Indian Wildlife — The Barasingha
This article is part of a short-lived series I wrote on Indian Wildlife. The series, rather unimaginatively titled ‘Indian Wildlife’, focuses on imparting basic knowledge on the natural history of the more common and often ignored mammal species found in India. Rather pedantic but nonetheless essential accounts in my opinion.
There are three recognized subspecies of the barasingha -Cervus duvauceli, Cervus duvauceli ranjitsinhi and Cervus duvauceli duvauceli found in central, eastern and northern India respectively.
The barasingha is a large graceful deer standing 44 to 46 inches at the shoulder. There is a marked seasonal change in its colour. During the summer it has a rich chestnut brown coat with a somewhat lighter brown side and belly. It is creamy white on the insides of its legs, rump, and underside of its tail. There is a dark brown band bordered by white spots that run down the length of the spine. In winter the hinds are dull to greyish brown while the adult males are dark brown almost black with hair on the necks almost 5 inches long. The dark band along the spine is absent or hardly discernible. There is slight variation among the subspecies. Antlers of the adults are characteristic of the species having up to 12 tines and therefore the common name barasingha or 12 tined.
The barasingha at one time was found in a wide variety of forest types in India from the dry deciduous to the wet deciduous, mangrove, evergreen, and semi-evergreen forests. Their presence within these forest types was dictated by the presence of open areas with marshes and grasslands or woodlands with an understudy of grasses, the availability of water and moderately hilly terrain. They were found in great abundance in the grasslands and reed beds of the major river systems of the country. They feed exclusively on grass (a specialization that has cost them dear) and frequently wade into water. It is perhaps for this reason that they also came to be called swamp deer. The spread of agriculture brought them into direct conflict with man with disastrous consequences for them. Perhaps no other deer have suffered such a drastic reduction in its habitat and numbers. They now survive in small isolated pockets in their former ranges. The barasingha for some reason has not been able to colonize grassland habitats elsewhere as in the foothill valleys of the Himalayas that are separated from their traditional areas by a few ridges.
While the nature and composition of the herd vary considerably, four broad types of herds are usually seen. They are mixed herds comprising of stags, hinds and young. Breeding herds of stags and hinds, stag herds of only stags, and hind herds consisting of hinds with young. The mixing and congregation of herds are common.
There is wide variation in the timing of the rut among the subspecies. However, two distinct features of the barasingha rut are the bugling and wallowing by the stags. During the onset of the rut, stags roam over wide areas before finally settling down in a breeding herd. They vocalize in a series of distinct two-toned notes, which probably serves the purpose of attracting hinds and spacing of males by signalling that a locality is already occupied. However, stags seem to make no effort to retain a number of hinds nor do they attempt to drive away other stags from the vicinity. They thus seem to conserve their energy for mating. The activity of the dominant male is directed towards whichever female is sexually receptive. The dominant male takes priority over any hind in heat and tends to stay by her side till copulation is successfully completed. Dominant males do most but not necessarily all of the mating.
Wallowing is another activity that coincides with the rut. Males dig out wallows by jabbing the tips of their antlers into the sod and then jerk their heads to create a muddy depression with a pool of water in the middle in which they lie down briefly. They also use their hooves to churn up the sod.
The barasingha was in danger of becoming extinct in India. Their numbers had drastically declined and only the setting up of parks and sanctuaries resulted in their recovery from the brink. The subspecies Cervus duvauceli duvauceli survives today thanks to the efforts of one individual, Billy Arjan Singh, who single-handedly battled a plethora of vested interests to establish the Dudhwa National Park. In this park, an area of 100 sq km of the barasinghas preferred habitat survives. The rest has been lost to cultivation. The central Indian race survives in the Kanha National Park and the eastern in the Kaziranga National Park.
There is a lesson for all of us in Arjan Singh’s struggle to save the barasingha (described in his book Tiger Haven). It shows that if only we as individuals muster up the courage (instead of writing articles) to stand up for our beliefs we can defeat and change an essentially corrupt system and force the powers to be to accede to our wishes and concerns for the future of our wildlife. In our hands then lies the future of Indian wildlife and it would be wise to realize that we do not own the world but merely hold it in trust for future generations.
