The Dynamics of Biodiversity in the Andaman Islands with Herpetologist, Researcher, Author, Nariman Vazifdar.

April 7, 2024June 30, 2024 ~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ Leave a comment

Heart of Conservation Episode #35 Show Notes (Edited)

Host:Lalitha Krishnan:

00:03: Hi there, I’m Lalitha Krishnan, your host on episode #35 of Heart of Conservation. As usual, I bring you stories from the wild that keep us all connected with our natural world. I’m back after a very long spell during which I visited the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I still can’t get over those amazing beaches, the old forest and the incredible species that I spotted there. All new to me, but endemic to the island. But the question is, for how long? I can’t think of a better person than naturalist, herpetologist on ground in the Andamans, Nariman Vazifdar, to answer that and more.

You can read his writings on the web, including on ResearchGate, and follow his Insta handle @reptilian_666 to see what he’s up to. And do look out for the transcript and links for this podcast coming soon on my blog, Earthy Matters. Welcome to Heart of Conservation, Nariman. Thank you so much for speaking to me about this. And the ecology of the islands.Ever since you guided us through that beautiful Andaman bulletwood forest by the beach, my curiosity has only grown. ] So since your first love is reptiles, could you enlighten us about the diversity of reptiles found on the island? And first, do tell us a little bit about yourself and about the diversity of endemic species on the island.

Guest: Nariman Vazifdar:

Hi, Lalitha. Thanks for having me on Heart of Conservation podcast.

01:36: Yes, basically reptiles are what, let’s not put it as reptiles, but wildlife. I was really attached to wildlife at an early age. When in school, I joined this program called the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme Program, which basically took us outdoors, a lot of outdoor activities, kayaking, camping, and lots of social service fun. And of course, it was just being out there, especially because I was a kid from South Bombay. There is not much greenery where I live.

02:13: As soon as I stepped out of my comfort zone, the beauty of the sea, the forest around Bombay, kind of Lonavala side, and it took over my life, basically. And I saw my first snake, I remember very clearly over there, just whilst we were camping around. And I got inquisitive about this, and it just kind of took over my life slowly and slowly.

02:37: But more interestingly, when my mom comes from a place called Baroda in Gujarat, and I remember as a four-year-old child, she had taken us to this zoo over there, and she knew some of these zoos, and they had got out some snake, I think it was a python, for the kids to touch for me and my younger cousins. And I remember all of us as children were very scared of this. But my mom, for some reason, pushed me to touch the snake, and I touched the snake, and now I think she’s repenting this decision of hers.

03:10: But I basically took over. That’s all I’ve done since 2005. I have been involved in wildlife conservation research, in different parts of India, from Chennai, Bangalore, the Chambal Valley, and a couple of tiger reserves. And now, of course, finally, I live and work in Havelock Island, in the Andaman Islands.

03:31: But what draws me to this place more is, like you said, all the animals are more, because they are predominantly reptiles and less…the mammal diversity of the Andaman Islands is very poor. So, it is predominantly reptiles and more endemic species of reptiles is what we get here.

03:51: There are over, say, 23 species of snakes, of which nine are endemic. But because it’s an island–and island ecology is very different–we have terrestrial snakes, snakes that live on the land. We have mangrove snakes. We have sea snakes. So, like that, there are many, many various species of snakes on the island.

Lalitha Krishnan:

04:14: Wow. I have not even heard of mangrove snakes. Sorry for interrupting.

Nariman Vazifdar:

Yeah. No, no, no. But like, there are… you see them in high abundance. It’s just that people are not getting out there to look for them.So we have 308 islands in the Andaman Islands, and a lot of the islands are undiscovered. We don’t know what is on those islands.

04:38: The north-easternmost island of the Andaman Islands is called Narcondam Island. It is a dormant volcano, or let’s put an inactive volcano. And recently, a snake was found on that island. It’s called the Narcondam cat snake. Not found anywhere else on any other island, or not been discovered yet. So, it’s very interesting. It’s very interesting, you know, how the islands, individual islands have individual kind of small ecosystems.

Lalitha Krishnan:

05:06: That’s so incredible. So, you know, speaking of fauna in general, it’s a well-known fact that introduced species are a threat to endemic species on islands everywhere in the world. So, I just wanted to know, were there any species introduced to Andaman and Nicobar Islands? And what could be, is or could be the consequence of this?

Nariman Vazidar:

05:32: So, yes, of course, invasive species or introduced species make a massive difference to any ecological environment. Not necessarily islands, but islands face it more drastically.

Let’s say the invasive animals that are on the island currently are also due to a lot of the animals put by, say, the British when they took over the islands and they built the penal colony. So, they were only tribes living on these islands initially, the four indigenous tribes, and the British got, say, dogs, which are now everywhere on the island, to give as a gift to the Jarawas, who were one of the tribal communities, to hunt the endemic wild boar off the islands.

06:19: The dogs have now taken over the island, sadly. Don’t get me wrong. I love dogs. I’ve adopted one of the dogs from the beach. He lives with me. But these dogs, let’s say, hunt everything, right? Including the sea turtles. When the sea turtles come up to nest, they not only eat the sea turtle eggs, but sometimes I’ve seen them sadly even killing the female sea turtles when she’s coming to lay her eggs. The baby sea turtles that hatch, the snakes, the lizards. But see, it’s not the dog’s fault, right? We sadly do not have a proper neutering project on the islands. We still have a long way to go on the islands.

06:59: It is a serious problem, right? In a small place like Havelock there possibly could be 700 dogs. That is a lot of dogs for a tiny island. Of course, ecological damage happens.

Yes, the dogs are fed by the tourists, by the locals, but still, it is still a large amount of dogs on a tiny, small little island. But more than that, let’s say the other animals that people think of, but at least these are street dogs. People think all the animals in the forest also belong there. No!

07:29: Also, the British were very fond of game hunting, shikaar, so they brought three species of deer, which are barking deer, hog, deer, spotted deer. Interestingly, they also introduced three leopards to the islands in the hopes that leopards will reproduce and will do shikaar on the islands. But interestingly, the leopards did not survive in the mangrove forest, maybe they got eaten by the tribes. We do not know

…the British were very fond of game hunting, shikaar, so they brought three species of deer, which are barking deer, hog, deer, spotted deer. Interestingly, they also introduced three leopards to the islands in the hopes that leopards will reproduce and will do shikaar on the islands. But interestingly, the leopards did not survive in the mangrove forest, maybe they got eaten by the tribes. We do not know. Out of the three species of deer bark, the spotted deer is the only deer that survived and is flourishing throughout the islands. Then again, on the island, there is no large mammal, say, no tiger, no bear. There are no monkeys. There are no squirrels on the island. Well, because of this, the deer roam freely, literally eat the undergrowth of the islands and which has more insects, more lizards…which depend on this undergrowth that gets eaten away, nothing survives then.
-Nariman Vazifdar on Heart of Conservation podcast

07:59: Out of the three species of deer bark, the spotted deer is the only deer that survived and is flourishing throughout the islands. Then again, on the island, there is no large mammal, say, no tiger, no bear. There are no monkeys. There are no squirrels on the island. Well, because of this, the deer roam freely, literally eat the undergrowth of the islands and which has more insects, more lizards…which depend on this undergrowth that gets eaten away, nothing survives then.

08:36: The deer, the spotted deer, one species of deer is basically or literally eating the islands alive. See, there is no food left on the islands. This happens. Smaller island get (lost in translation) completely. The deer does two interesting things: 1: they wade/wait at the shore line. Wait for the tide to come in and hope that some (lost in translation) will come.

09:02: If that doesn’t suffice, they have learnt…… to swim in the sea. Imagine. Deer. They’re swimming in the sea and going from one island to the other. It is incredible. We’ve seen this while we go diving sometimes.

