Jahangir's Elephants

A bridge at the start of the trail, Teknaf Wildlife Reserve.

The Teknaf Peninsula is ruggedly beautiful. With the rise of the rocky range that divides the land strip between the Naf River and the Bay of Bengal it’s impossible not to feel elated, to know that Teknaf is quite the destination.

It’s an environment unique in coastal Bangladesh for hosting wild elephants. It’s really something to consider how the bulky beasts negotiate such uneven terrain. A significant section of the range has been declared a game reserve.

Jahangir Alam, 18, has been working as a guide for 10 years.

To search for the elephants, one could do worse than enlist the assistance of 18-year-old Jahangir Alam, a local and the youngest of eleven siblings, who works as a guide at the Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary.

Although Jahangir has no training, the sanctuary is his backyard. He’s been guiding tourists since he was 8 years old. Along with income from a brother who went to Malaysia by trawler some years ago, income from guiding helps the family.

“People arrive nearly every day,” he says, “Many ask for me.”

View of the Teknaf Range.

Into the woods...

By Jahangir's estimate there are 30 elephants in the reserve and he commonly sees a family of ten, though pachyderms offer no guarantee of being cooperative for tourists. The best season to see them is winter when they are more active of a daytime.

I ask if the animals are dangerous and he mentions three villagers were trampled to death a few months earlier while defending their paddy. “Elephants are ‘heavy’ dangerous!” he says.

Yet Jahangir insists there’s no risk: elephants are by temperament gentle and he’s often been within five metres without incident. “They don’t harm us if we don’t disturb them.”

It’s quite a trek that follows, into scrubby parched forest initially following valley contours where small bridges ford thirsty streams.

The day is hot, the humidity burdensome and I’m wishing I’d brought water. Even before the climbing begins I’m ignoring discomfort and breathing heavily.

Visitor Centre, Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary.

Hot. Humid. Sweaty.

Of course we’re hardly the first to set off in search of elephants. Just as nowadays in village and town government tenders, for bridge building, school outfitting or some other task are an appreciable element of local economies, once there were also tenders for elephant catching, in order to domesticate them.

Offering royalties of up to 750 rupees per elephant, according to the Chittagong District Gazetteer, the so-called “kheda” operations, named after the corral in which wild elephants were trapped, were commonly slated for the Hill Tracts and Teknaf in the months of winter.

“Elephants are not like cattle that they can be goaded down to a desired place,” states the Gazetteer, “No force can be applied; they move on their track at their own whims and pleasure.”

A kheda operation would involve up to 100 people, including 50 skilled labourers able to build a camouflaged stockade in the forest in 8 – 12 days. The best sites were at junctions of two or more established elephant tracks, even better if situated in a valley between two peaks. They might wait weeks for elephants to appear.

Boats, fishing nets, low tide on the Naf River... view to the mountains of Myanmar.

The Teknaf Range

Fire lines and loud sounds like gunshots were used to make the elephants “blindly and senselessly” proceed into the trap. Care had to be taken however, because “once scared no earthly force can control the herd.”

Once trapped the elephants would routinely turn on and kill their leader, blamed by the rest of the herd for their fate. However if the herd leader was strong others might die in the course of fighting back. In the panic of the trap baby elephants could be trampled to death.

The trapped elephants would then be starved and given no water for 24 hours to make them “weak, tired and calm.” Then, using mahouts on trained female elephants called “kunkis” one by one the wild elephants would be noosed, legs tied.

“The leader of the trained brigade is always a strong, healthy, powerful and skilled tusker,” reads the Gazetteer; and this male elephant would fight the captured individuals, eventually establishing his claim as the new group leader.

Elephant evidence on hilltop.

A kheda operation in 1965 in nearby Ukhia Upazila netted ten elephants; in the 19^th century up to 150 elephants were caught for domestication annually.

As we climb steps of rock and dirt and negotiate uncarved slopes slippery with leaf litter, from heat exhaustion I’m ready to collapse.

Perhaps with greater knowledge of the climate, Bangladeshis, according to Jahangir, rarely seek to reach the hilltops. “Bengalis can’t climb,” he says, “They walk a short distance. But when foreigners come they always go to the top. I take them.”

