The soon to be metropolis - Guwahati - is growing at a rapid pace. With this massive growth, many old inhabitants of the city have been lost in the chaos.
Though rarely given importance, some of these inhabitants however, have still managed to exist here. After all, the city was and will remain their home too. Yes, we are talking about the wildlife that has continued to survive in Guwahati.
Ulubari area of Guwahati had been home to the Greater Adjutant Stork. The Greater Adjutant Stork, commonly known as Hargilla in Assamese is scientifically known as Leptoptilosdubius. These massive beautiful birds come under the category of ‘Endangered’ species in the IUCN Red List.
If you search for Greater Adjutant Stork Habitat Ulubari on Google you’ll notice that it says temporarily closed but the sad part is that the habitat is almost lost. My home is attached to the very boundary of this place which was once the proper habitat for a large number of greater adjutant storks.
Rapid urbanization has caused several problems globally. Humans have successfully made new settlements albeit by causing problems to ecosystems around.
Similarly, Ulubari area was also once filled with a large number of greater adjutant storks because of small wetlands in the area and a large number of tall trees that created a suitable habitat for them. But now only a few of them are left as urbanization has destroyed their habitats.
It seems that the greater adjutants have somehow accepted the noisy environment around and have started to live with us in the chaos. It’s sad that we fail to notice the wildlife that surrounds us but somehow we have ended up destroying their habitat and by the time we would think of conserving their habitat it might be just too late.
Currently, the whole world is suffering from a pandemic which came into being from wildlife due to negligence and illegal wildlife trafficking. This has made the whole human kind aware of how we have exploited nature.
We must learn to grow without harming our ecosystems and by conserving what we have destroyed. There are roughly 12 Greater Adjutant Storks left in the Ulubari area of Guwahati and it is a matter of concern what will happen to their future, even though it looks like these storks have adapted to the environment. But it is our paramount responsibility to avoid interfering with their environment.
Human-animal conflict
There always have been numerous reports on human-animal conflict and we are still struggling to avoid such conflicts. In this area where the storks have been living since a long time there have been no such cases of conflict reported by the locals.
Hence this is one of the reasons that they are still living here. But what remains as a matter of concern is how much they will be affected in the future because there are very less number of suitable trees left that would qualify as proper habitats for them.
The campus of an ashram here called Kasturba Gandhi Ashram provides the storks their shelter as the campus has a number of tall tress but the question remains: will these be enough? Or can there be some alternative beneficial solutions in conserving the greater adjutant storks?
A role for each one of us!
We all have a role to play towards nature starting from raising voices against environmental degradation and injustice to it to contributing towards nature through all possible ways.
I was always inspired by nature; all the chaos that we have today goes away when we spend our time in nature, observing and learning from all the creations around. We have been made superior and more intelligent among all the other living beings and it is not just a privilege but a very important responsibility towards all the other beings. I am a visual story teller and I tell stories of wildlife through photographs and films.
Likewise, we all have our different talents and rights to speak and act for environmental conservation. We do not need to go searching for wildlife. We all have them around just like I do in my very backyard!
(The author is an independent filmmaker and photographer from Guwahati, Assam. He likes to tell stories of nature and wildlife, through pictures and films. The views expressed in the article are his own.)
Note: This article was earlier published in The News Mill