09:15:A lot of them must be drowning. As conservationists, sometimes you put a heavy heart …….. and say, “Yes, it’s okay if this specific invasive animal doesn’t survive for the better good of the environment.” A lot of people will be against what I’m saying, but I stand my ground to say yes. Sometimes for the betterment of the entire ecosystem, it is okay if these animals are maybe eradicated, send back to mainland, whatever, because once islands lose their endemic fauna, it is not coming back. Right?

09:53: We have lots of (lost in translation). We have a bullfrog. You think it’s a frog, it doesn’t do much. But it grows big. There are scientific papers of (frogs) eating chickens. (lost in translation) You know, I have (lost in translation) of a bullfrog, trying to catch and eat an endemic bronzeback of the islands.

[10:10 – 10:23] So it is only a frog which does a lot of damage.

Lalitha Krishnan:

Sorry. You saying the frog eating the chicken sounds crazy.

Nariman Vazifdar:

My friends have documented it. There is a research paper on this. Of how invasive—you know–what damage these things do. There are many of them that we do not know, right? Like, we do not really know what cats, and rats, do to the ecosystem.

10:39: I have, my friends who have cats and the cats, when they come to my home, they’re bringing emerald geckos, skinks, lizards, you know, to the house all the time.

Lalitha Krishnan:

See, we don’t see these things.

Nariman Vazifdar:

10:50: Yes, of course. We live here, right? Long. We don’t go home much. It’s just home now. You know? So, it’s massive, I am seeing the difference. Forget just invasive species.

11:01: The more construction that is happening over the years has also drastically driven the endemic flora fauna down.

Lalitha Krishnan: It’s so strange. Like you think, uh, you know, a deer is harmless or a cat, okay, only kills rats. We do not think what else it can do.

Nariman Vazidar:

A lot of countries—for that matter–Australia has a rule. They can shoot the feral cats or kill the feral cats. Right? If we start this in India (lost in translation) We are not open to this right?

11:30: We need to get rid of the cats and the dogs; have this conversation with people who are not thinking logically, you know, it is just a battle, a nonstop battle that people like me have with them. So we just bring this up before it’s never-ending. The topic never ends, right? It’s always nonstop. “No, this is that, but…”

From an ecological, scientific point of view, you cannot… everything can’t be driven by your heart. But, sadly, I agree. You know, but unfortunately for the betterment of the better of the other animals that belong to this place, sadly, a lot of these animals have to be out of here.

Lalitha Krishnan:

But thanks for opening our eyes. Maybe people who make the policies you know, are listening and somewhere as it will change somebody’s mind and they will do the right thing.

Nariman Vazifdar:

12:20: I mean, you can’t force this one on anyone. Including my friends, right? Even the ones that are nature-oriented. Even them. For them, no, this is what it is. Dogs and cats need to be here. You cannot even bring up the deer, you know, or the frogs. If I say, “Let’s kill the frogs, you know they are invasive” you can see the blood boiling in them when I bring these topics up.

Lalitha Krishnan:

12:41: Right. Right! It’s a difficult one. You know, all the locals know you as a snake rescue on the islands. I quote you now, “No rescue is the best rescue”. What do you mean by that?

Nariman Vazifdar:

12:57: So also, yes, I never really did this snake rescue anywhere else that I have lived. Uh, yes. In places where I lived– in smaller places—if there is a snake in someone’s house. Yes. I’ll be more than happy to remove it for them, but I never did this ‘snake rescue’ thing anywhere. It was the same over here. There was a snake in someone’s home.

13:20: I went and helped out, but now Havelock is like a smaller town…a larger village, the entire Havelock. So literally, everyone knows everyone from one snake rescue to the second to the third. Now it has become, everyone knows this, but however, I rather not do this because this is not giving anyone a chance to understand how to live with snakes. Right?

13:46: This place always had King cobras; it always has a lot of snakes. But as we are going, as they say, tourism is a double-edged sword. As tourism is spreading people the locals are selling off their land to hotel chains. Of course, right? And there are literally maybe over 100 accommodations now or places to stay in Havelock. Plus 40 plus dive shops, over 100 restaurants… So many of us from the mainland are also living here which basically means more houses are constructed. People are cutting deep into the forest and with that comes … If you’re cutting into the forest there are more snakes entering people’s homes. What tourists are seeing are just the two main roads but there are now a lot of side lanes. I get baffled about where these side lanes are going. I thought I knew Havelock well on all the roads but no. Every time there is a snake and I go to these places, I am shocked that these houses are deep, deep into the forest. They have cut the forest down. So yes, there is no option for the snakes but to seek refuge in those houses. So now this is what’s happening.

14:58: I basically will not catch a snake or remove a snake unless the snake is in the person’s house. When I say “in the person’s house” I mean literally in their home. If it is in the garden in a bageecha, I will not catch it because that is where the snake is supposed to be. I understand it is a king cobra; it is a highly venomous snake– the world’s longest venomous snake– but there must be some learning curve. Otherwise, every snake they see it’s like, “Come and catch it.”

I basically will not catch a snake or remove a snake unless the snake is in the person’s house. When I say “in the person’s house” I mean literally in their home. If it is in the garden in a bageecha, I will not catch it because that is where the snake is supposed to be. I understand it is a king cobra; it is a highly venomous snake– the world’s longest venomous snake– but there must be some learning curve. Otherwise, every snake they see it’s like, “Come and catch it.” -Nariman Vazifdar on Heart of Conservation podcast

Andaman pit viper
Photo by Narimam Vazifdar

15:26: But I don’t go unless it is in their home and there’s a situation where I have to, I will remove it otherwise I tell them to wait. I will look, keep calm, take it easy and if the snake was in their home, yes, I will go. But otherwise, I don’t.

15:42: So, what I mean by this is there is no need to catch every snake. What are we doing with this (snake) right? Again, snake catching is not a big deal. It is basic if you understand snakes. I don’t know why people make this big hoo-ha and show about it. You can catch a snake. Then what are we doing with this? We are relocating them somewhere else. This is not conservation. This is not research. We are literally removing a snake from A and just dumping it at B. And we think that yes, we’ve done a great job; we’ve saved a life but we don’t know if that snake survives well yet where we are literally releasing it.

Then what are we doing with this? We are relocating them somewhere else. This is not conservation. This is not research. We are literally removing a snake from A and just dumping it at B. And we think that yes, we’ve done a great job; we’ve saved a life but we don’t know if that snake survives well yet where we are literally releasing it.
-Nariman Vazifdar on Heart of Conservation podcast

16:20: There have been many debates, many scientific papers; research on this; on this trans locating of snakes. They are saying to try to release the snake as close to the rescue site. Now think about it. Where I live in Havelock; there are king cobras. Like I said, my problem is not the rescue, it is the release. Sometimes I feel very bad I’m releasing the snake a kilometre and a half away but there is no option, right? Where do I release these snakes with so much construction?

16:50: So that’s why I feel like, if not required, I will not do anything. A lot of times I get calls: “Snake is in the home.” I say, “Okay give it 10 minutes; let’s see what happens.” And it goes away by itself; there is no need to run, jump, or catch the snake; put pictures or like, free-handle snakes. It is not necessary and this is becoming a massive trend on Instagram now where a lot of the guys, especially in Bombay, Pune, all India, are free-handling. Which basically means picking up venomous snakes with their hands; not using equipment, getting bit on their faces, and kissing cobras. It is not required. There is no need for this bravado, for showboating… Yesterday or the day before, two boys got bitten doing these stunts in Bombay and what happens if they die or lose their fingers. What is the point of this? There is no point in this. Do it if you really must do it. Yes, catch a snake but then go immediately and release it.

17:48: A lot of guys keep the snakes unethically; they keep them in plastic bottles–they don’t release themfor days and they have one thousand excuses for this.

17:58: To catch a snake, it takes two seconds. What I do when I catch a snake is release it immediately and then I go home. I don’t need to take the snake home. I don’t see the value of taking that snake home. Yeah, anyway these are my thoughts and you know and again everyone has different thoughts about this and a lot of people feel that catching a snake is conservation research but it is absolutely zero. I think we are actually hindering it and not really giving it you know, a place to go to actually.

