Langtang: A brief Wildlife watch

Langtang National Park, one of the most trekked destination in Nepal. Langtang Himalayan range is shortest distance from Kathmandu for any Himalayan trekking destination. The trek starts at Syafrubesi, or you can alternately start from Dhunche to trek up to Thulo Syafru then down to Bamboo.

The easiest way to reach Syafru is to get a bus from Machchhaa Pokhari Balaju. You might want to book the tickets a day ahead as there are few buses and lots of people travelling daily. Syafrubesi is a small town with plenty of hotels, many more under construction and the resting place for the first day's travel. Next day the trek starts from Syafru as you cross Kerung River and then join Langtang river basin on the right side as you walk below the rocky cliff, the trail is awesome!

We started off with Breakfast at small bakery right after crossing the bridge in the old part of Syafrubesi. Good place to have tea and breads at a normal price. After that there's no normal price. The trail is pretty easy for about an hour just plain and slightly up and down with zig-zag terrain.After you reach Domen, then the trail goes up hill gradually gaining height. Up to domen, you the common  birds, Sparrows, Crows, Bulbuls, Mynas. After domen you reach Pairo (Landslide -  Pairo in Nepali). The place is named so because there's a massive landside on the right side blocking the flow of Lantang river on the left side of your trail. Wildlife wise you can see Assamese Macaque's, cliff or rock bees colonizing on the debris of landslide. After passing through landslide the  trail continues in is regular fashion until you reach Bamboo which is a beautiful place. You can see Himalayan Langurs, Assamese Macaque's lots of birds species , Fly catchers, Bulbuls, White tailed Ruby throat, Thrushes, warblers. The most tiresome walk of the whole trek lies few hours after bamboo, the hill of Rimche (I found a beautiful Snake in the hill of Rimche)  it manages to depress lots of people. After climbing Rimche hill then the trail is pretty easy and you drop down few hundred meters and reach the days pit stop, but if you can walk fast then you can reach Langtang in a day but it might be hard but not impossible.

The first days rest is at Lama hotel, with plenty of places to stay. You can see Snow Pigeons apart from above mentioned birds and 5 species that I couldn't identify. The next morning, as we left Lama hotel climbing up the hill for sometime then dropping down right into the Langtang river and then climbing up again, and mostly the first day of trek is right through the forest with just  a view of Langtang river on the left or right which changes after Rimche to left there's nothing much to see but the second day's trek show's you the glimpse of Langtang Lirung which give you energy to walk fast.The next destination is beautiful place called riverside, few small tea houses on the bank of Langtang river, after crossing Riverside, you see lots of Squirrels up to Ghodatabela, we did see Pika  in between as well. There are lots of Squirrels, saw Whistling thrush. Ecologically, as you pass ghodatabela  you see a clear distinction on the two slopes, South facing with small trees and less vegetation and North facing with plenty of Pines. I saw Barking deer around ghodatabela, its a good spot to look for Barking deer. You can see Yellow billed Chough and Red billed chough, saw few yellow billed blue magpie. The trail is beautiful, best trails start from there, and as you climb up a small hill and reach Thyangsyaap you start to see the Langtang valley up ahead in the distance, but its not that close at it looks. Langtang valley has lots of hotels, plenty of places to stay, but a quick suggestion for Nepali travelers, if you're travelling in group then pre booking might help because, they dont give Nepali's room if there are few groups of foreigners living in the hotel, as they say "Nepali halla garchhan bideshi risaauchha - Nepali's make noises and the foreigners get irritated".