The lower hills of Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary.

Yet our situation is reversed. Gasping for air, I’m struggling to look composed while Jahangir climbs the hills as readily as if he was on an escalator at a shopping mall in Dhaka. He is yet to raise a sweat. “We are forest people,” says Jahangir, “We live here.”

Jahangir's one regret is that when foreigners come he has difficulty communicating. “I want to speak more to them but I can’t.” He only had the opportunity to complete study to class 2.

From the first summit the view is impressive. In front the Teknaf range continues with higher, more artistically shaped rocky peaks. There’s little evidence the Bay of Bengal is just beyond them. On the Naf side are sweeping views across the salt fields of the plains to Myanmar’s mountains on the horizon.

Mangroves on the Naf. View to Myanmar.

Along the ridgeline the path is narrow. I wonder if I actually want to meet an elephant up there; and I’m set to ask Jahangir if the animals climb so high when we sight elephant droppings.

But being a hot day the elephants are not so foolish to climb the hills. “They’ll be at the waterfall,” says Jahangir, who’s ready to continue some distance beyond the next hill. Yet without drinking water I decide it’s best to be satisfied with the views for now. We head back.

When I ask Jahangir how much he wants for his guiding, he suggests a rather paltry sum. Greed is certainly not among his faults.

“It’s fun to see the elephants,” he says, describing how when they take dust baths and are lying on the ground it’s sometimes hard to imagine the elephant is even there.

Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary scenery.

Teknaf Range.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: In Search of Teknaf's Elephants

Naf River.

Watching the Watcher

A crab ducks for cover on a Sonadia shoal.

As the speedboat bounces across the relatively calm waters on its way to the shoals of Sonadia Island in Cox’s Bazar, it’s easy to imagine it’s a chase scene in a James Bond film. The morning sun is glorious, the natural setting sublime and the pace only slows to negotiate narrower mangrove-lined channels. In a way it is a chase: a race against an incoming tide, a race to count foraging shorebirds before they head off to roost as waters rise.

Md Foysal. His job is his passion.

For most people a job is a means to secure a livelihood. For a select few, both lucky and unlucky, career is a passion. As he heads to the “office” primarily to count sparrow-sized spoon-billed sandpipers on the muddy flats and sandy edges of the Bay of Bengal, conservationist Md Foysal, 29, of South Keraniganj falls into the latter category.

“Science believes in proof,” he says, “We count to show that Bangladesh is an important wintering site for the sandpipers, possibly the most important.”

He looks the part: not only clothes but even his rucksack is camouflage patterned. The binoculars on a sturdy tripod are ready. He’s not even thinking of wasting time with a camera like a tourist.

It’s an international effort to protect the less than 400 “spoonies,” as they call them, which constitute the global population including juveniles. In the tundra of the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia’s Far East where spoon-billed sandpipers breed before their long flight south, Foysal’s Russian colleagues protect nests, hatch eggs and rear chicks.

Shellfish trails.

This year, Foysal has recorded up to 49 mature birds in the census at Sonadia and Sandwip, representing around 25% of the global number of adults. It’s suspected there are more.

Working for the Bangladesh Spoon-billed Sandpiper Conservation Project, from October to April he heads to the shoals at least once a month, squelching across muddy flat to plant binoculars, watch and tally. For Foysal, nothing could be better.

“Whenever I’m out in the natural world, I know that I love it.”

Md Foysal's office.

A warning to parents who see their children as bankers or doctors: this is what can happen to a child reared in a household of pets. 

His father had pigeons and a dog; his uncle had parrots, mongooses, pigeons and a dog; his sister kept a weaverbird.

A place to count spoon-billed sandpipers.

As a five-year-old Foysal bought a rose-necked parakeet. He called it Titu and taught it to say “Kaka.” Their garden also furnished him with an interest in plants.

“I used to collect unknown plants from the area, anything fascinating, and try to grow them,” he says. “I had turtles, snakes, lovebirds, budgerigars, dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs. Mum was against the hobby. She didn’t mind the plants but she thought the animals made the home dirty.”

When he got his snake Foysal’s mother said “It will bite you. You will die.” She took some convincing it was a non-venomous species.