Lalitha Krishnan:

18:30: That’s a lot of new information. It’s interesting but it’s also scary and enlightening. First of all, they have to learn how to catch a snake. I hope they just don’t follow YouTube videos…

Nariman Vazifdar:

18:45: Yeah. that is all easy but you see all these YouTubers picking up cobras, the vipers… Why would they do this? Right? You are literally playing Russian roulette. Nothing happens 100 times. Then, the 101^st time you could die. You could lose fingers… you know? Why would you want this Cobra?

19:05 You know, snakes live in sometimes the filthiest of places. Gutters, septic tanks… and you’re kissing this Krait! No, not on.

Lalitha Krishnan:

19:14: Sad. So how often do you get called to get snakes out of the house?

Nariman Vazifar.

19:19: Really, luckily, it’s not like a full-time thing. I don’t want to do that full-time. But mostly, king cobra breeding season is now mid-February to April-May maybe. So this time these two-three months are more. Of course, the random one here and there but uh sometimes maybe twice in the day sometimes not a few days… It’s very erratic.

19:49: Interestingly, the snakes that I have rescued from the homes over here are either king cobras or rat snakes. I’ve never rescued a pit viper from someone’s home or kraits. None of that. It’s only been either kings or rat snakes, no other snake interestingly.

Lalitha Krishnan:

20:06: We have rat snakes here also. In fact, one was on my door trying to get a Whistling thrush’s eggs. There’s no way to prevent these situations in places like Havelock, right? Snakes will go into your house… I don’t know.

Niriman Vazifdar:

20:21: It’s basic. Doesn’t matter if you are in Havelock or anywhere in the world. You keep your surroundings clean, keep your litter, don’t keep clutter around, and don’t chuck your organic waste everywhere. They’re the basic, same rules you follow anywhere. Okay, yes of course, if you’re living in the jungle there is more likelihood that it just comes. But less likely if you keep your place and your area litter-free- free basically.

Lalitha Krishnan:

20:51: I never thought of a snake attacking your garbage.

Nariman Vazifdar:

20:51: No. It is going for the mice, right? What is going in the garbage? The mice, the flies then the frogs, right? Then the geckos go for the flies. So prey and predators come wherever there is food right?

21:08: If there is food for say, you chuck some mango outside, right? A rat will come to eat it. Following the rat, maybe a snake will come. Lost in translation….seeing the gecko and a snake another lizard may come. Seeing that a snake may come right? So it’s a circle and if it is near your home why wouldn’t that animal come?

And there are also some wood piles or thin sheets lying around. It’s a perfect habitat for reptiles to live in. Where am I finding these snakes? Under thin sheets, in wood piles you know because sadly the locals are dumping all these things. So the day before, there was a rat snake under a pile of wood. I literally removed it from one pile of wood and I put it in the next pile of wood. Haha, What do I do? That’s all. Because there is so much clutter around there is no option right it’s the same principle anywhere more clutter around more hiding spots, more prey base, more reptiles.

Lalitha Krishnan:

22:02 Nariman, thanks for that. Let’s move on. So have you ever been bitten by a snake?

Nariman Vazifdar:

22:18: Yeah, I’ve never been bitten by a venomous snake because I always, of course, it’s been lucky, but safety is my priority for myself and the snakes. If I feel like this is… also all snakes don’t need to be caught, like I said. I’m only doing this when it is in a place where there’s a snake in someone’s home. I will not just catch a snake if I don’t have equipment. I will take my hooks, my snake pads, tubes, whatever I need, I will wear boots. Whenever I need to go for a snake rescue, I ensure I have all my things with me. Even if the locals tell me it’s a non-venomous snake, I will judge it only when I see the snake. So many times, it’s a rat snake and I’ve gone with all my gear and then I pick it up. But yes, because I can identify venomous and non-venomous species, non-venomous snakes, yes, I have been bitten a few times. But there’s not much to learn from getting bitten. That’s why I have to figure out what because, I know for a fact, that it is a non-venomous snake. On getting bitten: let’s say, everyone asks how much does it hurt? Of course, it’s basic sense. Smaller snakes hurt less; larger snakes hurt more. Like say, if you get bitten by a non-venomous wolf snake, it hurts a little bit.

23:36: Maybe not even, not even one drop of blood will come out. But if you get bitten by, say, a python, it could even tear your skin. You may even need stitches if it bites you back that badly. You know, you could even cut an artery, you know? So yes, it is… even smaller snakes could hurt you. If it bites you and cuts one of your arteries in your hands. Once it’s happened that more than once–and all of us who do this have experienced it– snakes sometimes when they bite us, their teeth break off in our hands.

24:12: That’s why we tell people, if the snake is biting you, don’t pull the snake off. Because A, the teeth break, the teeth will regrow on the snake. But it is painful for the snake.] Understand, even the snake has emotions, right? Just because it’s not like a mammal or a bird, it can’t speak out. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t get hurt. And, more than that, sometimes these teeth break off and they go into our skin, into our epidermis… And then the small wound heals, but this tooth is left in our hands or feet or wherever in our body. And of course, it’s a foreign body. Imagine a foreign particle in your body now, right? So, your body slowly, slowly starts pushing it out. And, like once the tooth got stuck in my finger hand somewhere, it was when it was coming out quite naturally, it was hitting one of my veins. So, it’s really painful. You know, and then you literally have to kind of dig into it and pull it out. You know? So, sadly, all of this is sad, it happens.

25:13: But like, again, going back to your question, I’ve not been bitten by a venomous snake ever. Again, safety, (lost in translation) It does happen. I have friends who are super careful, more careful than I am. It does happen that they have gotten bit. It’s also, you get over-complacent, you know, over-confident. You really need to be in the potential, now you know what you’re doing. You’re like, “Ah, I’ll just go and take this cobra out ……… (lost in translation). And that is bad. And that’s where this happens sadly. Right. Yeah. And we are seeing this more and more often lately.

25:47: So like when we go out looking for snakes, this is what we do. It’s called herping. We go out looking for snakes. We do holidays where we just go out to different places– maybe even abroad, or even just in India, trying to find reptiles of that age. Great.

26:04: I mean, I didn’t know snakes could grow their teeth back, but I don’t want to test that. You know, you wrote a book called Turtles, Tortoises and Terrapins of India with Sushil Chikhane. So that must have been a really interesting project. Would you like to tell us some more? And what’s the difference between the three to begin with?

Nariman Vazifdar:

26:29: So turtles.. everyone thinks when they see a shelled animal, it’s a turtle. That is the first thing that people come for. Of course, they like the book. There are three… Let’s put it this way.] Tortoises are land animals. Tortoises: are very basic distinguishing keys. Tortoises have feet because they’re land animals. Tortoises’ feet are like elephant feet, exactly like an elephant’s feet, of course, smaller. Tortoises can also swim in the water, but they can’t swim in the sea or they can’t swim in a river. A little bit, yes. Now we’ve realized that tortoises also are getting bigger. They’re getting into water bodies and floating to certain areas. But in a general aspect, tortoises are land animals. They will drown in extended periods. They cannot be swimming in the sea or in, sorry, in a pond or a lake. They will, as soon as you put them there, they will struggle a bit and they will drown.

27:28: So, elephant feet are tortoises. Turtles are two now. Turtles are freshwater turtles that live in streams, rivers, ponds, and wells. And there are marine sea turtles that live in the sea, of course. Again, these two are different as well. I cannot put a freshwater turtle in the sea. It will die. Likewise, a marine turtle cannot be put into freshwater. It will also be needed. it can survive. Yes, when you do a treatment and all, yes, you can manage to clean it out to do this. But generally, it needs to live in the sea.

Lalitha Krishnan:

Okay. Just like most river fish and sea fish.

Nariman Vazifdar:

28:10: Yeah. Exactly. River fish and marine fish. Exactly. But they are very simple distinguishing features between a freshwater turtle and a marine turtle. Freshwater turtles, in between their toes, have like a duck’s webbed feet. So they have duck-webbed feet because they need to swim in the water, right? So, their toes, in between there’s a webbing and that makes it a turtle.