In the valley, if you look towards the North, you'll see plenty of himalayan Tahr grazing, flocks and flocks of Snow Pigeons, lots of yellow billed and red billed chough's and if you wake up early in the morning and climb one the small hills you will see the national bird of Nepal - Dhanphe (Lophophorus), I did see the Lammergeier vulture in Langtang valley. As you start the trek to Kyanjin valley early in the morning you might see the Lophophorus, and Pika's. Half way through the trek to Kyanjin I saw a Snipe, and lots of small birds that I couldn't recognize. Kyanjin valley is one of the best places I've ever been to, its almost a cup shaped area with the valley in the middle of the cup and if you're there in post winter season, it looks as though you're surrounded by mountains the whole 360 degrees. Kyanjin has to be one of the best places I've ever been to.  Even at the top of Kyanjin Ri which is almost 4900 meters I saw yellow billed chough. Plus you get to see few glaciers as well. The walk is so worth it. I'd highly recommend you all to do the trek plus stop in the destination I mentioned and look for the signs of Wildlife.

+ If you're lucky you might see Snow Leopards, Red Panda's Musk Deers!! I've added photos of few animals I saw during the trip! Langtang is famous for wildlife experience and it wont disappoint you! You'll see plenty of Birds and Wildlife!! Enjoy!

Take nothing but pictures
Kill nothing but time,
Leave nothing but footprints

                                                              Himalayan Langur

                                                                          Kyanjin

                                                                  Yellow billed blue magpie

                                                                  View from half way to Kyanjin ri

A short Itinerary :

First day : Kathmandu to Syafrubesi : About 7 hours
Second day : Syafrubesi to Lama hotel : About 5-6 hours
Third day : Lama hotel to Langtang : 5 hours , you can reach Kyanjin the same day or you can stay in Langtang but its better to walk 2 more hours to reach Kyanjin and stay there!

If anyone of you are wondering how much will cost then, the maximum rate for Daal Bhaat was 350, but depends upon your bargaining skills and rooms doesn't cost much. Tea cost a lot if you get a single cup so if you're a group then its better to get a whole thermos that way its cheaper.  

Leopard conflict : A question to conversational ethics

I’ve read an article of Conservational practice in Nepal, I don’t remember the exact title but it expressed Nepal as being a frontier in Conservation Management. To some extent it was logical, but with the recent event of Leopard conflict in Kapan, it brought to my mind that every animal apart from Tigers, Rhino’s or Snow Leopards are neglected. I bumped into the video shot by the locals of Kapan, and there was this guy, who, as I’ve read in the news must be from the Ministry of Forest. He has the Leopard completely in control, he’s hurt and there’s blood all over the floor, but the leopard was under control and he was holding it. And there’s another guy holding a dart gun right next to him! But still, instead of Tranquilizing the leopard when he is under control the first thing they do is try to kill it. Why is it so easy to Kill a leopard? Because it doesn’t fall under as exotic species as Tigers and Rhinos? Or because it doesn’t have any role in Ecosytem? The food chain? I would have understood if they’d said that it was out of control and attacking humans and all, but then it wasn’t. The leopard must have made into the city during the night time, if it really wanted to kill humans; I think it would have already killed few people. 

And this happens almost every year! If this was one time incident I would have understood. But almost every year a Leopard is killed inside the valley! We do know that international agencies pump in huge amount of fund for conservational work. Does conservational work involve only lecturing people in five star hotels or branding it? Why can’t that sum of money be used to train student from the same field, to use the dart guns, and circulate their phone numbers among different media’s or even involve the police department? Provide them with necessary training; give them an authority to dart the animal! I read somewhere that the incident with the leopard happened somewhere around 6 into morning and the officials were there around 10:30. Why is there a huge negligence when it comes to Leopards? I don’t think there’s an actual data on the population of Leopards in Kathmandu valley. Just because they are frequent visitors in the valley doesn’t mean they are common! They might be very few, and if we really kill every leopard that comes into the city, and the reason for killing them is, if we don’t they might come again then why not just wipe their population out for good? That way there won’t be any conflict! Leopards are equally important as tigers are! And the most disturbing thing is they actually parade the dead Leopard like they won’t the world cup! You can see photos of people carrying around the Leopard like a prize. They have as equal right in this Earth as every human. And just because we are somewhat superior to them doesn’t mean we have right to kill them at will.

