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Will need a clairvoyant to count the croaks: The Hindustan Times
New Delhi, Aug 15: Delhi has had more rains in two weeks of July this year than the whole of last year put together. Records, 40 years old, have been broken, and the dry xerophytic vegetation of the capital has taken on a chameleonic lush evergreen sheen. All should be hunky dory for lovers of nature, one would think, and be wrong. Naturalists today are actually a very worried lot, with one query plaguing most: where have all the frogs gone?
New Delhi, Aug 15: Delhi has had more rains in two weeks of July this year than the whole of last year put together. Records, 40 years old, have been broken, and the dry xerophytic vegetation of the capital has taken on a chameleonic lush evergreen sheen. All should be hunky dory for lovers of nature, one would think, and be wrong. Naturalists today are actually a very worried lot, with one query plaguing most: where have all the frogs gone?
A rather churlish thing, perhaps, to bemoan a decline in croaks when the rains have brought so much joy to drought-stricken farmers, to village women freed from long treks to fetch water and to fun-loving schoolchildren
This extermination is not confined to Delhi alone; large pockets in the country are reporting declining amphibian numbers and globally, amphibian-watchers have been crying themselves hoarse about what they see as the next big extinction wave to hit the world after the infamous Permian wave of extinctions.
The frogs are not alone in the doomsday list, either. Two summers ago, the city lost most of its vultures and the stately silk cotton trees came into flower without the characteristically ponderous vulture homes nestling among its stark white limbs. Scientists did not know whether to blame a virus or pesticides, thend
On frogs, we don't even know where to begin our investigations? But certainly, frogs and vultures are apt candidates to participate in an opinion poll on whether the wildlife conservation policies of free India have yielded any results in the past 56 years.
There is no doubt that it is difficult to quantify nature conservation, simply because we know so little about its many aspects, including about the species that we would like to conserve. Unless we know the number of frogs in the country, it is difficult to quantify their increase or decrease.
A rather churlish thing, perhaps, to bemoan a decline in croaks when the rains have brought so much joy to drought-stricken farmers, to village women freed from long treks to fetch water and to fun-loving schoolchildren
This extermination is not confined to Delhi alone; large pockets in the country are reporting declining amphibian numbers and globally, amphibian-watchers have been crying themselves hoarse about what they see as the next big extinction wave to hit the world after the infamous Permian wave of extinctions.
The frogs are not alone in the doomsday list, either. Two summers ago, the city lost most of its vultures and the stately silk cotton trees came into flower without the characteristically ponderous vulture homes nestling among its stark white limbs. Scientists did not know whether to blame a virus or pesticides, thend
On frogs, we don't even know where to begin our investigations? But certainly, frogs and vultures are apt candidates to participate in an opinion poll on whether the wildlife conservation policies of free India have yielded any results in the past 56 years.
There is no doubt that it is difficult to quantify nature conservation, simply because we know so little about its many aspects, including about the species that we would like to conserve. Unless we know the number of frogs in the country, it is difficult to quantify their increase or decrease.