Love for elephants changed their life
The Hindu
Three school children from the Nilgiris made honorary eco ambassadors
Three local school children from Devala in the Nilgiris were appointed as Gene Pool Eco Park ambassadors after they raised funds to purchase rice to feed four kumki elephants used in elephant-driving operations in the region.
The children, Sandeesh Kumar and Nagulan, studying in Class VIII in Holy Cross School in Devala and Sanjay, a Class VII student from the Government Tribal Residential School in Devala, had heard of the kumki elephants’ presence in the area for the last few weeks. Forest department officials said that the boys along with other locals had already visited the Gene Pool Eco Development Committee during the Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations this year when the four kumkis were treated to fruits and vegetables.
“The three boys then got together and pooled the pocket money that they had collected and purchased a 25 kg. bag of rice for the elephants,” said a forest official from Nadugani Forest Range.
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When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.