NATURE (The Hindu Mgagzine 27 May 2007)
Threatened messengers
The plight of cranes the world over has become a metaphor for vanishing wildlife. S. THEODORE BASKARAN
Photo: John Isaac
Among the oldest on earth: Sandhill cranes in the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in the U.S.
What is the colour of snow like? It is like white crane.
Nirvana Sutra
ZEN monk, nature writer and explorer Peter Matthiessen was in India three years ago, to observe the crane phenomenon at Khichan village in Rajasthan, where these graceful migrants — common and demoiselle cranes — gather by the thousands t o feed on the grains strewn by the villagers. This is a community ritual that has been going on for the past 115 years.
Matthiessen travelled on to Gujarat to watch Sarus cranes in their home territory. It was part of his worldwide peregrination to observe all the cranes of the world. The result is a fascinating book The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cran es (2003) Matthiessen points out that the plight of the cranes all over the world has become a metaphor for vanishing wildlife.
Cranes are long-legged birds with a long neck and bill. Though they look like large storks, they are very different. All cranes nest on ground while storks nest on tree tops. They are one of the oldest of birds on earth; nine million year old fossils of Sandhill cranes have been found in Wyoming. In India you can see five species of cranes: the Common Crane, the Demoiselle, the Siberian, the Black-necked, and Sarus crane. Only the last two are residents and the rest are winter visitors
Myths and legends
All the 15 species of cranes, in both the old and the new world, are subjects of myths and legends. In many cultures, they were once regarded as messengers from heaven, but are now threatened. Their being sensitive to human interference and being slow breeders makes the task of protecting them difficult. War, hunting, habitat destruction, reclaiming wetlands have all taken their toll and many of the crane species are doddering on the brink of extinction.
So in 1973, the International Crane Foundation was formed in Wisconsin to protect these magnificent birds, many of which migrate to warmer climes thousands of kilometres during winter. Mattheissen teams up with five ornithologists and journeys across the world — from New Mexico to Hokkaido in Japan and on to the outback in Australia. In this effort at creating awareness about cranes, he is joined by local conservation enthusiasts, from Mongolian herdsmen to Australian aboriginals. He has recorded this experience of travel, spread over 10 years in this memorable book. The exquisite paintings and drawings of the cranes by bird artist Robert Bateman add to the value of the book.
While writing about the fortunes of Siberian crane, he refers to Richard Meinertzhagen, the notorious ornithologist. Recently The New York Times exposed a scientific fraud this British army officer had committed to gain ornithologic al fame. However, he, along with Salim Ali, first reported the sighting of Siberian crane in Bharatpur in 1937. He has left a note that he and Salim Ali shot one of these cranes for the pot. This species of crane has attracted notice for centuries. Ustad Mansur, the court painter of Jehangir painted this bird. A.O. Hume saw it in Leh in 1854 and described it as “the lily of birds”. As late as 1964, 200 visited Bharatpur. For the last few years, none has been sighted.
There is a distinction between nature writing and writing on wildlife. In the former, the writer responds to nature intuitively in the manner of Thoreau. The writer on wildlife presents scientific findings in a readable manner. Matthiessen combines these two types of writing admirably. He has built up an awesome reputation as a writer through works such as The African Silence, in which he writes about his search for the pigmy elephants and The Snow Leopard in which he gives a gripping account of his trek, in the company of the legendary wildlifer George Schaller, along the Himalayas trying to get a glimpse of the elusive cat. ‘Lyrical’ is the adjective often used to describe his writing.
Virtual reality
The word-pictures he creates have the power of virtual reality. Here is a sample from The Birds of Heaven, in which he describes an incident while looking for the breeding grounds of the Siberian crane. “A steppe fox whisks th rough the blowing grass, a steppe-eagle scoops on a young marmot. The eagle glares at the oncoming vehicles as it tears away red shining shreds. Neatly, then, it eviscerates the rodent, leaving the heavy guts behind as it takes wing, dragging the rest away over the grass”
Various conservation issues also come up for discussion in the book. He writes about the problems in China, about tampering with rivers by building dams and about Lake Baikal, which stores one fifth of the world’s fresh water. There are pen pictures of individuals who work to save the cranes in various parts of the world. That includes Prakash Jain, who renounced everything to work for cranes in Rajasthan and Finley Gilber, an Australian aborigine, who provides information on Brolga crane, a close relative of the Sarus. About his own motivation Mattheissen records, “I care profoundly about cranes and tigers, not only as magnificent and stirring creatures, but as heralds and symbols of all that is being lost”
