworms and other invertebrates, they are fossoriel in habit but have been seen above the ground after rains. There are at least three species namely Uropeltis macrolepis, Uropeltis phipsonii and Uropeltis ellioti which are known to occur in this part of the Western Ghats.

While observing the snake I felt something crawling up on my arm, it was terrifying when I found out that it was a small tarantula, but it was even more terrifying when after some while I felt something crawling on my back and this time it was inside my T-Shirt!! , but thankfully it turned out to be a Banded Ground Gecko Gekoella spp.

We walked around in the forest till 7.00pm and then decided to go back for dinner. It was 7.30pm by the time we got back to the rest house but we had to control hunger as the dinner was late. Finally we were served food at 10.30 and after having my tummy full I went back into the forest for a Night trail, but this time I was all alone as my brother was too exhausted to accompany me.

The Night was cold and I was too exhausted to take a forest trail so I decided to walk along side Bhimashankar – Mansar road which connects Bhimashankar with Talegaon.

As I walked along the road long- tailed field mice were seen several times on top of small trees, but I had presumed that this was going to be a uneventful venture as I was far too exhausted for my senses do detect animals in pitch black darkness.

But in wildlife Night time is the right time and this fact got proved yet again when after some while of walking I heard something moving behind me, upon turning back a Rusty-spotted Cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) was seen crossing the road and then it diapered in the darkness of the forest, this was the first time I saw this not so famous member of the cat family. The Rusty-spotted Cat is one of the smallest species of Wildcat in the world and is very difficult to see due to its shy and weary nature. Encouraged by this sighting I explored the area till 12.00; the fog was the densest I had ever seen and my 6 volt torch was only illuminating the 3 or 4 meters ahead of me, soon it also started raining which forced me to get back to the base as I was wearing my last pair of dry clothes. I went straight to bed after reaching the rest house but the thin chati and a short blanket kept me just ‘trying to sleep’ almost the whole night.

It was 7.00am when I woke up and after a rough night sleep things got worse for me as I discovered that there were no toilets and we will have to go into the forest to answer nature’s calls but I decided to control it instead. It was 9.30am when we finally made a move towards gupt bhimashankar and after a while of walking I heard calls of Giant squirrels and sure enough two were seen running up and down on a branch of a tree barley 20 meters away from us.

A large crowd gathered as I pointed towards the two arboreal animals, it was the first time they saw this animal and were observing it great interest. I hope this love and interest in nature transcend the disrespect and ignorance shown by most tourists.

After coming back to the rest house it was time to trek back to Khandas and we packed our bags and left the rest house at 11.30am. We took the same trail back to khandas but this time we took a lunch break halfway down at a dhaba on the way and were served with hot zunka and bhakri.

While trekking back to khandas me and brother got separated from the group as we waited to take pictures and accidentally took a wrong trail, but this turned out to be a rather fortunate accident as we stumbled upon a pile of fresh gaur dung as we tried to find the correct route. We started investing the nearby area for hoof marks and noticed a small pond on the edges of which we found gaur hoof marks. Gaurs or Indian Ox are rare in this area and there haven’t been any recent gaur reports from Ganesh Ghat area.

We found the right trail again and followed it down the mountain range were the group was waiting for us and we together left for Neral station and made our journey back home taking nothing but sweat memories of our adventures and some awesome photographs.

Good bye for now ..... take care and wait for more adventures !!!!

---- Aditya Malgaonkar