 Is that what intelligence and superiority mean? We marched into their homes, destroyed their habitat and then we blame them for coming in to our “homes?” it’s us who walked into their homes! We; who killed their habitat, the reason they are driven into the city is us! And we feel so superior about killing a Leopard from a long range with a gun, and then prove our worthiness by parading a dead animal? Is that what conservation is? Just because the Leopard doesn’t bring in hundreds and thousands of Tourist’s to our country every mean that it’s not important to the ecosystem? If this was the first case, may be I’d fine because things might have gone out of control if it wasn’t “Shot dead” but this happens every time a Leopard comes into the city. Where’s the conservation then? I don’t think conservation means just talking about the efforts to save the animals when Leopards are getting killed every year! And if the government is not fine about giving the authority of darting to the local people or students why can’t they train the Police officer for those particular situations? Why can’t they train them at the academy and separate a batch for wildlife conservation and wildlife trade related division? Or why can’t the ministry make such effort to join hands with the police department to train them. Should be not think about this? Or should we just kill every Leopard that comes into the city? I don’t really know what’s lacking here, a proper management or trained officials. I do understand the local citizen’s fear of having a Leopard in their house, isn’t there any way to work this out? 

We do have enough forest, mostly trees and still people wonder why do the Leopards come into the city? Well, first thing first they don’t eat trees, and the next thing is, whatever the feed on don’t feed on trees. May be, instead of just planting trees continuously, we must look in to a better alternative and plant those plants which a deer can feed on and then maintain a good habitat for Deer’s, only then will the Leopard stop coming into the city. We’ve all got to eat don’t we? And hunger is what drives the Leopard’s into the city, so should we kill them in our homes or make a sustainable place inside their home to feed them? 

Photo source (Google images) 

Being a Zoologist

The question I get a lot is
"So you're a Zoologist" Is it GEO or ZOO logist?
"Ohh Zoologist, so what does a Zoologist do?"

And I think for a while before telling them what a Zoologist does, basically I act as if I think, but the only thing comes to my mind is this photo:

So, what's it like being a Zoologist then? Do I ever do things as mentioned in the picture above? Or its just playing around with toy's as the girl is doing? 

I'd love to be like Jeff Crowin though! Big fan!! Used to watch him on TV, always thought I wish I could be this guy! I loved the episode where he came to Nepal, he went to Chitwan and rode an Elephant, I remembered his documentary when I was inside the jungle! He was my childhood inspiration on becoming a Zoologist 

Basically to start with, if you have enough grants or personal financial source to fund your trips then Zoology is the best subject in this universe! All you ever do is travel here and there looking for animals! Most of you, well all of you have seen the documentaries in Natgeo or Discovery and wondered I wish I had a life like that. And when were in the field, We, the Zoologist do have that life. Its exciting and frighting at the same time, depending upon where you are!

Its exciting as long as you get to travel do some bird watching, some photography on the side walks, trek to the Himalayas but then you actually start to work on your desired species its pain in the back.

I've got this beautiful butterfly shot, every one compliments me on that photo being good, the shot was just a fraction of seconds short but that butterfly dragged me on its random dancing trails for more than 20 minutes! Same with the dragonfly, both are equally mobile. It not just that, even with less mobile species as the Himalayan Langurs along the Langtang river, you observe one, and one small mistake and the whole group moves and then you're left with nothing.

                                  This guy gave me a hard time
I remember when we reached Langtang, we were taking rest, and far ahead into the largest rock in front of us, a small rock was moving. I thought it was debris falling down, but there were lots of them, it just looked like a small rock falling, we were far from that, almost 20 minutes walking distance, but then one of the friend handed me the Binoculars and once I looked through it I realized it wasn't a rock but it was a Himalayan Tahr. We were so excited, for almost every one it was first time seeing a Tahr in the wild. Few of us, who weren't tired of two days walk decided to get closer, the closer we got the farther they started to move. So we started to hide behind every bush and tried getting closer but those tahr who have been surviving Snow Leopard attack were far to good for us, they knew that we were coming, we chased them away. We crawled towards them and it was like one of those shows on tv where the cameraman and presenter crawling up on their knees, may be they're better because they get a good shot, we weren't, a rookie mistake somewhere may be. But then we had lost all hope of seeing one closer, suddenly we heard something towards our right, there were more than 15 Tahr grazing, and one of them saw us and started to run again, but did see one from a pretty close distance, the best surprise of that was, a Beautiful Male Danphe (Lophophorus). To finally see the National Bird of Nepal was quite a treat.

