On July 13th 2020, Delhi recorded the maximum temperature of 38.2 °C alongside the warm, humid monsoon conditions. The lowest temperature being around 28.7°C and the humidity levels are approximately 57% to muggy levels typical of the monsoon season. The sky was partly cloudy and the day was warm. On the same day, somewhere in India, a place, a national park, which experienced severe monsoon conditions with the daytime temperatures reaching around 32°C to 34°C and night temperatures being around 24°C to 27°C. Isn’t the temperature differences seem so insignificant? But why there is a difference in how each place is effected? Delhi is warm and partly cloudy while some national park in India had a severe rainfall occurred. And the stark difference is in the seasonal weather patterns between Delhi and that national park location which triggered entirely different ecological timelines shaping how the plants, animals and the ecosystems adapt to the monsoon.
So, on the same in the national park what’s the situation? Imagine. Come from a warm cloudy day to an intense image of numerous animals rushing towards the hills for escaping the heavy rainfall. Not for shelter, not simply from the heavy rainfall, but from the flooding water submerging nearly 85% to 95% of the park’s entire surface. Floating Water Hyacinths being dislodged and swept out by the Brahmaputra flood waters which cleansed the clogged beels. The Riverine fish spawn across the flood over pools. All the land mammals losing their foraging grounds. Large herbivores resorting either to swim across or to stand closely by their packs on the chapories built by the humans. How does this park looked before floods occurred? What types of fauna and flora existed here? How many died in the floods?
The same national park from Jan-Feb 2020 had a cool, pleasant and low rainfall with the morning fog dominating. According to travel guides, in this period of time the wildlife viewing becomes attractive because the vegetation is generally more manageable while the animals can be spotted often around the grasslands, open areas and wetlands. Trees begin shedding their leaves. The forest staff controls the burning of dry elephant grass patches to keep grasslands fertile and visible. The Herbivores such as the One-Horned Rhino, Swap Deer and Elephants congregate heavily around the drying edges of these beels to graze on short winter grass and also the remaining aquatic weeds.
The Peek abundance of migratory waterflow from the Central Asian Flyway, such as Bar-Headed Geese, Northern Pintail, Ferruginous Ducks would forage in the wetlands. The Predators such as the famous tigers would utilize the stripped grass lines to track their hunting targets. This national park being one of the busy peak tourism sector, the daily jeeps and elephant safaris would run at maximum capacity.
In the dry-heat, pre-monsoon time around Mar-May 2020, the temperatures would swiftly climb up to 37°C as the humidity rises. Summer being noticeable around March, it becomes hotter during next months. The pre-monsoon afternoon thundershowers would start in late April or May. Usually early morning safari is more comfortable in morning months as animals are easier to notice. But this year 2020 the park was closed abruptly. The lack of vehicles and people made the wildlife to step out and wander freely across the highway margins and closer to park buffer perimeters.
The Scorched grass fields generated a quick growth of the highly nutritious fresh green succulent shoots. The Silk Cotton trees would flower intensely. Mammals would be altering their habits by feeding in the cooler early morning or by seeking the deep shade under the Elephant Apple Trees. On May 9 2020, an adult male Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros was found killed with its horn brutally extracted in a range. While the rhino poaching had been decreased sharply since 2019 international conservation media (Wildlife Conservation Trust, AFP) highlighted that the quiet, empty roads from the closing the park allowed animals to drift past borders, making them an easy target for opportunist hunting rings. Rangers successfully did block five other distinct slaughter attempts in April.
The closing of the park combined with the heavy monsoon as the rainfall hits around Jun-Jul 2020. This time the Brahmaputra River broke its boundaries. On this day, 13th July 2020, a news article from India Today broke the news to the world with an title : “Assam Floods: 90% of Kaziranga National Park under water”. It noted that with 90% of the Kaziranga National Park being under water due to floods in Assam, many wild animals have taken shelter in highlands constructed inside the park. Others moved towards the nearby Karbi Anglong hills area. On Monday, a tiger was spotted in a village near the Kaziranga National Park.
The following day, the park authority and district administration have restricted speed limit of all vehicles on the National Highway 37 (now NH 715), which passes through the national park and the highway is said to be submerged in water at many places. According to the park’s authority, the 166 anti-poaching camps of the total 223 camps were submerged. They also confirmed that 51 wild animals including a rhino, 41 hog deer, 3 wild boars and some more have died due to these floods. 100 had been rescued and many tigers and rhinos strayed into the nearby villages.
The following months of Aug-Sep 2020, the national park faced multi-wave flood conditions before the water levels slowly crest and stabilize. The mass exodus of the animals escaped drowning to death. Thousands of Hog deer, Rhinos and Elephants swam across the National Highway 37 to reach the high-altitude forested sanctuaries of the Karbi Anglong Hills. The Forest guards travelled by boats to spot the poachers.
