Maneater of Devprayag / Chandmari.

[airgun_novice]

Dear Prashant,
Simply over-whelmed and over-awed !!! Looking forward to the whole story. Really appreciate the manner in which you displayed, time and again your patience, fortitude and discretion.
regs
A.

[prashantsingh]

"Gar firdaus bar roo e zameen ast .
Hameen asto, hameen asto hameenast."
"If there is a paradise on earth . It is here . It is here.It is here."
The great Mughal Jahangir said these words when he first visited Kashmir.
I say the same for the state I have been living in for more than 3 decades now.A state where 60% of the land is still forest land. A state which is the source of two of India's most important rivers. The holy Ganga and the Yamuna. A state rich in natural beauty and wildlife.
Driving through the winding roads of Birpur and Ghangora Cantt. we reached Chandmari. A small village on the foothills of Mussoorie. The village looks a little out of place on a hillock surrounded by thick Saal forests. There is a large maidaan infront of the village and the ridge continues east wards to one of the oldest shooting ranges in this part of the country. A 300 yards range which the British built more than a century ago to train the Gurkhas for their Army. There were three Gurkha TrainingCentres here. They have now moved out and have been replaced by subsequent Infantry Battalions which I shall name A,B and C for future reference.
The 6 nights we searched the area we saw no wild boar, no kaakar,no porcupines, no gural. We saw only two hare and we would see them everynight on the same spot.
One we named "Patwari" and the other we named "Mamu". Patwari was the bigger and fatter amongst the two.
During the day we heard no peacocks and no red jungle fowl.
It was obvious that the villagers had poached out most of the leopards prey base.
Will wait for Baljit to put up the new set of snaps before I continue the story.

[brihacharan]

Dear Prashant,
Simply over-whelmed and over-awed !!! Looking forward to the whole story. Really appreciate the manner in which you displayed, time and again your patience, fortitude and discretion.
regs
A.

> Hurry up Baljit with your pics.....
> Prashant....we are all waiting to hear more
Briha

[Baljit]

Prashant and Brihaji. Please accept my apologies for delay. I was so very busy yesterday and don't have a enough time to post these pictures.

Here is the other pictures sent by Prashant.











Enjoy.
Baljit

[prashantsingh]

Thank you so much Baljit.
Sorry for troubling you again and again.
I will just write about the snaps before I go into the details.
1. Map of the area. The two markers indicate the places where the kills took place.
2.The Chandmari shooting ranges. Observe the old range on the left and the new one on the right.
3.The new range
4.&5. Chandmari village ---rising out of thick sal jungles.

[prashantsingh]

As can easily be seen in the above snaps. It is we (humans) who have encroached upon the leopard's habitat.
A small village with katcha houses is now a proper semi urban area with pakka houses and a proper cemented road. How the village came up in a thickly forested area is beyond the topic of discussion here. But over the years it has grown . To the extent that the new houses (in the 4th snap) are so close to the shooting range that the Army had to close down the old shooting range (built by the British) , cut down more trees and build a new one on the other hillock(right of the abandoned range in the 2nd snap).

1.Loss of Habitat.
2.Loss of Prey Base

Two most important reasons for making of a "maneater".

Now let me show you where the first kill took place.
The 16 year old girl was killed in thick Sal forest above the New Shooting range. About 50 meters below the top (of the hill).
My first question to the forest guard who was guiding us to the spot was "What was she doing here?"
Apparently she had gone there to collect fire wood for her house.
It took us about half an hour to climb up to the spot.
We looked for pug marks but couldn't find any. The undergrowth was rather thick and a record monsoon this year had covered every square inch of soil.

When we got back Singh called up the DFO.
"This is not a maneater Sir". He said.
"I have seen the spot where the kill took place. 'Woh Ladki leopard ke ghar me gusi hui thi. Isi liye maari gayi' (The girl has entered the leopard's home and that's why she was killed).I will stay here for a fortnight. If the leopard doesn't strike again, we shall pack up and call off the hunt. If it strikes again. It will have to be put down."

[prashantsingh]

By the time we came back it was dusk and a reasonably large crowd had gathered in the maidaan to meet the Shikari's.
It was also time to show off.
So Singh took out his .315 . Corbett 99 (an IFG member) pulled out his O/U 12 bore gun. While I took out my IOF .30-06 (modified by dear Baljit).
I also pulled out my new shooting sticks and ear muffs which I had recently picked up from England (with shooters).
Singh gave a small talk and told the people not to fear. The Shikar team was here. We gave our contact numbers and told the locals to call us when ever they saw a leopard. (Most of these people had a mobile ).
A young fellow walked up to me and wanted to have a look at my rifle. Mine was the only one with a telescope and he had picked a fancy for it. After he was satisfied with my rifle he commented "##### ke paas to aur bhi badi bandook hai".
##### as I later found out was the local poacher. His modus operandi was to snare small/medium size game and shoot it at point blank range with his muzzle loader. (Which explains the "aur bhi badi bandook" bigger gun ) .

The fear of a maneater can cause a noticeable change in human behaviour. As dusk turned into night we saw every one moving into the safety of their homes.

