Wildlife disappears with forest destruction

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It came as a shocking reality to us at the end of our five-day trip to the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) that this vast area hardly supports any wildlife any more.

The systematic destruction of the forests had been so severe that many of the animals that used to reside here and nowhere else have disappeared.

Dr Reza Khan who led us to this awakening trip to the hills searched every nook and corner of the forests for sightings of such great animals and birds like the great hornbill, pied hornbill, dollar bird, mathura, great horned owl, fairy blue bird or holook gibbon.

But he was disappointed and troubled by the realisation that an irreversible change has already taken place in the hills that will no longer support these life forms.

“This is the first time I have come across such a limited number of animals and birds in these forests. This is unbelievable,” said Dr Khan.

A quick stocktaking of the forests of Khagrachhari and Rangamati stretching over 200 miles revealed that animals, which have wide range of food and habitat preferences, tolerance for human disturbances, capacity to face exposure and avoid predators, are multiplying and we found them in good numbers (see list of animals and birds sighted).

One species of bird we found everywhere is the common myna or Vat Shalik and pied sterling or Goborey Shalik as widely known in Bangladesh. Even in deep interiors of Massalang and Marissa where this urban bird variety is not supposed to be seen, we could see flocks of them.

And as we spent nights in deep forests, we did not hear, very strangely, one single jackal call. We did not pick any smell of civets, surprisingly too (see list of animals and birds not sighted).

As the forest department cleared the naturally grown trees and replaced them with alien trees in lines and files this has discouraged the growth of different tiers or galleries to be present in a natural forest.

“Most animals have lost their hiding places, cover from which they could hunt preys, nesting and resting places,” Dr Khan explains the reason for the dwindling wildlife population. “The process of clear felling has also resulted in large scale removal of the so-called indigenous minor species of plants and animals which supported the growth of larger, showy animals such as tigers, leopard, rhinos, buffalos, spotted deer, hoolock gibbon, peacocks and pheasants, hornbills, Burmese Brown and other tortoises, pythons and king cobras etc.

“Thus, the present day forest, as we see as far as our eyes go, do not, I repeat, do not represent the evergreen or mixed-evergreen forest we had about two centuries back when the British first started commercial forestry or consumption of natural forest for their own benefit and replaced the same with the commercially important species.”

Dr Khan recalls how he and his brother had roamed the Pablakhali forest on a boat for days in 1978 and counted seven pairs of white winged wood duck. He is still thrilled to recall how these ducks would cackle as they would suddenly dart out of their nests on tall trees. He also saw serow, sambar, barking deer, binturang, flying squirrel, reticulated python and many more animals in Mahillya, Piarachhara, Shishak and Shewratoli.

Later in 1981, he saw two-three pairs of white winged wood duck and more than 100 species of birds. In 1997, the wood ducks were gone and so were the hornbills. But he saw dollar bird, hill myna and whistling ducks. In 2002, the large birds were gone and so were the major reptiles. And today the forests are basically habitats to a motley collection of urban and minor birds.

We however saw one serow, that wonderful wild goat, but not in the wild. At the so-called Dulahajra safari park, we saw the serow, lonely and haggard. An army official rescued the animal from the captivity of an indigenous man in Bandarban. Like the serow, many of the birds and animals which once roamed the hills have found their way to the zoos. The hills are their safe places no more.

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