28:38: A freshwater turtle, a marine turtle has completely different legs, let’s call them legs, structure. They don’t have those toes. They have fins,… flippers. Right? So as you see, it’s a very, very different structure compared to a freshwater turtle.

22:57: The third one, which everyone gets confused about, which is a terrapin, is basically a river turtle that can also survive in brackish water. Brackish water means where the mangrove area, let’s put it that way, where fresh and saltwater meet. So some turtle species can survive in that water as well. They’re not going in the sea, but they can survive in fresh water and this brackish mangrove area.

Lalitha Krishnan:

29:24: So even in the Sundarbans and all, you’ll find them?

Nariman Vazifdar:

29:28: Yes. Predominantly, that is correct. In the Sundarbans, there is a specific species called a Batagur baska that lives in that area. Okay

Lalitha Krishnan:

29:36: Yes. So basically, those with feet on land and the rest more or less in mostly water.

Nariman Vazifdar: Mostly water. Yes.

Lalitha Krishnan:

29:45: Thanks. Do you want to tell me more about your project, and your book?

Nariman Vazifdar:

29:52: So, the book was with me and Sushil because I did a lot of… I used to work with Turtle Survival Alliance. I worked as a freshwater turtle biologist and I understood turtles and there was a lack… Always, everyone in the reptile world is inclined towards, say, snakes, crocodiles, and lizards. Very few people are inclined towards turtles. It was the same with me as well. We found turtles boring, snow sluggish, not dangerous, just you know, like OK, whatever. But once I started doing this work I realised that wow turtles are really interesting. They have character. They have personality. They are stunning. Some of the turtles like the one I used to study were called Red-crowned roof turtles or (Batagur kachuga). It is absolutely a stunning animal. The males have yellows, reds, and blues on their faces. It looks like a lot of people have asked me when I showed them a photo of this male turtle in breeding colours. If I’ve painted this turtle.

30:54 It is that vibrant, you know, and a very cool animal. The ecology of turtles, especially river turtles is something else and some of them are giants, like serious giants and just tough to catch. Because, we used to put transmitters, you know, a lot of stuff we had permits for. Sometimes they are tougher to catch than snakes, you know, more tough, you know. So, like we always thought turtles or sluggish. Everyone thinks turtles are sluggish. But when some of those turtles want to go, they are going and you cannot stop them. Yeah, it is mad. It is a very, very interesting area to live in and to understand how this works. So, there was no book like a field guide. You know there’s always field guides for say, birds to snakes. But again, like I said because turtles are this topic of “No, it’s OK, not many people interested,” we thought it is the need of the hour to have a turtle book out there you know. And there are books, there are flip cards but not a lot of field guides which cover even marine species. So yes, it took some time. We did this during COVID, and it took about a year and a half to two years to basically complete this book.

Lalitha Krishnan:

32:11: Fantastic

Nariman Vazifdar:

32:12: It was a fun learning experience as well of course.

Lalitha Krishnan:

32:13 Well, Narman, we are down to question 9. And so, I was wondering if you could share a little bit about the Bulletwood Tree that you know showed us in that forest by the beach. It was just so beautiful. Would you like to give us some information about that? I’m so fascinated.

Nariman Vazifdar:

32:40: Oh certainly. So, the bullet wood tree is a predominant tree of the Andamans. It is called Sea-mahua. It is not the mahua of Madhya Pradesh where you get liquor from the flowers. This is completely different. Even the scientific name is different. This is more of a littoral forest basically which means it grows by the seashore like we saw right? You see the giant trees in the sand. These trees could be 5/600 800 years old, extremely hardwood trees. So when we walk through the forest of Havelock or any of the Andaman Islands, you are noticing a lack of termite mounds. There are termite mounds of course, but a lack of termite mounds considering the fact that this is a rainforest. It’s not a rainforest like say the Western guards of India or South America. But nevertheless, it’s still a rainforest and these trees are very tall like we saw 130- 150 feet tall trees.

33:44 Few termite mounds because the termites can’t fully make holes in these trees. It is very interesting. Forget the living trees; we get cyclonic weather, trees rot, trees fall down. The termites we have noticed… Yes of course they try getting onto the trees. They do get onto the trees but they give up and they go away. I feel that this wood is too hard for the termites to make holes. We get another insect called the wood borer. Yes, that sometimes makes holes, but it is also found in Madhya Pradesh, but not like the damage it does to the sal trees of Madhya Pradesh where it kills the trees. It doesn’t manage it. Maybe it eats into the other trees, which is OK; the coconuts, the supari trees, you know? But I think the hardwood trees of the Andamans are something else.

34:37: Here, there is also a wood called superior wood. You know like we were taught of hard softwood hardwood. There is superior wood you know which is extremely hard where you can’t put a nail into it at times easily you know. So even the sea-mahua or the bullet wood which is called, initially they would burn the base and cut it with an axe. Now they use a chainsaw. The chain saw takes a couple of hours to cut a tree you know? It is incredible. But also, I read somewhere that when the British … the tribes… of course the history of the Andaman, sadly is not nice. It is very you know… a lot of unfortunate events that led to the British being here, or them treating the tribes very ruthlessly. Japan was here. The same kind of history again repeated itself. But interestingly the tribes had laid a trap for the British and someone told the British about this trap. If the tribes imagine if the tribals had won this battle against the British we may not have been here right now, right?

35:44: History would have been different, yeah. But apparently, they made shields out of this wood. I think I read some of the old books somewhere. They made shields out of the tree and they thought that it would stop bullets. Of course, it can’t stop bullets. It can’t stop cannonballs. So, the tribe literally got decimated in this action. But interestingly, it could also be called the Andaman Bullet Wood because they thought that it could stop bullets.

Lalitha Krishnan:

36:11: Having seen the tree I am in awe of it.

Nariman Vazifdar:

36:15: Yeah.

Lalitha Krishnan:

36:18: Nariman my last question to you and I ask this of all, my guests is, do you mind sharing a word or a concept or you know, that will help us that’ll add to our understanding of the ecology of the Andaman Islands.

Nariman Vazifdar:

36:34: Yeah, so like it’s the same thing. Like not just the just let’s say that’s not the Andaman Islands. The change happens in islands, not just with the flora, but with the fauna happening at a faster rate than in mainland any larger space, right? So, let’s just put it like I said, the problem with let’s say Havelock is it is a touristy island. The only source of income that the Andaman Islands as a whole has is tourism. But sadly, we don’t have sustainable tourism on the islands. There are rules, there are regulations, but again, it’s India…we don’t really follow any of these things. A lot of resorts are now claiming to be eco resorts and green resorts, but it is not possible. It is not humanly possible to have an eco-resort without, you know, damaging the environment. So, this is just like a little thing they put up, put a nice website out and say we are an eco resort and we are saving the environment. But actually, none of that exists,

37:48

Not just here but anywhere, even just say Tiger resorts right? Where everyone is claiming to be an eco-resort, it is not possible. We generate waste, we consume electricity. You know, it is not possible to have an eco-resort basically around us unless you are using solar panels, you are doing water harvesting, you know you’re putting groundwater back, you know you are not creating any waste, which is humanly not possible if you are running a property. Basically, no matter what, all the resorts, no, no resort, all the resorts will tell you all the big resorts will tell you that “we are doing eco management and waste management.” It is all just rubbish, sadly.

Lalitha Krishnan:

38:28: I can imagine.

