I have been wild life enthusiast ever since my childhood. As
someone who had spent formative years in The Nilgiris I had the opportunity to
live in Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary. This place was the border point of Tamil
Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala states in India.
Having blessed with copious water supply from the river Moyar there used
to be lush green bamboo forest helping animals like elephant, deer, wild boar,
wild pigs, porcupine, bison etc. to live in a very nice environment. There used
to be hell a lot of avian population we had lost the count of them. A Peacock
used to be a regular visitor to our home to be fed by us fresh rice! As our
garden used to be always filled with banana crop we used to have visitors in
the form of wild pigs to uproot and eat the tuber from them. The leaves etc.
used to be devoured by Deer! I had the opportunity to see elephants form a
bridge and swim across Moyar River. In Bandipur sanctuary we had seen hundreds
of Deer freely grassing wild ripe fruits which were harvested by monkeys by
shaking the trunks of trees vigorously! Theppakadu used to be the training
place for tamed elephants where they were also used to catch wild elephants. I
had seen a elephant giving birth to twins in the camp.
From there we moved to Mundanthurai in Thirunelveli district
in late seventies. This is also a wild life sanctuary. The river Servalar used
to flow there peacefully to join with Tamrabharani River. This sanctuary had
abundant monkey population. In a span of fifteen Kilometers from Vickrama
Snghapuram to Servalar we used to see close to ten to fifteen varieties of
monkeys. Fully grown Pony Pink / red
ones, Ones with ash grey body and pink face, ones with total jet black color
and ones with ash grey body & jet black face. There used to be one lion
tailed monkey which used to jump from one tree to the other with a span of 15
to 20 meters with great ease.
Living in Africa, I had the fortune of visiting National
Parks in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe. To see animals in close distance
and observe them for hours is a great pass time. One can hardly find such
diversity and population as we see in Kenya! Thousands of elephants, zebra,
wider beast, Giraffe, Hippos and what not! It is a rare sight to watch herds
crossing river Zambezi. The animals are
afraid of us and we in turn are scared what might be their next move, but still
hold patience and watch because of their beauty & enigmatic nature.
Recently we made a trip to visit Lemurs in Andasibe,
Madagascar. Though Madagascar doesn’t have any of the big four wild animals, it
boasts on 50 varieties of Lemurs which are unique only to Madagascar as they
are found nowhere else in the world. We could have covered the visit in a day
and returned. But we chose to stay overnight as we wanted to trek the whole
forest and see Lemurs in the wild as opposed to finding them in some private
property which is more or less stage managed. First day afternoon was spent in
a village organized forest visit for two hours with a guide (VOIMMA Village). The
trip was very fruitful as we had the opportunity to be in the wild for close to
two hours and see Lemurs and Chameleon. The community boasts of some rich
handicrafts and freshly harvested honey !
Next stay we visited the private property where we could find
Lemurs and crocodile in Vakona Private Lodge. Here in two different islands
Lemurs and Crocodiles are housed. Lemurs are very friendly and once they sit on
your head, shoulder or hand they do not want to get down. They are not
dangerous. Some breeds are very docile and scared to come near human beings.
They are fond of fruits, bamboo shoots and other vegetation.
Enjoy the snaps.
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