Some
places in the world are known for lush greenery, others for steep
cliffs and snowy glaciers and others still for refreshing water lapping
against hot beaches. But of all the landscapes in the world, harsh
deserts are perhaps the one that fewest people have
experienced. Believing it to be not as pleasant as other landscapes,
many people miss out on the tremendous beauty found in
deserts. Precisely because there are very few people, visiting deserts
like the Little Rann of Kutch which gives a traveler the chance to
ponder a world before there were so many of us around.
Only after hours blanketed by the deep silences that fall on the salt
flats in the middle of the day, when the only sound is the wind scraping
along the sand, can you appreciate the sounds that emerge in the
evening, the birds singing, insects chirping and the scuffle of small
animals rustling in the brush. Only after looking out at the unending
flats do you appreciate the greenery and rich wildlife that congregates
on the beyts or islands that rise
up out of the Rann. And only after getting to know the desert do you
begin to understand a secret, that the beauty of life lies hidden in
even the most seemingly desolate of places.
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Background
The Wild Ass Sanctuary of the Little Rann of
Kutch, spreading across nearly 5000 square kilometers of the Little
Rann, is the only place on earth where the endangered Indian Wild Ass (Equus hemionus khur), known locally as the ghudkhar,
still lives. The only other two subspecies of wild asses live in the
high arid plateaus of Tibet, making this the most accessible place to
visit wild asses in their natural environs. Standing more than a meter
tall at the shoulder and two meters in length, wild asses are very agile
and can run long distances at a speed of 50 km/h, making them more like
wild horses, and far more captivating than their domesticated cousins.
Around 3000 of them live in the sanctuary, and are usually seen in
herds, especially around breeding season (foals can be seen with the
herds around October and November.)
But the Sanctuary is home to far more than just the wild ass. Among the 32 other species of mammals are the chinkara(Indian gazelle), two types of desert fox (Indian and White-footed), jackals, caracals (African lynx), nilgais(the
largest antelope of Asia), Indian wolves, blackbucks, and striped
hyenas. From the salty desert, periodically inundated during the
monsoons, to wetlands where freshwater rivers draining through the Rann
mix into the seawater of the Gulf of Kutch, and the scrub forests found
on the beyts, the variety of vegetation types means a similar variety of
animals inhabit the area.
Because of the Sanctuary's proximity to the Gulf
of Kutch and its location on the migration routes of many bird species,
it is a very important site for birds to feed and breed in. Every year,
approximately 75,000 birds nest in the reserve. The ceraneous vulture
comes from Egypt, the common and demoiselle cranes arrive from Siberia,
the blue-tailed bee-eater visits from Europe, and the houbara bustard of
Iran and Iraq stops over as well. All of these are commonly sighted in
the sanctuary. Also present are sandgrouses, desert wheatears, ten
species of lark, the white-browed bulbul, Indian coursers, stoneplovers,
shrikes, ducks, geese, three types of ibis, spoonbills, godwits,
stints, sandpipers, shanks, moorhens, saras cranes, both Indian
flamingoes, and three species of pelican.
The Sanctuary also houses 93 species of
invertebrates, including crustaceans, insects, molluscs, spiders,
annelids and zooplanktons, as well as four species of frogs and toads,
two species of turtles, twelve snakes, fourteen species of lizards and
one kind of crocodile. The tidal wetlands along the edge of the Gulf of
Kutch are a key breeding area for prawns.
Unfortunately, the Wild Ass Sanctuary is in
danger from several sources, and the poachers who have begun to frequent
the region are not even the greatest of these. Illegal salt mining tops
the list, as a full quarter of India's salt comes from mining around
the Little Rann. The noise and air pollution caused by transportation of
this colossal amount of salt is gradually eating away at the wildlife
habitat. The Indian Army also maintains a firing range of over 200
square km inside the sanctuary borders. (If you find live firing
antithetical to a wildlife sanctuary, that's because it is.)
Furthermore, the chemical factories popping up in the area, out of the
way of where there are people to notice their atrocious environmental
practices, are contaminating the region with dangerous industrial
chemicals.
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