Nariman Vazidar: Yes, of course, islands get… Now sadly, where was this? Where do you think this waste is going? Right? Island ecology gets damaged very fast. We are not seeing this race. I myself am producing waste, right? We are cooking. I have a dog. He needs milk. It needs XYZ Right? Even myself, right? We all have to buy stuff to survive, right? So, on a small island with a population say 5000 living over here, now so many of us characters from the mainland live here permanently. Plus there are some 3-4000 tourists a day on this island. So, if 3-4000 people plus 15,000 or 10,000 people need to eat every day, imagine the waste of 10 -15,000 people a day on 135 or 113 square kilometre island? So now we have a dumping yard, a landfill on an island, imagine? Where they’re just, we’re just burning the waste. It’s like when facilities are poor, infrastructure is poor, right? I thought that the hotels would come up, you know, take their waste back, do something. But no, sadly, no one does these things, including the big chains, Forget the small boutique resorts and the big chains do not really give a *&^. Like, the small ones are really not bothered about anything.

39:51: So this is what happens, right? Like, as a tourist, you are not seeing the impact that tourism has. Don’t get me wrong, everyone’s income depends on tourism. But there is a way of doing this where – see like in a tiger reserve right? They have only XYZ numbers.. like so many numbers of jeeps can enter. The tiger is yeah, one time had a system like that somewhere, you know where you only have so many people on an island per day. Let them stay longer– absolutely fine. But don’t have so many ferries coming in and out like groundwater. Why? What is the natural resource of an island? The freshwater we have, the fresh water is already getting depleted, right? We are seeing tankers come to Havelock already right? This is so– where I live– is a little bit low lying. The mangroves are 20 minutes away from me,

40:44: Yesterday when I came back to take a shower, I could smell the mangroves. You know, like in the kitchen, you know, it’s like that ammonia water, that nitrogen fixation that the mangroves do. You can smell it. And it’s not summer, summer. Summer just started. But now the islands are not getting a break? After COVID, all the hotels are doing this, not giving the island a break. Greed sadly has become a very big part of the islands where everyone is opening… Hotels are opening as we speak… so groundwater gets tapped, and water is getting reduced. It will become a problem later on in life, which a lot of these people are not seeing right now. Havelock is blessed. We have waterfalls, we have streams, but right now it’s all dry. There is not too much water because yeah, the water is drying out, absolutely. The waterfall which I went to last night is completely dried out. There’s no water.

Lalitha Krishnan:

41:45: That’s depressing. We don’t see all this. Thanks for opening our eyes. I have one more last question. You know, you also spoke up about diesel buses when we were there.

Nariman Vazifdar:

42:00: Yeah, so, the main grid of the island is a diesel generator. But now we have electric buses over here. So the diesel generator–they burn diesel to convert it into electricity to run the electric bus. It is the most absurd thing. This is sustainability apparently. This is what and this is just like done and like there is –no everyone here just thinking this stupid thing to do, right? So, we have local buses, you know? There are local buses, and local transportation. Why burn diesel to convert it to electricity to put it in electric buses and say that we are doing “green” or whatever the rubbish that is called? You know?

42:47: It’s like this is the thing that we are doing just for the namesake of doing it. We are lost in translation. So now, of course, there should be a bus, a charging station, a bus. You know, all these things have to be put up on the island now.

Lalitha Krishnan:

43:00: Food for thought. Lots of food for thought. Thank you so much.

Nariman Vazifdar:

43:06: My pleasure.

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It’s not every day a yet-to-hatch cuttlefish stares back at you through its thin egg membrane. Listen to Shaunak Modi unravel the marine wonders of Mumbai. Ep#26

January 30, 2022February 27, 2024 ~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ Leave a comment

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Show notes (Edited)

0:05 Lalitha Krishnan: Hi there, thanks for listening in to Season 4 episode 26 of Heart of Conservation. I’m Lalitha Krishnan, `bringing you stories from the wild that keep us connected with the natural world. You can read the show notes for this podcast episode on my blog Earthy Matters. Today I’m to speaking to Shaunak Modi. Shaunak is the co-founder and director of Coastal Conservation Foundation and a key member of Marine Life of Mumbai. He speaks of being a nature photographer in the past tense but I keep seeing his splendid photographs on social media. Do check them out.

Shaunak has worked in the wilderness travel space where he founded his startup, Naturenama.

I’ve been wanting to have you on Heart of Conservation for so long. Finally, it’s happened. So, thank you sincerely for making the time. And a very warm welcome to you.

Shaunak Modi: Thank you Lalitha for having me.

0:15 Lalitha Krishnan: Shaunak, you studied amphibians but your work and passion now have taken you to the source – the ocean. Tell us how that happened.

0:24 Shaunak Modi: OK. I didn’t study amphibians, I studied herpetology at Bombay Natural History Society (BHNS). That was another lifetime it feels like now. I have been going to forests for more than a decade now. And, there was a little hesitation whenever I came across a snake. What I realised was I would need to know them better I would need to not have that discomfort and I wanted to learn more about them. That is why I studied herpetology. So, that’s how that happened.

Then for a very long time, I was associated one way or the other with the wildlife community. I have been doing photography for a very long time. I also had a news website called ‘Project (lost in translation)? where I used to share wildlife news. That went on for almost 6 years before I shut it down. After Project Bhiwan, I was also working. I was in the wildlife travel space, that was where my work was; along with which there was a whale stranding that had happened in Mumbai and that was my introduction to the sea.

A lot has happened since and I’m sure we will have that conversation later in the podcast but that is how I am where I am today.

1: 40 Lalitha Krishnan: Alright, thanks. It’s very interesting to me to see that you’ve plotted a map of whale strandings. I’m not sure if this is the first of its kind in India of stranded/beached marine life. Why don’t you tell us more about this map?

1:58 Shaunak Modi: Yes. So, in fact, that was what I was talking about earlier. In 2016, there was a Bryde whale that had beached on Juhu beach. I was there. I had spent a considerable amount of time on the beach that night because 1) out of the fascination of seeing a whale for the first time in my life and 2) because there was some crowd control that needed to be done and I was just helping with that. And, you know, when a creature of this size washes ashore, you would expect it to cause, you know, to be a topic of discussion. Especially in a community of wildlife enthusiasts and conservationists. But what I realised back then was that beyond the news that is 24 hours or 48 hours after that beaching, there was not a blip. I did not hear anything about it in the conservation community, largely the terrestrial conservation community. That’s when I realised that if something like this can happen and go without being noticed, I just wanted to see how often it happens. I started following news articles and news stories about whale and dolphin strandings happening across the country and I started mapping them. I did that for a year and realised that there was a considerable amount of activity that was happening. What I did not know is that the marine biologists and the marine scientific researcher community were already mapping this. So, clearly, I was not the first one to do it. There’s a wonderful website that has been documenting sightings and strandings for a very, very long time. It’s called the Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Network of India. And, the website is marinemammals.in. It’s been there since 2008. And, there is a database of strandings that is happening there. But, like I’m saying, you know, there’s sometimes a sort of echo chamber when it comes to conservation because there is so much to be done, so much happening that within the terrestrial conservation community, talk of anything beyond forests and big cats rarely makes a blip. That was exactly what I was going through. I was in an echo chamber of my own at that time and I had no idea these things existed. So that’s how I started mapping it but eventually, I realised that it wasn’t really a useful thing because this website already had all that data. But what that did was also sort of, inculcate this interest in me to know more about this ecosystem and this habitat that I had no idea existed.

But, like I’m saying, you know, there’s sometimes a sort of echo chamber when it comes to conservation because there is so much to be done, so much happening that within the terrestrial conservation community, talk of anything beyond forests and big cats rarely makes a blip.
–Shaunak Modi

4:54: Lalitha Krishnan: It’s amazing what’s out there and how little we know. There are apps where citizens can report road kills of all wildlife. We have, correct me if I’m wrong, around 6000km of coastline. Do you think a similar app can be created for marine life? Especially for marine life?

5:21 Shaunak Modi: See, again, the equivalent to a road-kill for marine life would be strandings and since this website already exists, I think it’s a great national database. There are a lot of researchers who are a part of it, there are a lot of people who contribute data to it. Rather than having another app, it would be great if people would contribute to this website. No one really owns this data so to speak. But it does help to keep everything in one place. There is no point having different silos-so to speak- for something like this because it’s always very helpful if everything is being co-related in one place. This website is a great place instead of an app. Hopefully someday if something happens an app can be made for this website perhaps–I don’t know—that would depend on the people who are in charge.

