Wildbuzz: Rare Padma celebs - Hindustan Times
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Wildbuzz: Rare Padma celebs

ByVikram Jit Singh
Mar 26, 2023 01:33 AM IST

Traditional snake and rodent catchers from farmers’ fields, Irula tribals were since 1980 tasked with trapping of snakes and extraction of venom for production of anti-snake venom serum

For members of India’s tribes — stigmatised, criminalised and described as habitual offenders by the British Raj and continued in part after Independence — it was a proud moment. Long accustomed to standing outside petty babus’ offices for hours, in abject obeisance, to secure their rights, here were two tribesmen gracing the hallowed halls of Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday. Vadivel Gopal and Masi Sadiyan of Tamil Nadu’s iconic Irula Snake Catchers’ Industrial Cooperative Society received the Padma Shri award for social work/wildlife conservation/mitigation of human-serpent mortalities.

Vadivel and Masi in front of Rashtrapati Bhavan. (PHOTO: STEFFI JOHN)
Vadivel and Masi in front of Rashtrapati Bhavan. (PHOTO: STEFFI JOHN)

Traditional snake and rodent catchers from farmers’ fields, Irula tribals were since 1980 tasked with trapping of snakes and extraction of venom for production of anti-snake venom serum. So, behind every life saved of a snake-bite victim are the Irulas. Many have got bitten in the process. Such are their serpent skills that Masi and Sadivel were invited to Florida in 2017. The US authorities spent $70,000 on their trip. The two Irulas caught and removed invasive Burmese pythons afflicting the Everglades ecosystem.

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Legendary herpetologist Rom Whitaker, who was himself awarded the Padma Shri only in 2018 after a lifetime of dedication to reptiles and the Irulas, paid a heartfelt tribute. “I have been working with these wonderful folks for 50 years, and accompanied them to Florida. As Masi put it, ‘This award should go to all the Irula tribesmen and women who’ve been risking their lives’. Interestingly, President Droupadi Murmu is also a tribal person,” Whitaker told this writer.

While the recognition bestowed by the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu on the two Irulas is laudable, questions linger. Each Irula earns a few thousand rupees from the snake industry. They battle insensitive babudom and entrenched social prejudice. Will the Padma award go a long way to extract the Irula community from centuries of existence on the margins?

An Indian first, Eurasian blackbird. (PHOTO: ASEEM KALIA)
An Indian first, Eurasian blackbird. (PHOTO: ASEEM KALIA)

Science circles time

The complexities of taxonomy — or the science of describing, classifying organisms and delineating the boundaries of species — bewilder the mind. Take the Eurasian blackbird (EB), a species declared as one not found in India. The catch is that the official declaration came into effect after 2008. Before that, the EB was a species spanning several sub-species inhabiting Sri Lanka, India, China, Tibet and Eurasia. However, in 2008, taxonomy experts effected splits and declared four different species, namely, Eurasian (or Common), Tibetan, Indian and Chinese blackbirds, based on scientific revaluation.

Chandigarh’s bird photographers, Aseem Kalia and Dr Ankur Sood, out on a trekking expedition to Keylong, Himachal, this month, came across a blackbird with an orange orbital ring. The specimen, because of its distinctive ring, which is not found on the Tibetan blackbird (the default blackbird for Keylong), was identified by Tim Inskipp, a leading authority on the sub-continent’s avians, as “could be the EB (Turdus merula intermedius), which has not been recorded in India.”

“Interestingly, the Tibetan blackbird (TB) was originally described as a distinct species, Merula maxima, by Henry Seebohm, an English ornithologist, in 1881, on the basis of a specimen collected by T Jerdon in Gulmarg. However, it was subsequently clubbed with the EB as a sub-species of the latter by Charles Richmond, an American ornithologist, in 1896, and moved to the genus, Turdus, with that species. However, in 2008, the TB’s status as a distinct species (as originally classified by Seebohm) was restored on the basis of phylogenetic evidence. But for the split in 2008 into four species, the Keylong specimen would have simply been identified as the EB of yore,” Mohali-based birder, Prof Gurpartap Singh, told this writer.

As time’s bewitching cycles would have it, had Kalia and Sood photographed in Keylong a blackbird with an orbital ring between 1896 and 2008, it would not have created waves. It has done so now, since taxonomy’s current timelines dictate the Keylong bird be exalted as the rarest of rare vagrants to India.

vjswild1@gmail.com

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