The peaks of the Western Ghats, the abode of grasslands, plunging valleys, and precipices, hold many mysteries. Among them being the Nilgiri tahr, about which little is known of. This mountain goat is Tamil Nadu’s State animal, and is now having its moment in the sun thanks to Chief Minister MK Stalin’s announcement to observe October 7 as Nilgiri tahr day every year to honour hunter-turned-conservationist ERC Davidar, and the subsequent launch of Project Nilgiri tahr on October 12. The project, for which the Government has allotted ₹25 crores, is expected to answer “lots of unanswered questions” about the animal, according to N Mohanraj, an advisor with WWF-India.
Mohanraj spent several days trekking up the precarious slopes around 2011 for a survey of the tahr for WWF-India. “We simply recorded the number of animals we saw,” he says, adding that they documented more than 3,000. To this day, their numbers have not increased dramatically. “We do not know why they did not spread,” he says, “Whereas elephants, tigers, spotted deer, and sambar, have sprung back in numbers.” Being mountain goats, he wonders why they have not bred as much.
To find out more about the tahr, “lots of science has to go in,” he says. “Is it because of the genetic bottleneck they went through? Is there a disease that is affecting them? Has the grassland reduced over the years? We don’t know.” Now, WWF is all set to study the tahr by radio collaring them. As S Ramasubramanian, Field Director of the Anamalai Tiger Reserve says, “This is only the beginning.”
The beginning of a chapter in the study of tahr by the State Forest Department is supported by other wildlife research organisations. “The project will be a multi-faceted one that will cover all aspects of the animal,” he says. Ramasubramanian attributes the terrain to lack of extensive studies on them. Field surveys require scientists to follow animals up close which prove challenging in the case of the tahr. Yet, there do exist people who studied them, the first among them being Davidar.
Davidar, who passed away in 2010, was the secretary of the Planters’ Association in the Nilgiris. He hunted the tahr when it was legal to do so, and ended up carrying out a survey of the animal in 1963 for the Nilgiri Game Association. Davidar, who wrote extensively on wildlife, writes about this survey in his book Whispers From the Wild (Penguin). Davidar took up another study in 1975 in the Nilgiri plateau, counting 2,200 animals. This report paved the way for the tahr to enter the Red Data Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Davidar talks about ‘lung-bursting heights’ and ‘crawling across dizzy precipices’ to study the tahr. Project Nilgiri tahr, however, will also have technology in its aid: drones, radio-collaring… Ramasubramanian says there will be another key contributor: the adivasis who inhibit the same terrain as the tahr.
“We will work with the paliyan and kani tribal people of Megamalai and Srivilliputhur, and make use of their indigenous knowledge,” he points out adding, “They can give us inputs on the animal’s migration pattern, the effect of forest fires on them, what they look for in their habitats.” Ramasubramanian feels that they can offer rare insights on the mountain goats. “In a tribal village in the Kodaikanal hills, there is a temple dedicated to the tahr,” he points out.
James Zachariah, who retired from the Kerala Forest Department as Deputy Conservator of Forests, has 40 years of experience observing the tahr. He recalls a brand of matches in Srivilliputhur that had the picture of a male saddleback. “Story goes that when the tahr runs on rocks, sparks come out of its hooves,” he says. James feels that to retain the population of the tahr, their habitat must be protected. “Habitat connectivity and quality are important to maintain their numbers,” he adds. James says that the tahr is an animal that whistles when alarmed “The young ones may bleat, but the call of adults is similar to a whistle.”
Author and film historian S Theodore Baskaran, who retired as the Chief Post Master General, Tamil Nadu, was a friend of Davidar. He got to know Davidar in 1980 when he was posted in Coimbatore and had to visit Udhagamandalam as part of his job. “Back then, there were not many people interested in wildlife,” he recalls. “I learnt a lot from him.”
Theodore adds that the tahr finds mention in the Silapathigaram. He recalls his first sighting of the animal in 1981. “I was coming down from Valparai when I noticed a tahr on a mountain’s precipice. I kept watching it till I reached Aliyar. It stood in the same spot all the while, looking like a cutout.”