By 6:30p.m. it was pitch dark .
An unofficial Curfew had been imposed by the maneater.
A curfew which was being strictly followed by all the inhabitants of the Chandmari village.
Singh , Corbett99 , Panditji (the driver given to us by the Forest dept.) and I were the only two legged characters left on the big maidaan in front of the village.
While I stood in one corner resting my rifle on the shooting sticks and practising reloading my rifle (as fast as I could) with the Snap Caps (gifted to me by Safarigent), I heard a sound come from the left.
I turned around and saw Singh sitting there and smoking a cigarette.
"Did you say some thing" I asked pulling down my ear muffs.
"Sab Bakwaas hai Doctor saheb. Sab Bakwaas (It's all nonsense)." Said Singh
"EXCUSE ME" I said.
"What you are doing here with your telescopic rifle is all nonsense. The maneater will give you no time to pull up those sticks or wear those muffs." Singh said. He then got up threw his cigarette and walked towards the jeep.
I did not listen to him and continued with what I was doing till I was satisfied with my reloading.
I finally pulled up the rifle and joined the others who were waiting for me in the (open) jeep .
The night had just started and our job of searching for the mankiller had just begun.

[Hammerhead]

Nice, thrilling job !!!!

All I wanted to know, what that O/U is loaded with and tested for. As I could understand it's your back up shot gun if any thing suddenly appear closely. In that case a O/U's performance and preference be so critical.

So would you please look at your options again - Haji
________________________________________
This type of shot gun be more helpful IMHO


My daughter been shooting/ practicing with the pump action all year long before she hunted with that.

[prashantsingh]

Wrote a long report on the first days hunt and somewhere in the middle the internet got disconnected. It was all lost when I finally pressed Submit.
Frustrating.

Haji. That's a lovely gun your daughter has. I went through your post when she shot her first white tail.Unfortunately we are less privilaged than you guys in the west and have to make do with whatever is available to us in India.
Do congratulate her from my side.

[brihacharan]

Baljit / Prashant,
> Thanks for the pics & the details of your tryst with the leopard...
> The 'Poacher' bit was quite interesting - slimy bloke enquiring about your stock of weapons
> It looks like the girl after all wandered into the leopard's lair & unfortunately fell a victim...
> Lastly Mr. Singh's attitude was typical (Bakwas)- a rank disregard for outsiders who are better equipped to tackle a situation such as this...
> Waiting to hear more.....
Briha
PS: As Haji pointed out - hope the O/U was loaded with heavy buckshot to justify it being a 'back-up' weapon

[ckkalyan]

Wrote a long report on the first days hunt and somewhere in the middle the internet got disconnected. It was all lost when I finally pressed Submit.
Frustrating.

Thank you prashantsingh for your narration and images...exciting as usual!

I understand your frustration with the fickle internet and have a suggestion for avoiding such loss of work:

Open up a word Doc, complete all your writing, edit, add, delete, carry out spell, grammer, thesarus checks, save the doc. When you are completely satisfied with your creation and ready to post - simply copy and paste from the word doc. This way all your work will be safe, even if it fails while submitting, you always have your basic text saved.

This is what I do with the long posts - I found it immensely gratifying, not to mention effortless. Hope this works for you too prashantsingh

[brihacharan]

[quote="ckkalyan"
I understand your frustration with the fickle internet and have a suggestion for avoiding such loss of work:

Open up a word Doc, complete all your writing, edit, add, delete, carry out spell, grammer, thesarus checks, save the doc. When you are completely satisfied with your creation and ready to post - simply copy and paste from the word doc. This way all your work will be safe, even if it fails while submitting, you always have your basic text saved.

This is what I do with the long posts - I found it immensely gratifying, not to mention effortless. Hope this works for you too prashantsingh
[/quote]

CKK,
> Great minds think & do alike
> That's exactly what I do.... found it immensely gratifying
Briha

[ckkalyan]

CKK,
> Great minds think & do alike
> That's exactly what I do.... found it immensely gratifying
Briha

Good one brihacharan-Ji!

[prashantsingh]

Baljit / Prashant,
> Lastly Mr. Singh's attitude was typical (Bakwas)-

No Briha Sir.
Singh is a dear and close friend. There is a funny side to it and I will talk about it later.

Back to the first days (or rather nights) hunt.
The SDO (Forest Officer) joined us after the villagers had left. His job was to take us around the Cantt. and introduce us to the Army Officers and men.
Three men dressed in cammo. armed with two rifles and a gun. Flashing a search light through a Military area would have been terror suspects and shot by the Light Machine Guns mounted in different location.
We had come here to kill the maneater. Not get killed ourselves.
So the SDO led in his Gypsy while the Shikaris followed in my old Mahindra open jeep.
The fauji's were very warm and took down our mobile numbers. We went to all the three regts. A , B and C.
In fact the Commanding Officer of Regt B even offered us accomodation in the Officers Mess. Which we politely refused since the Forest Dept had already kept a Rest House booked for us.
By the time we finished meeting every one it was mid night. It was also time for the SDO to go home.
The actual search started after the SDO left.

[prashantsingh]

Singh decided to go back to the Chandmari village. We started our search from the maidaan. Found nothing there.
Drove North along the ridge .
There was a small temple which marked the Northern boundary of the village. The road took a sharp bend here and the climb started from this point. Another 400 mtrs and there was a Military Check Post with 4 armed men doing their duty 24X7. This was the last Military Post this side of the Cantt.

Shikaris are a superstitious lot.One of the words you don't say before starting a hunt is "Kh".
Now the first wild animal we saw that evening was a hare (Khargosh in hindi).
He was moving around near the temple. I wanted to name him Pandit (because of his proximity to the temple) but since we already had a Panditji (as our driver given by the Forest Dept.) we named him Patwari. We would see him every day on the same spot .
The second hare was seen near the Military Check Post. This one we named "Mamu".

Except for these two hare we saw nothing. It was obvious that the locals had been poaching in this (otherwise dense) jungle bigtime.
We were wondering why these two hare had been spared till
Corbett 99 came out with the answer.
While "Patwari" enjoyed the protection of the Gods.
"Mamu" unintensionally , was living under the protection of the Army Guards near the Check Post.