Hopes are slender for the slow, shy loris

The loris is small primate — about six to 10 inches, with a vestigial tail. Its round head is dominated by two large, shiny, saucer-like brown eyes, close set. The eyes are surrounded by large dark-brown circles of fur, much like the pandas.

Natural to the Western Ghats, lorises live in bamboo groves and thorny bushes to escape predators, surviving on insects and ants.

The animals with strikingly large eyes are harmless, but have been victims of Nature’s vicissitudes and the depredations of poachers.

The nocturnal primates are found on the Gajanur-Agumbe stretch between Shimoga and Tirthahalli.

Lorises are locally known as ‘Chagalinwala’ as they consume Chagali, an ant species that is mostly found in bamboos. About six inches long, the loris moves slowly, gripping twigs and branches of trees with its limbs.

They continue to prefer to live in bamboo groves, spurning the large plantations of acacia developed in Malnad by the Mysore Paper Mills.

Now, bamboo is facing extinction, thanks to the forest fires and destruction of the natural forest, forcing lorises to find alternatives homes.

That endeavour is beset with dangers.  Although protected against hunting as it is included under Schedule 2 of the Indian Wildlife Act, poachers are superstitious about lorises, and treat them as harbingers of a poor hunt.

As a result, most poachers kill lorises. Sadly enough, the Forest Department does not seem to be alive to the plight of this cute little animal, once a symbol of the State’s wildlife, but set to become a memory soon.