'

Himalayan Langur 

  Tahr 

                                                 
One time we were on bus, the area looked like a possible Vulture habitat, we were on a high alert that we might see one. But the hope was fading, by the way you guys must remember that in "every tv documentary regarding animals, the presenter looks for the animal and doesn't find one and gets hopeless and suddenly sees one and runs towards it?" That kind of happens in the field too, its pretty hard to find animals in the wild and when you do, you get so damn excited about it that you forget the basic things of tracking an animal. So we had lost hope and suddenly we saw 3 vulture on top of a rock, I asked our driver to stop the bus and got off with my camera on hand and slowly started walking up the rock, most of the others were down on the road trying to take photo. I quickly climbed up the rock and I had realized that there were other vulture behind this big rock that I was hiding against, but as I moved ahead of that rock, I saw this huge vulture flapping its wing right in front of me, it was scary but exciting at the same time. Things like this are pretty interesting.


Had chased two Assamese Macaque in Langtang as well for about 30 minutes may be, the dragged us up and down the hill but it was fun, it always is.

But the thing is, its fine as long as your in a friendly animal habitat, well there's no such things called friendly animal habitat in the wild but my point is you're good as long as there's no big cats or wild Elephant or Rhinos around. Back in Chitwan, which was the best wildlife experience I had, one that would beat mediocre documentary on Animals. Field work at its best, 15 days of field work in one the places with highest Tigers and Rhino density. The work was interesting learned lots of things regarding wildlife interaction as well as field work. One the days, when were going into one of the plots, out ranger was in front of us, we were walking on a line, as school children then ranger shouted Rhino Rhino!! All of us were crazy scared, suddenly the Rhino started chasing us for a while, how long, we have no idea because we ran with all the life's energy, it was scary, deep inside a grassland, typical Rhino territory and getting attacked by a full grown Rhino, so then we ran for a while, and since we were in Grassland there were barely any trees, we had to run the the whole field to reach the forest, and the grass was so tall that we couldn't see if there was another Rhino 10 feet ahead of us, we just ran into the oblivion. When we finally reached the forest we climbed up to the trees and look at the grassland, the Rhino was right there , we stayed in the trees, hoping that the Rhino would go away and we'll go back to the field, put down the traps, collect any animals if found one and then get back, but the Rhino had other things in mind, he was in no mood to walk away and he didn't care if we weren't able to do our work in the field. While we were on the trees, this guide came with two foreigners, we told them that there's a Rhino few meters away, they were actually excited because it was their first time seeing a Rhino in the wild so instead of getting to safety they moved towards the Rhino, the Rhino had moved almost near to the forest with few trees around, then the guide took them in front of one of the trees, it wasnt that big, then male tourist, climbed up the tree right in front of the Rhino and started taking photos, the wife (may be) , the girl went ahead of them and found another small tree as she moved the Rhino moved as well, she then hurriedly climbed that small tree it was so small that the tree couldn't hold her weight and she fell down right in front of the Rhino about 10-15 feet, she fell so violently that the Rhino was scared and charged off in another direction, if the Rhino had charged at her, she had no where to run but she was saved that day, she should have listened to us and stayed where we were, we were the expert there and scared to death of going near the animal and they walked as if they knew that animal forever. No matter how confident you are you should be cautious around the animals. One of the days, the other group were charged by an wild elephant, which destroyed the field, and most of the equipment, one of the guy hurt his legs while running away from the elephant. Its a dangerous business, not just fun, there's fun in it but its something to be serious about. You could get trampled by an Elephant, attacked by a Tiger or Rhino, on a bad day, anything can happen, the forest is crawling with snakes. Its a risky job being a Zoologist.

