Edited: A call for urgent action: Analysing the "drop in deer deaths" this year

[Gayathri Nayar]

Dear all:

    I hoped to bring the recent news article (linked at the end of this message) about this year's significantly fewer deer deaths on campus to our campus community's attention, and analyse the information in that article. Here are a few statistics from that article (one of which was incorrectly reported):

- The news report says that an RTI reply sought from the Wildlife Warden of Guindy National Park reveals that deer deaths in the campus have declined this year by 64 percent from 2017.

- The report also erroneously mentions that an RTI had revealed the numbers of chital and blackbuck on campus last year to be 372 and 32, respectively, whereas that data was actually from the year 2014.

- There is other RTI data from the Forest Department, which revealed that 220 chital had died during the years 2014-16. 

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On the true cause of the deer deaths:

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    There is sufficient evidence from the eyewitness testimonies of our Security staff and the Forest Department's data that the overwhelming number of these deaths were due to predator attacks. The RTI activist, Mr. Antony Rubin, is of the opinion that the continued ingestion of plastic by the deer on campus has led to the deer becoming dull, lethargic and therefore more vulnerable to predators. 

While this is surely true to a degree, I am aware of RTI data from the Raj Bhavan and Vandalur Zoo, which show a similar marked decline of deer populations there due to haemorrhaging (bleeding) and such other injuries, which almost always indicate deaths due to predation. The later recovery or stabilization of the deer populations in those habitats would seem to suggest that the authorities there had brought the predation under control.

This may cast doubt on the assessment cited in the article- that plastic ingestion was the common root cause, even of deer deaths due to predation, on our campus- because plastic ingested from urban waste is unlikely to have contributed to the many deaths from predation in those two sparsely populated habitats. Therefore, let us now call a spade precisely that, and acknowledge, in consensus, that predation is indeed the predominant contributor to deer deaths here, which should be immediately managed, on a contingency footing.

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Analysing the present observed decline in deer deaths:

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    I had estimated several months ago that there were over 200 chital and about 20 blackbuck on campus at the beginning of 2018, based on known death rates and informal data from our wildlife caretaker for deer fertility rates. I learnt later that the number of blackbucks, at least, was fairly accurate then. A census would be necessary to assess chital population count, which I suspect may have fallen much lower than that estimate.

As the blackbucks fall under the most protected category under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and to comply with the orders of the NGT last year, we have made great efforts to protect the blackbucks on campus from predation this year, by assigning staff for constant supervision of their small herds to ward off predators, and predictably, their population is now reported to be healthy and recovering. 

Alas, the same cannot be said of the chital. Even casual observers would not have failed to notice that their numbers have declined dramatically in recent times. During this year, as mentioned before, it seems to me that significantly fewer than my old estimate of 200 deer remain on campus now. I even wondered whether (if my informal observations are to be believed) the chital have, sadly, "given up", and are breeding less. There is no reason to believe that the numbers of hunting dogs on campus have declined. Therefore, the 64% decline in the deer deaths this year, far from being a reason for optimism, is in fact, more likely a symptom of the very worst news- that there were so many less deer to be killed.

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The Urgency for a solution, Exploring solutions; 

Proposed steps to the most compassionate and effective Solution:

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    We are a well-knit, well-administered, and well-educated community. The world over, loss of wildlife in wilderness habitats is a rampant problem, as evidenced in studies like these, which estimates that the Earth has lost about 60% of its wild vertebrates over the last 40 years, and further, even the alarming prediction that all wildlife on our planet is heading for extinction within the decade:

https://www.sciencealert.com/world-wildlife-fund-for-nature-has-published-its-2018-living-planet-report/amp

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6OYE8_TsteA

We know that our deer are dying, and we know why, and we understand the importance of environment and biodiversity, and of compassion too.

It is important to understand that it is not a good solution to relocate (or "translocate") the campus deer to another wilderness habitat, for the following reasons:

1. Translocation and adaptation to an unfamiliar wilderness (with a different geography and new predators) is an especially traumatic experience for wild animals, in particular, and is considered only as a last resort in conservation. It certainly does not seem to be the compassionate solution for our campus, where our wildlife has coexisted with us for many decades, and the alternative of homing or if necessary, relocating street dogs (which are far more robust and adaptable animals) is likely to be significantly less traumatic for the affected beings.

2. Predator-prey populations in any natural ecosystem organize themselves to attain the greatest numbers of each species that the particular habitat is capable of supporting. Therefore many other wildlife ecosystems are presumably already supporting the greatest number of herbivores that they can sustain in balance with other species, and the addition of new animals will only lead to a temporary imbalance, that is rectified by higher mortality rates from predation or starvation or other causes, until the old balance is restored.

Translocation is occasionally considered in conservation when wild animals from one ecosystem are relocated to another ecosystem for the specific purpose of restocking the latter ecosystem. However, even in such cases, as the following study reveals, this is a remedy that is fraught with risk and trauma for the translocated animals.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42902579?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

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    Therefore, we have to agree that the problem should first be assessed correctly and then resolved by implementing the following steps:

1. Having a deer census urgently conducted on campus, and

2. By creating barriers at the campus entry points to prevent infusion of stray dogs from outside (and to increase the legal supportability of future measures, like targeted/ selective relocation, to control predator numbers here).

3. Identifying predatory dogs and having them adopted and homed or sheltered (not merely sponsored) either on campus or elsewhere. In cases that this cannot be achieved in the necessary timeframe, relocation would have to be considered, which would be legally more compliant with the ABC Rules if the campus was a closed territory to community dogs.

These steps have been proposed to the concerned officials already, but there appears to be an unacceptable delay in the implementation of any effective solution to the crisis of the chital population, in particular, and the problem of unsustainable predation (non-dependent on prey density) in the campus, in general. The importance of this issue cannot be underestimated by us, who are aware of the great need to conserve rich wildlife ecosystems such as ours worldwide. It would seem that in our centrally administered and connected campus community, a simple effort of will would suffice to achieve all these goals in a month or two, so that our remaining spotted deer would be safer, and their populations could be helped to recover before it is too late.

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    Are we up to it? An equally important question arises: If we, who are so advantageously positioned to achieve these simple goals, cannot do this, who can? In other words, if we cannot do this, let us be prepared to watch wild animals, stories of whom we were regaled with as children, be wiped out in this same manner, due to human intrusion, ignorance, and inertia, all over the Earth. We cannot take any comfort, I think, in the idea that we had an excuse.

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The news article under discussion:

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https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.thenewsminute.com/article/iit-madras-claims-deer-deaths-campus-down-64pc-activists-sceptical-90513%3famp

Warm regards,

Gayathri

[Hema Srinivasan]

Thank you Gayathri for your efforts to being this to everyone's attention. I humbly second her request. I would be happy to help in any way.  Hema