6:20 Lalitha Krishnan: Yes, I feel there are too many (apps) for birds but you’re right. If it’s all in one place then it would make absolute sense and accessibility also would be easier for everyone involved.

6:33 Shaunak Modi: For sure. eBird is a great example of that. I mean there is so much data that one gets by just by visiting ebird. You can search by species; you can search by national park or you can search by your own neighbourhood and see which birds are found there or documented from there. And, it’s not like eBird is saying, “We own this data.” You know, the data is still contributed by people, by citizens, by enthusiasts and wild lifers. It’s great that something like this already exists. It makes sense not to add more to it.

7:07 Lalitha Krishnan: Yes. So, CCF’s flagship project Marine life of Mumbai has become very popular. What exactly is the focus here and what citizen science activities do you’ll undertake?

7:23 Shaunak Modi: I’d like to say something here CCF, that’s Coastal Conservation Foundation came much after MLOM was there. Marine Life of Mumbai, for the first three years of its existence, was a collective. We were a bunch of people who came together from various backgrounds and we started working in different capacities doing different things with the single aim of basically sending out a message to … Our aim was to do outreach and familiarise the people to a very lesser-known side of Mumbai. So, outreach, again, was the main objective of the project.

So, it was started by Pradip Patade, Abhisek Jamalabad and Siddharth Chakravarthy in 2017. They started conducting shore walks. It’s basically like a nature trail but 2on a beach, during low tide so you can see the animals that live there. Along with shore walks, they also started uploading photographs to social media and that’s how a lot of people came to know that animals like this live in the city, with whom they share their natural spaces. That’s been one of the main aims of MLOM. It continues to be one of the main aims but what started happening was that we were collecting so much data. Because there were a lot of wildlife photographers even in the group. We were constantly taking photos.

8:50 What we started realising is that the things we were photographing were not documented before. So, we decided to have an open-access database. That is the second side of Marine Life of Mumbai, the first being outreach. The second is data gathering. So, we have a project on our website called iNatularist.org It’s a global database of enthusiasts, researchers, scientists…I mean it’s a mixed bag of people who are on the website. What we decided is, again, like I told you earlier, is instead of having our own database hosted on our own website, we started contributing all of our data to that website. So, we created a project there called Marine Life of Mumbai and started uploading everything to that and started getting help from across the world trying to ID things. If not help we started getting pointers as to how we should click a photograph, what we should look for in an animal to ID it… we got a lot of help from the scientific and non-scientific community from across the world. That was again, 2018; the start of 2018 was when we started uploading our data there and today, we have more than 41/2 thousand observations of about 500 odd species., just from the Mumbai metropolitan region. That’s where we are.

10:21 Again you asked what the aim of Marine Life of Mumbai was? One is to familiarise the people with the marine life of the city and the second was to document it in a structured way and also have all of this data that we have accumulated open access so that anybody could make use of it.

10:40 Lalitha Krishnan: So, this outreach programme and data gathering, the documentation… Do you think all this is the secret of MLOM’s success? What do you think? Also, you mentioned around 500 odd species, right? Tell us some of this.

Cuttlefish at Juhu beach – photographed on the shores of Mumbai

11:00 Shaunak Modi: If you’re going to ask me what the secret of MLOM or what its success is, I would flat out say the people. After the three of them started MLOM, people started gathering. Some stayed, some didn’t. But there was a very strong group of about 13 people. We were all just enamoured by our shoreline. We come from various backgrounds. There are editors, there are scientists, there are artists, there are water sports instructors; I come from a travel background… All of us are from various backgrounds but we were just united by our love for marine life and curiosity. We were just curious about the shoreline. That’s what brought us all together. For me, that would be the main reason why we succeeded. Because everybody was giving it everything they had and that’s how you end up with something so nice.

12:03 And if you were to ask me about species, I would like to be clear here that these are not species that are washed ashore dead or stranded like the dolphins or the whales we spoke of earlier. Our work is mainly in the intertidal zone. That is basically the part of the shoreline which is underwater during high tide and exposed to air during low tide. And, this is a highly dynamic ecosystem where you have a lot of animals that live right here.

So, you have, from the smallest ones being snails and clams that people are familiar with, you have octopuses, you have cnidarians(??) like zoanthids. Cnidarians are the same group of animals in which jellyfish are. So, you have zoanthids, you have coral—you have a lot of coral in Mumbai. This is something that no one really thought of you know, earlier? You have all sorts of things—the smallest animal being a few millimetres to the largest one being a couple of feet large. You find a lot of stuff here.

13:14 Lalitha Krishnan: It’s amazing that there was no record in the public domain of the marine life of Mumbai before MLOM started documenting it. What is the most amazing thing you have photographed on Mumbai’s shores? Or what has been the most fascinating thing you’ve seen?

13:33: Shaunak Modi: OK. There has been some research done from the city. One of the oldest and seniormost marine biologists in India, Dr Chappgar was based out of Mumbai and there has been some work done but all of that exists in scientific journals. What I meant when I said there is no work in the public domain is that there was nothing accessible to the people. People did not know. So, if you were to ask anybody about the wildlife of the city, the first thing people would talk about was Sanjay Gandhi National Park which is great because here you have a city which is filled to the brim with people and then you have a park right in the middle of it where leopards roam. You don’t see this everywhere in the world you know? That’s great and you have a lot of wetland spots where you have wetland birds which come every winter. You have some spots where you can see a lot of wildlife in the city but there is something that has been completely ignored all this while and that was the marine life. Again, it’s because this is so unfamiliar. Not a lot of people thought that they should go out looking for marine life.

So, ever since I was a kid, I’ve lived in Juhu OK? It’s a suburb. An area very close to the Juhu beach—that’s a very famous beach in the city—and I had never thought that there would be marine life here. In fact, the first time I saw, came across the Marine life of Mumbai’s Instagram account, and then shared some photographs taken in Juhu, there was disbelief. “No this can’t here”. Because, you know, in Mumbai, in the last 20 odd years, there has been such a strong narrative around the pollution and the sewage and the dirt and the beaches being dirty….the beaches need cleanups. While all of that is true, despite all the stress that the ecosystem is under, there is a thriving ecosystem right there. And that is the fascinating thing for me. These are not ideal conditions. And this is not a beautiful island on the Pacific where you walk on a very clean white beach and you happen to come across a coral reef or a coral.

You know, in Mumbai, in the last 20 odd years, there has been such a strong narrative around the pollution and the sewage and the dirt and the beaches being dirty….the beaches need cleanups. While all of that is true, but despite all the stress that the ecosystem is under, there is a thriving ecosystem right there.
-Shaunak Modi

15:57 Here there are areas, I don’t know if you are familiar with it, we have a very old dargah in the city called the Haji Ali dargah. It’s a little bit into the sea and there’s a pathway which leads to the dargah but on either side of the pathway is a rocky shore. And on some days when the tide is low enough and you go there—in fact, I have taken a video because I find it extremely fascinating—that you look down and you see corals; and you look up and you see the dargah. And you look in another direction you’ll probably see 1000 people walking to and from the dargah. Where else would you find something like this? And all this while, it’s sort of being hidden in plain sight. So that is the mind-blowing part for me.

Arabian carpet shark from Napean Sea Road

16:53 Again you asked me what I find fascinating or what is something I have photographed that has been fascinating? If you had asked me this last year, or before last year, I would have said that I happened to be walking on one of the shores and I happened to walk by a shark which was in a tide pool.

Lalitha Krishnan: Did you say tidepool?

Shaunak Modi: A tidepool, yes. OK, it’s not a large shark, it’s called the Arabian Carpet Shark. It’s a smaller species of shark that are found in the shore waters. But even then, to walk and reach a place where there is a shark in the water, it’s not something you say every day. It’s not a sentence you would say every day. But that was before last year.