Each pet and plant raised new questions for Foysal. He was curious why a hill mynah failed to mimic some words, why an orange seedling he had germinated from seed died in sandy soils. Bird colours, seeds, insectivorous diets… he wanted to know why.

Getting around by speedboat.

His older cousins laughed at him when he’d ask for nature books but they nonetheless complied and when he was in class 9 he recalls a whole night passed submerged in a book.

Watching the watchers, Md Foysal and Sakib Ahmed.

From college Foysal had more freedom to move about and he spotted some kind of raptor in a tal-palm close to home. After consulting his books he identified it as a red headed falcon and he was determined to see its red head.

“I convinced my father to give money for some basic binoculars,” he says, “but it’s not easy to see the red head of a falcon with cheap binoculars.” Yet he watched it hunting, hovering and scanning for prey. Then one day it dived after a sparrow and its red head came into clear view.

Having learnt that the red headed falcon was little studied, Foysal made a plan to study it. He kept red headed falcon notebooks for his satisfaction.

Mangroves colonising a shoal.

In 2001 the college student decided to call renowned birdwatcher and conservationist Enamul Haque of the Bangladesh Bird Club. Foysal saved money from tuition fees to make the call.

As reward for his efforts he was given a bird calendar and invited to attend his first bird club meeting. “People said bird watching was mad,” recalls Foysal, “I was so happy not to be alone. I made a lot of friends.”

Against the advice of ‘everyone’, including an esteemed professor of Dhaka University, Foysal chose zoology, later completing a Masters in Wildlife and Conservation. “People in Bangladesh are unaware of career possibilities in conservation; but I have the support of a passionate community. Better opportunities will come.”

By this time hopes at home that he would continue the family shipbreaking business, as the only son, were fading. “I’m from an Old Dhaka family,” says Foysal, “making money and settling down are assumed. My father is also a nature-lover. From my mother came the strongest objections.”

The sandpiper "road".

Meanwhile Foysal promised himself to write a paper for international publication on the red headed falcon. “I struggled with English,” he says, “and everybody, even my university professors, discouraged me.” Qualifications first, research later, his professors thought.

How many spoon-billed sandpipers?

After he wrote it he showed a birder friend who said, “If you submit this manuscript to the Oriental Bird Club,” which was the plan, “they’ll throw it in the bin.” Foysal was too disappointed!

Nonetheless Foysal persisted and one day after submitting it, Enamul Haque called him to say the Oriental Bird Club was fascinated with his paper, and with him. His research paper was published in 2010 and Foysal received honorary membership of the Club.

It was also in 2010 that Foysal got the chance to attend a sea turtle conference in Goa. It was the first time his family took notice. “They saw that my career had made a special opportunity for me,” he says.

Offshore. Tide coming in. Time to go.

In 2011, Masters complete, he joined Sayam U Chowdhury in the spoon-billed sandpiper project at a starting salary of 15,000 taka.

“What’s the benefit of a healthy environment?” he posits to explain his career, “Well, we need biodiversity for a healthy human environment. Destroying biodiversity makes us weaker.”

By way of example he mentions ‘gallus gallus,’ the red jungle fowl domesticated 8,000 years ago in India. “Chicken eggs are used to produce vaccines,” he says, “and as a protein source how valuable is the chicken! Without research we could not have accessed this benefit. If it had become extinct, what a loss it would’ve been!”

Last October, Foysal met his Russian colleagues in China. “The future of spoon-billed sandpipers depends entirely on humans.”

Sakib Ahmed and Md Foysal in the speedboat.

Apart from their unique spoon shaped bill and their impressive status as travellers, Foysal enjoys watching sandpipers for their fast, constant movement while foraging. “They’re very hyperactive and it’s like my motto: always be young and enjoy life!”

When asked about marriage he says, “I’ve never met a girl who is really fascinated by nature! If I met one who could live with my career, then okay.”

The tide rises fast in Sonadia. Suddenly after checking several sites it’s time to go. The dry land we walked across is now underwater and the speedboat is waiting just offshore.

When all is said and done.

This article is published in The Daily Star, 
here: Watching Sonadia's Bird Watcher

Counting.