                       This close to a Rhino

                                       Tiger pug mark

 Its fun that you get to travel a lot and be in nature but it can go bad at the same time, but the risk is worth it!
You get to learn a lot about animals, observe them, you get a different look at life, how life works in wild, how it was for us thousands of years ago. Its Awesome being a Zoologist.

General Identification of Snakes of Nepal

Snakes are the most feared animals in the world. Ophiophobia has to be to the topmost Phobia’s related to animals, followed by Arachnophobia (Fear of Spiders).  There are about 3000 Species of Snakes found in world, of with around 375 Species are venomous. In case of Nepal, we have around 89 Species of Snakes, of which 21 are venomous and little less than 7-8 species which can be very lethal. Snakes are common all over Nepal, even in the lower Himalayas, and there’s a data of Himalayan Pit Viper recorded from around 4200 meters. Personally, I found Collared Black Headed Snake (Sibynophis collaris) on my way to Langtang valley at around 3000 meters. Around 20000 bite victims are reported every year from Nepal, with 1000 fatalities.

Identification of snakes based on Photographs is pretty hard, without handling a snake  proper identification is a tedious job. The Snakes are identified on the basis of the structure and arrangement of Scales. Mostly the scales retain their characters throughout their life, but the color may vary.  To identify snakes, structure, position, number and arrangement of scales are generally considered.
The most used scales are, Scales of head, upper and lower labial (Structure, position, arrangement and number), scales of dorsal side, scales of ventral, both ventral and subcaudals.

How to distinguish Venomous snakes from Non Venomous:
1) The first method for identifying a snake can be by opening its mouth, if there are two fangs on the upper front region of premaxilla, if the fangs are present, the snake is definitely venomous.
2) Sometimes the fangs may be broken, and appear to be absent. In this case, other attributes of the snake must/may be observed.
3) Examine the dorsal and ventral scales on the body
• If the scales are smaller, slightly rounded, imbricate and scales on the dorsal and ventral surface are exactly similar then the snake is no Venomous.
• If the ventral scales are narrow and don’t cover the belly, then the Snakes aren’t venomous.
• If the ventral scales run along the belly and are large, then the snakes can be venomous or non-venomous
4) Examine the head and scales on the head
 • If the head is broad flat and triangular and numerous small scales are irregularly arranged the head then the   Snake is venomous.  (If the head is triangular, it’s the Vipers, and highly venomous)
•If the snake has a similar structure of head as mentioned above along with a pit, called a Loreal pit, between its eyes and the nostril, the snake is a Pit Viper
• If the snake has an elongated or rounded head or blunt, apart from triangular, it might be venomous as well as non-venomous.

5) Examine the overall body of the snake
• If the snake has hood shape mark on its head, dorsal scales rhombiod space in between them, and if the third supra-labial shield touches the eye and the nostrils then the snake is venomous (Cobras). And if the snake with similar structure has an Occipital shield then the snake is King cobra.
• If the central rows of scales are larger than the surrounding scales and vertebral hexagonal scales are present then the snake is definitely venomous (Kraits). They also have a metallic shine on the body.

Rest of the snakes, without above mentioned characteristics are mostly rare fanged and not fatal to humans.  There are 5 families of snakes found in Nepal,  Typhlopoidea,  Pythonidae,  Colubridae,  Viperidae, Elapidae. Of which Viperidae (Vipers)  and Elapidae (Cobra’s and Kraits) are extremely dangerous. While most of the Colubrids are non-venomous while few can be venomous but not lethal.

So basically in case of Nepal, there’s no reason to kill a snake at sight! Most of the snakes are non-venomous.  One can easily recognize a cobra, krait and vipers, just avoid those snakes and you all should be fine, apart from that, there’s no need to worry!

Here's a photo chart of Snakes Identification, described above