Easas story began in a Kerala village, where like all the other children, he grew up in a world populated by fantastical stories about animals. His fascination with the animal kingdom led him to a zoology degree at Calicut University. His professor, Dr D N Mathew, introduced him to Salim Ali, the late ornithologist. Easa told the legendary birdwatcher that his ambition was to study elephants. Ali advised him, instead, to use his skills on birds like the Great Indian Hornbill or the Frog Mouth.
Coming from Dr Ali, that pat on the back would have been enough to propel most students into the direction the great man wanted them to take. But Easa politely demurred. But sir, he explained, my interest is only in elephants. (He was to broaden his scope, but that was in the future.)
Ali knew when he was beaten, and he sent Easa to Prof M Balakrishnan of Kerala University. Under his guidance Easa studied the elephants of Parambikkulam. That earned him admission to an exclusive club there are only three people in the whole of India who hold doctorates on elephants!
Easa took to life in the wilderness as though it was his natural element. He rose with the sun, donned his camouflage clothes and boots, and set off on the forest paths in search of elephant herds.
The biologist had seriously overestimated the length of time it would take him. I thought I could finish the study within two years, but it took five years from 1981 to the end of 1985, he says now. In those five years, Easa became an expert on elephant society and he was probably the first person ever to have studied their social behaviour, population, activity patterns, feeding habits and movement in such depth.
Technology caught up with Easa, soon enough. In 1986 the good doctor flew to Washington to take up a scholarship with the Smithsonian, where he specialised in radio telemetry, which comes in very useful when youre trying to track down a pachyderm. But what do you do once youve caught up with your beast? No problem: Easa pushed off next to Nepal to study the art of tranquilising the elephant.
Easa developed a system that allowed him to immobilise the animal without hurting it, and then fit it with a tracking device. This was done partially out of enlightened self-interest. I had to follow the herd of elephants with a tracker in all seasons, he explains.
Easa was the first Indian conservationist to bring the problem of musth into the sterile environs of the laboratory. Musth had always been considered a function of the sexual behaviour of the male. In African elephants, however, it is common among both genders, says Easa. African elephants, clearly, arent into sexism. The other explanation was that environmental stress pushes elephants into musth. Easa dismissed that. It is only a belief; there is no scientific evidence to prove it, he says firmly.
He got his chance to examine the body of evidence, so to speak, when he was informed that a tusker he had tracked in Tamil Nadu, by the name of IG (Inspector General) was in musth. Easa took his time, and slowly a friendship grew up between him and IG. After the animal had got used to him, Easa proceeded on the second, and slightly risky, stage of his plan he pressed down on IGs musth gland, and collected the secretion! It is not clear whether the friendship survived this up close and personal probing. Easas findings corresponded to the analysis of the chemicals in musth made by a team of scientists who had studied African elephants. But Easas study had to be discontinued when IG died in a fight with another wild elephant.
Never short of subjects, Easa has turned his attention to the phenomenon of makhana (a tuskless male elephant), at least until a replacement for IG comes along. Reports say that the number of makhana is on the rise. Easas assessment: Since the tusk is the aim of poaching, the rise in makhana seems to be natures gift to the elephant. His guess is that because of the rise in poaching, tuskers have actually taken to hiding out in the dense forests!
The man versus elephant conflict can cause very tense situations in districts such as Wyanad in Kerala, classic plantation country. Easa did his apprenticeship in conflict management here and cut his teeth on cases where the elephant was apparently the villain of the piece. Shrinkage of habitat caused by deforestation, encroachment and cultivation was the real cause for conflict, says Easa, a la Holmes. Elephants, not surprisingly, objected to having man as a next-door neighbour. It was a fight for life of man and elephant, Easa adds with relish.
He was discovering that the expertise hed picked up when studying his beloved elephants could be put to good use with other species as well. In 1992, Easa switched his affections to gaur, a species of deer found in the Western Ghats. His study, the first ever on gaur, is still in progress.
He followed this up by training his spotlight on the predator. A two-year study called Prey and Predator was held in Iravikulam, a national park on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. Easa emerged from it with a reference bank on the diversity of animal life in the habitat. It was a curious ballet between the known predators tigers, leopards, and wild dogs and their prey, sambar, gaur, spotted deer, and other small animals.
There was no pitting of man against nature sharp in tooth and claw. Instead, Easa had to become a spoor expert a hair-in-the-spoor expert, to be precise. The preys hair was always to be found in the predators spoor, but in order to identify both, Easa had to study the characteristic features of animal hair in different species. He put a team onto the problem, and very soon, theyd built up a system on the lines of Interpols fingerprint classification system. Recently, the hair reference system made its debut in court, when a magistrate in Kerala used it to decide a trespassing case!
The next mission was a study of fish in the rivers of the Nilgiri Biosphere reserve. The study concluded optimistically some species believed to be endangered were actually doing just fine! But theyre still waiting to make it into the history books. The identification of some species is yet to be completed, and two species seem to be new. If they are, then the findings will go into the pages of history, grins Easa.
Only the reptiles had been left out, by this time, and Easa was quick to plug that gap. Previous studies on the Nilgiri Biosphere had covered only a part of the whole, the Silent Valley. Easas team has, so far, discovered 98 endemic species in the area.
As part of the study Easa conducted a small manual survey to collect rare and endangered species. The lack of studies has led to a confusion about what species are common, what species are rare, and what species are endangered, says Easa. Hes speaking from experience the Malabar civet, the rusty spotted cat, slender loris and painted bat were all considered rare, possibly even extinct. But in recent times, they have all been captured or identified in various parts of the Western Ghats.
This year, Easa and his team are heading off to the dense forests of Agasthyamala in search of the possibly mythical dwarf elephant. Easa, as usual, is optimistic about the quest, even though it is based on just the belief among the Kani tribals of Agasthyamala that dwarf elephants live deep in the forest. I dont think it is a false claim. There might be some facts behind their belief, he says hopefully. But we have to search for the truth, either way. Its been 16 years of vanvaas, and as far as Dr S P Easa is concerned, hed like to make it a round three decades.