Normally in these months of monsoon, the park is closed due to substantial rainfall as the park’s floodplain environment is heavily influenced by the rising water levels. Flooding being an important part of the ecosystem blocks the roads and safari zones.
The Recession and the Post-Monsoon months Oct-Dec 2020 is when the rain falls away, skies clear up and humidity drops bringing the cooler winter weather back. The Flood waters receded back to into the main river channel leaving the thick, dark blankets of the fertile alluvial silt sediment. This caused an immediate massive regeneration of the lush carpet grass across the open plains making the flora and ecological recovery possible after devastating floods.
The mammals descended from the Karbi Anglong refuge back to their plains to consume the fresh forage. The Migratory storks and eagles returned to claim the newly recharged fish filled wetlands. On October 21st 2020, the Kaziranga National Park reopened to their tourists after its longest closure in the history.
The year 2020 has been one of the disastrous year for over 135-150 wild animals being dead in the floods and more than 14 animals being killed strictly by moving vehicles while attempting to cross the NH 37 or NH 715 to reach the Karbi Anglong Hills.
So What is exactly Kaziranga National Park? That suffered a disastrous flood and still lived.
The Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India is located on the bank of river Brahmaputra and is spread over an area of around 378 sq km and declared as a world heritage site by the UNESCO. The topography being of meadows and marshlands full of tall elephant grass across many acres is a natural habitat for the Indian One-Horned Rhinoceros , the Asiatic elephants and many more exotic wildlife species that attracts thousands of tourists every year.
Kaziranga forest is also a home to the large population of Wild Water Buffalos, One – Horned Rhinos, Eastern swamp deer, Hog deer, Elephants, Guar, Sambar, Wild Boar, Indian Muntjac and a few others. Many species of wild cats like Bengal tigers, leopards, jungle cats, fishing cats also lives here with being one of the highest tiger density zones in the world. Other wild animals such as Bengal fox, golden jackal, Indian gray mongoose, Indian Pangolin, Chinese Pangolin, sloth bear, hog badger, Assamese macaque, golden langur, Hoolock gibbon resides here. The rivers of Kaziranga being home to the Ganges Dolphin which is among the endangered species.
Kaziranga is also a paradise for ornithologists or the bird watchers as they can find a great number of avifauna species here and that’s why this place has been recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by Bird Life International. More than 450 species of these beautiful creatures can be spotted in the park including Black-necked Stork, White-fronted Goose, Greater Adjutant, Ferruginous Duck, Lesser Adjutant, and Asian Openbill stork.
The flora covers different vegetation in Kaziranga being classified as 41% Tall Thickets of Elephant Grass, 29% Open Jungle, 11% Short Grasses, 8% rivers and water bodies, 06% Sand and rest 4% Swamplands. Since Kaziranga declared as the National Park in 1974, the breathtaking flora and fauna have been drawing millions of wildlife lovers from different parts of the world.
Having a landscape mostly enriched with four types of vegetation which stand apart from many forests across India. The flora of the Kaziranga primarily consists of alluvial savanna woodlands, alluvial inundated grasslands, tropical moist mixed deciduous forests, and tropical semi-evergreen forests. Kaziranga consists of the tall grasses like elephant grass, sugarcanes and spear grass along with the different small grasses with the toppings of the scattered presence of trees like Kumbhi, cotton tree, Indian gooseberry and elephant apple. The abundance of greenery in the Kaziranga park is the bounty of the annual flood of the mighty Brahmaputra River, natural trimming of grass due to the grazing by herbivores and the controlled burning which maintain the fertility of the land making it an evergreen forest.
Combining the date 13th July 2020 with one of Assam’s disastrous floods in the history, a National Park, Kaziranga, which is rich in flora, fauna and lands; with the one of the deadliest pandemics of the world, COVID -19, the world lockdown, gives a hard earned survival for the wildlife in the park. And the humans efforts in preventing the disaster from escalating as the flood stagnated water could cause Dengue, Malaria and many more diseases prevented the situation from being further disastrous. And they made it their revenue cut out 30% by end of the October reopening the park. By December, the winter birds had returned and the natural cycle will reset itself.
The entire Assam Floods in year 2020 was not a tragedy nor a triumph but a raw manifestation of the seasonal biodiversity. The wildlife of this flood plain doesn’t have a fixed life throughout the year. There are arrivals of new seasons, departures of the dead plants, dormancy and movement of wildlife. The flood which endangered many animals here in July is the one which provided the fish for the migrated birds by December. Biodiversity is in the cycle itself, a cycle with no end even if seasons change, even if the humans intervened.
By: Yetukuri Harshitha
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