Last year, between the lockdowns in the city we happened to go to Juhu beach which again, is a very crowded beach and just by the tideline, there was this bunch of black grapelike things. This is something that is seasonally found around this time in the city – a lot of cuttlefish which are similar to octopuses and squids. It’s an animal; they come and they lay their eggs on the beach. So, if you happen to walk on the beach when the tide is low enough, you can actually just walk up to those eggs. So last year a group of us happened to walk and we saw these eggs and we waited there. And there was this moment when I was taking pictures of the eggs and I am looking down at it, shining a light on it and this tiny baby which has not even hatched yet looked back at me.

Lalitha Krishnan: What a thing to happen. Fantastic.

Unhatched cuttlefish looking through its egg membrane at the photographer, Shaunak Modi.

So last year a group of us happened to walk and we saw these eggs and we waited there. And there was this moment when I was taking pictures of the eggs and I am looking down at it, shining a light on it and this tiny baby which has not even hatched yet looked back at me.-Shaunak Modi

Shaunak Modi: Yes, from within the egg. I have a photograph of it. I am not doing the sighting justice just by talking about it but something in me sort of changed at that time. And then, a few minutes after that, we saw some of them hatch. And when the tide came in, they just went into the sea. So again, not a lot of ecosystems…there aren’t too many times when you get to witness something like this. And when you do, it sort of changes you in some ways, you know? It’s a very personal thing, it may not mean the same to someone else but to me, that is the most fascinating thing and the most amazing thing I have photographed and seen in the city.

19:32: Lalitha Krishnan: That’s the most amazing thing I’ve heard happen to somebody on the shores of Mumbai. That’s your reward I think for being persistent, doing what you do to conserve the shoreline. It’s truly amazing. It’s also amazing that all of this marine life exists and survives when we can barely handle bad air quality. So Shaunak, is there a good time or better season for spotting marine life?

20:11 Shaunak Modi: I think other than the monsoon months, once it starts raining there’s not much point in going tide pooling, because you won’t see too much. But other than that, I think the shores are open throughout the year.

There are a lot of changes that happen seasonally. There are some things that you will only see in winter for example, the cuttlefish eggs that I spoke about. Similarly, there are squid eggs that happen during the winter months. So, those are seasonal. Other than that, I think, pretty much throughout the year, you can easily go tide pooling and see a bunch of animals. But along with that, you need to remember that a large part of the shore will open up only for a few days a month.

There is something called Spring tides and Neap tides. Neap tides are essentially the time of the month when the difference in the high tide and low tide is very less. So, a large part of the shore will probably be underwater. And during spring tides, the difference between the high tide and the low tide is much greater. So, the days of spring tide is when we go for tide pooling. So, I think other than that, seasons don’t really matter but you need to have a good tide. Any tide which is below, maybe 0.07 mts. on your tide chart or the tide app that you may check is a good tide for Mumbai.

20:30: Lalitha Krishnan: So, one should actually check the tide chart to have a better idea.

Shaunak Modi: Yes.

21:26 Lalitha Krishnan: OK great. What photographic equipment does one need for intertidal photography?

21:42 Shaunak Modi: I am so happy that you asked me this. Nothing. Your phone is enough. Again, it depends on the kind of photographs you want to take but we regularly have participants on your shore walks who have brought just their phones and taken beautiful photographs. I am also, increasingly taking more and more photos with my phone…unless you want a really macro photograph of a really tiny animal, you will need an SLR with a microlens but other than that, a point and shoot camera or your mobile phone are good enough. These days you even get macro lenses just for your mobile phone, you know, the clip one ones. So, with that, you can come out with really, really great photos and videos. So yeah, I don’t think you need much.

22:27 Lalitha Krishnan: That’s heartening to hear. Who wants to lug around stuff when you can do so much with so little? Perfect.

Shaunak Modi:

22:38 Lalitha Krishnan: I liked exploring the interactive map on your CCF website with all the popup photos and information. What is the CCF team busy with these days?

22:52 Shaunak Modi: Yes. So, that was part of the Confluence exhibit we did with Mumbai Water Narratives. The whole idea was to do a virtual shore walk for people. This happened during the lockdown so anyway, we could not go out, nor see the shore. So, Abhishek and Sarang, who were part of this project decided to do, a virtual shore where all three types of ecosystems that you find near the intertidal were close to each other and you would find an illustrated map – done by Gaurav. And, you click on an animal and you get more information about it and also the photograph. Again, the idea here was to familiarise people who are one, either not in Mumbai or at that time, could not go to the shore to see and probably learn more about what this intertidal zone is or what type of marine life Mumbai has, and things like that.

And what we are busy with now?

22:54 So CCF essentially was started by a few members of the MLOM collective. It was started to scale up MLOM’s work and have a more sustained impact. That is what we are working on right now. The main focus areas, for us, is outreach, research, education and citizen science. And within that, we are taking the work that we have done as a collective—that’s MLOM—and we are trying to scale it up to different cities, scaling it up to different audiences. We are constantly trying to find newer ways to get more people, to appreciate, and become ambassadors for marine life. That’s pretty much what we are doing.

24:38 Lalitha Krishnan: I enjoyed reading the water narratives project e about the old water fountains of Mumbai. We’ve always seen it but one never thinks of it. And, also the bhistees as the water carriers were called in a time before pipes. We so take tap water for granted. Tell us about your other two projects the Coastwise Marine Festival and Inhabited Sea.

25:11 Shaunak Modi: Sure. Yes, I’ll start with Inhabited Sea. It’s a wonderful project. I had an opportunity to work with a great group of people. What we were doing is essentially documenting Mumbai’s waters, basically the coastal areas and the sea in different ways, different aspects. There were architecture students, architecture professors who were doing it from their perspective. There’s Nikhil Anand whose project it was- he’s a professor at the University of Pennslyvania- who was looking at the artisanal fishing that happens in Mumbai. Sejal and I were representing Marine Life of Mumbai and of course, we were documenting the biodiversity bit of it. All of our projects are on a website called Inhabited Sea.org That was that project.

26:03 Coastwise is something we came up with. We’ve done 3 editions of this festival so far in three years. It’s a festival that is co-organised by CCF, the Mangrove Foundation which is a foundation of the mangrove cell of the Forest department of Maharashtra, and WWF India. So, the idea here was to again, create a festival that sort of familiarises people with different marine ecosystems. While our work at MLOM has mostly to do with the intertidal zone, as an extension, of course, there is marine life-but here, the idea was to do it at scale. So, we have a month-long festival in February. We do it every year when we host different events. Like there’s an art workshop, a photography workshop… Of course, the theme of all of this is to do with marine life in some way. We also host an annual photo competition which is a marine photo competition for photographers from across the country. We also do flamingo boat rides, mangrove walks… we also do walks at the fish….. centres in different cities. We started this a couple of years ago and started just in Mumbai and it has sort of grown. We’ve had more states, we’ve had our partners in different states come and be partners in the festival. And we’ve had ………………..(lost in translation) walks in Chennai. We’ve had shore walks in Goa as part of the festival. This year unfortunately we’ve had to delay the festival because of the current third wave that’s happening but hopefully, at the end of the year, we’ll have the festival with even more states. That’s what Coastwise is.

27:56 Lalitha Krishnan: There’s so much one can do with people from so many different fields coming together. Really interesting. I hope you get more people joining you next time.

Your website has a lot of resources as well for those who are interested. Would you like to talk about that?

28:13 Shaunak Modi: Sure. On the MLOM website, we have a Tide Chart. Of course, it needs to be updated for 2022—I’ll do it soon—but that has the low tides and the high tides for each month of the year so that people can plan their shore walks around it. We’ve also created small guides for different shores in Mumbai where it has illustrations and information about the most common animals you ought to see on the shore. So, anyone who wants to explore can download them, make use of them. We also have a lot of photographs that we’ve taken and under those photographs, there’s information about it. About what the animal is, where it is found, what its habitat is. This is also something that we do on our Instagram and Facebook accounts. We have a post every week about a different animal. We talk about what makes it interesting, where it is found, again, what its habitat is, how big is it? Things like that. All that can be found on our website, it can also be found on our social media accounts and that’s part of the digital outreach

30:11 Lalitha Krishnan: Fantastic. Do you have any advice for young or old citizens (because I think we are never too old to learn) who have never seen the marine life of Mumbai?

