Tracking the river

River ecosystems in the country are poorly understood. Vidyadhar Atkore treks through the Kudremukh region and explores the stream and river networks there, as part of his study on river biodiversity in the Western Ghats, now a world heritage site.

After a gap of five long years, I was back in the field again. This time, it was part of my study on river biodiversity and its associated threats in some of the relatively pristine rivers of the Western Ghats, now declared a UNESCO world heritage site.

As part of my work on bird conservation in Mumbai, I often watched water birds at estuaries and mudflats. Rivers and estuaries in Mumbai carry pollution loads beyond one’s imagination. I realised that almost all estuarine banks are full of plastic. Our rivers are in urgent need of help. As part of my career in river conservation, I headed to the lush green hills of Kudremukh National Park for two long years. 

I took the KSRTC night bus from Bangalore to Karkala, a small town in Chikmangalur district. Then, I boarded a private bus from Karkala to take me to Kudremukh, after crossing many small villages. The Kudremukh National Park has the largest shola grassland in the entire Western Ghats range. As our bus was hurtling ahead on the winding roads, I could catch glimpses of rich forest diversity around. 

Ore extraction

Kudremukh brings up associations of KIOCL, which was started in 1978 for extraction of iron ore. Eventually, it was closed in the year 2006. One research finding suggested that iron ore mining made a very serious impact on the Bhadra river and people downstream.

My gaze shifted to the top of the surrounding mountains. Some of them had been systematically chopped for iron ore extraction. A huge iron ore extraction plant was built on top of a hill across the Bhadra. There is a fairly long bridge that transported crude iron ore from the main plant to another site and then to Mangalore through a big pipeline. 

Strolling in the nearby forest area, I realised that the undulating terrain with a chain of mountains had formed a very good network of streams in the park. Raghvendra, my guide, took me around some of the region’s streams. The streams were pristine in nature with a relatively dense canopy cover. Every trail that ran along streams was full of leeches. They were all over in the thick layers of semi-decomposed leaf litter.  

We then explored the Bhadra river and went up to Gangamoola, situated at 1,060 m from where the two rivers, Tunga and Bhadra, originate. While getting down from big rocks and boulders, I closely observed each and every pool for the presence of fish. It was a bit dark. I checked my watch and it was only 11 am. The darkness was because of the presence of tall trees along the river banks. The river meandered through the rocks and fallen trees. Tree barks were densely covered with lichens giving an impression of several Malabar pit vipers clustered on trees. I encountered the droppings of the small Indian civet, a nocturnal carnivorous animal on one big fallen tree in the river.

It had eaten fruits of fishtail palm. Then a gentle movement in the water made me glad. There were some variety of fishes there. In one small shallow pool, I found a bottom dwelling fish – bhavania australis (less than four cm). 

I had never seen this variety before. I was delighted and quickly took out my notepad and pencil and drew its sketch. I also made a sketch of another bottom dwelling fish- Garra species (approx. 7 cm) and decided to identify them once I returned to my base camp. The fish were swimming and hiding among the pebbles gracefully. On my return, I checked my field book, but got confused. Many fishes were very similar to each other, but with the sketch and the associated information on the microhabitat, I managed to identify them to the genus level. 

Familiar fish

Slowly and steadily, I identified some other fishes. I could identify one small barb which had three-four horizontal bluish lines along the body – danio malbaricum. The sister species of this genus is the zebra fish and countless other barb species that one can find in the aquarium trade. There are no guidelines on how many and what kind of fish species should be allowed in the trade. Illegal and excessive trade is posing a serious threat to these native aquarium fishes. 

Similarly, the ecology of rivers in India is poorly studied. In spite of having a separate River Conservation Directorate, we still lack basic ecological information about our rivers.

To a large extent, river conservation in the country still follows conservation measures that are formulated for protecting terrestrial and not aquatic biodiversity. How long can rivers bear the burden of unplanned development and human greed? It is only due to lack of sound knowledge on rivers that many dams are raising their heads in the forested regions of the country.