30:24 Shaunak Modi: Just pick a day with a good low tide. There are a lot of apps today which tell you what time the low tide is. An hour before that time, just go out on the shore. Whether it’s Juhu beach, Girgaon Chowpatty, whether it’s Carter Road in Bandra, it’s Bandstand in Bandra, it’s Haji Ali, just go out and look down. And, all of this marine life is right there.

30:49 We do walks every month. You can come and join us. We will show you around, we’ll explain what you’re looking at. Again, my personal goal is to make tide pooling a—and this is also what other people in the group want to do—our goal is to make tide -pooling like birding. People wake up on the weekend, pick up their cameras, binoculars and go birding. We would like to make tide pooling that. It’s an activity that you can do on your own, it does not cost money, you don’t have to travel for it. There are no tickets to be bought. You literally have to put on your shoes, go out on a shore, look down and you will see much marine life. It’s not limited. We have a 71/2 1000 km coastline in the country. And, there’s marine life everywhere. So, it’s one of those ecosystems where you don’t really need guides.

Of course, there will be times when you don’t really understand what you’re looking at because here you have plants that look like animals, animals that look like plants…it’s a mixed bag of things. I think it’s a great activity to do on your own. I would request people to go out and if they’ve seen something they don’t know what they see, they can send it to us, they can send it to me personally. I will help them ID, explain what they are looking out for. Yeah, just go out and go to the shore.

32:19 Lalitha Krishnan: It’s a whole different world from what we’re used to. Most of us are not used to it.

32:26 Shaunak Modi: You know Lalitha, there’s actually a reason why it’s gone like this for so long. Because there is no familiarity. This is why, as part of MLOM’s education pillar and now CCF’s education pillar, what we’re doing is also constantly going to schools and colleges, and giving presentations to very young students. If you look at other countries, for example, Australia. There’s a very strong beach culture in many of the cities there, right? Even in parts of the US, it’s like that. Even in parts of the United Kingdom, it’s like that. And, you’ll find this on a lot of pacific islands also. It’s not limited to these developed countries. Here we don’t have that.

For a very long time, even for me, I would associate Juhu beach with food. It’s not the kind of association that you’d make with an ecosystem. So, we really want kids to have a different mindset about it while they’re doing it/growing up. So, we take them on the shore, we show them all of this. We do presentations with a lot of photographs, with a lot of videos. We want to sort of pass on the message to them that there is something that is beyond our forests. I love my trips to the forests but you don’t always get a chance to do that. You probably take one or two holidays a year. Most of us do at least. But here you have an opportunity to –even if you have an hour or even half an hour before class—and you’re close to a beach just walk down. You’ll definitely see something. That’s the idea we want to familiarise people with. That this really exists and exists everywhere. And we want people from other cities to have their own MLOs. By MLOs, I mean Marine Life Of… and their own city. It’s not that we want to go there and create, we want them to have that. We’ll of course help them. We made some mistakes in the last few years and we’ve learnt a lot. We’re ready to share all of that information with them but it would be nice if groups or individuals or organisations came forward and sort of want to create their own collectives in their own city.

34:45 Lalitha Krishnan: And take ownership for what’s theirs. It’s their land, their backyard.

Shaunak Modi: That’s exactly why we don’t want to do it. It’s not our backyard. So, while we may be able to do it, we really need a partner who is local, because that is how these things should be.

35:07 Lalitha Krishnan: That’s really great. Shaunak, we are almost at the end of our conversation but before I let you go could you share a word or two that’s relevant for you that will improve our seaworthiness.

35:23 Shaunak Modi: I think we should start respecting the sea. There’s a lot that’s going wrong right now with our seas. We always hear about the sea in a negative way. We hear about it more in a negative way than a positive way whether it’s climate change or rising sea levels. There’s a lot that’s happening. Not a lot of it is easy to change or alter or reverse. But I think a good first step would be to respect the sea. Because we are if the sea lets us be. That’s all I would say.

36:00 Lalitha Krishnan: Thanks, Shaunak. That was poignant and relevant, and so interesting. Thank you so much.

Shaunak Modi: Thank you. This was a lovely chat. So much fun.

Shaunak at the shoreline in Mumbai. Photo courtesy Shaunak Modi

36:17 Lalitha Krishnan: I hope you enjoyed listening to Shaunak Modi as much as I have. Do check out CCF links and the whole transcript for this podcast right here on Earthy Matters. You can listen to Heart of Conservation on many platforms. You can also write to me at earthymatters013@gmail.com. I’m Lalitha Krishnan signing off. Till next time stay as safe as possible please and do subscribe for more episodes.

Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.

All photos including podcast cover photo courtesy of Shaunak Modi. Artwork: Lalitha Krishnan

Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.

Know your Bycatch before your Bitcoin. And take a good look at your toothpaste.

December 12, 2017April 16, 2018 ~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ 1 Comment

Lost at sea? Here are ready-mined terms and facts that are easier to comprehend. They might be hard to swallow but follow these leads in the right spirit and we could possibly see some tangible long-term yields across the globe.

Did you know that for every kg of prawn you eat this holiday season approx 6-9 kilos, [sometimes more] other fish and marine species would die in trawler nets? The extra, unintentionally fished marine life called bycatch is discarded dead or dying. Often, these are juvenile species that don’t fetch a price but they definitely pay a huge sum themselves in terms of never reaching maturity or reproducing, thereby reducing their total species population.

OK, so you’re a vegan. But you use plastic.

Get a taste of this. Scientists predict by 2025 the ocean will contain 1 ton of plastic for every 3 tons of fish. Plastics disintegrate very slowly into microplastics (sesame seed sized plastic bits) that move in the ocean, absorb DDT and collect in the currents. The fish, birds and turtles mistake these microplastics for food and bigger fish eat smaller ones. Their bodies can’t rid of the toxins fast enough and it ends quite tragically. This is called Bioaccumulation. It takes place within an organism when the rate of intake of a substance (in this case toxic chemicals) is greater than the rate of excretion or metabolic transformation of that substance.

So what does your exfoliating face wash have anything to do with the price of fish?

Your favoured brand stands out in a shop shelf because it probably contains colourful microbeads (a type of microplastic) or tiny plastic pellets generously added to personal care, cosmetic and household cleaning products like your body scrubs, washing powders. And toothpaste. Teeth feel squeaky clean?You’re a regular at the sea-front promenade. Ever wonder about the mangroves it replaced? Or why storms batter your city annually?

Mangroves reduce wind and high waves as they pass through mangroves, lessening damage during storms. Wide areas of mangroves have been known to reduce tsunami heights. Mangroves are carbon-rich habitats. Their dense roots build up soils, increasing soil thickness that may be crucial as sea levels rise. Mangroves and seagrasses capture carbon monoxide from the atmosphere a hundred times faster than terrestrial forests. Take a deep breath.

It seems appropriate to talk of human-induced Marine Death zones now.

These are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s oceans and large lakes, caused by “excessive nutrient pollution from human activities”. Chemical runoff from our industrial waste, fertilizers and use of fossil fuel to our daily floor cleaners find their way into our rivers and oceans killing massive swathes of fish and marine species. There are 405 identified dead zones worldwide.

Planning a long cruise?

I read that a one-week voyage on a cruise ship with 2, 200 passengers and 800 crewmembers generates 210,000 gallons of sewage and eight tons of garbage. Marine pollution analysts in Germany and Brussels say that such a large ship would probably burn at least 150 tones’ of fuel a day, and emit more sulphur than several million cars, more NO2 (nitrogen dioxide) gas than all the traffic passing through a medium-sized town.

Do take the kids [our future stakeholders] to see a coral reef a.s.a.p. #investintheenvironment