Hi Harshad,

 I found this message in yahoo group "Naturepix" which will interest you.

jugal tiwari jugalt2000@yahoo.com wrote: Mount Abu in India is a great place for Reptiles. Atleast 16 species of Snakes are here (I have in my photo collection). The great work of Reptile rescue is being done by Kiran Chavda, Shailesh patel and the team. This forsten's cat snake is a rarity in Mount Abu. There are only 4-5 rescues from residential areas in 18 years time. They live in pairs, this one was rescued by Shailesh patel from the St. Mary School building. Jugal Tiwari 09414026156

Message from Yahoo group Naturepix message No. 6606

You can read the message at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepix/messages/6602?viscount=-100

Although dogs do not come into the catagories of wild animal except the dholes, but infact we have more than 38 rare breeds in our country. When I say rare indian breed dogs I do not consider 1947 partition as thin redline; when I define rare indian breed I take pakistan and burma also into it.

Some rare breeds are rampuri, laholi, rajapallayam, carvani, bully etc. I would love to share my knowledge with all those who are interested in rare indian breed dogs. I myself am trying to save these breeds and I am also looking forward to meet people who want to come forward and save these breeds. People can contact me at rampur_hound@yahoo.com

Dummerils black headed snake[Sibynophis subpunctatus]

is one of the uncommon snakes in india becuse this snake is very small and mainly found in forest areas; so sighting of this species is very rare.  I get this snake specimen during my project on Fauna diversity of Rajmachi one of the hot spot from western ghat. I study this specimen for 8 months.  After studying them i found this snake shows different type of Defence behavior i.e it acts like dead snake when the large predator approaches it; also as soon as it  feels predator leave that place it slowly turns the head and moves with fast speed and starst going under the soil. these and many amazing facts i have studied  about this snake.

If you want more details about this snake pls mail on adi_sawant@rediffmail.com

 adi_sawant10@yahoo.com

Peb fort near Matheran is a treat for bird watcher and herpetologist. I  visited  this fort  last Sunday. It was a very harsh treck due to summer heat. On peb fort there were many caves some of them are natural and some of them are man made. in these caves there were many gekos such as

1]Rock geko : Hemidactlylus maculatus.

 2]Ground geko: Gekoella sp.

3] Bark geko:hemidactlyus leschenaltii. 

We also get some snake Species such as

1] rat snake

2] Indian krait: in cave

3] Indian cobra:

At the base of fort a lot of bird species listed there. I watched 42 species in single treck. special achievement of treck is locating two nests of crested serpent eagle. it was an amazing treck. for more details e mail me on adi_sawant@rediffmail.com

One of the beautiful Indian snakes is Forstein's Cat snake. According to the reference in The Book of Indian Reptiles & Amphibians by J.C.Danial(BNHS),this snake is found in forests of western ghats and in Assam.

But last year we found two females of these species with one male too. The sizes were 4'9" ,4'8" and 5'2" respectively.

 I hope that this will be a great finding.

"In Uttar Pradesh the famed Jim Corbett National Park that falls under Shadra-Sahayak Canal Link will bear irreparable losses with the submergence of the elephant reserve area."

says Avinash Kalla in article at the following link

http://www.the-south-asian.com/Aug2004/River-linking.htm

Has anyone one heard of the research in Africa on the recording of Elephant sounds and using those as means (Albeit Still experimental) to 'trick' elephants to avoinding areas? For example, they have learned the sounds( not audible for human ears) with technology to 'warn Lions are approaching'. The elephants go into a defensive mode and avoid areas with that warning call. It's amazing. Surely, this could be done with Asian Elephants. Couldn't it? Just a thought. What if there were a recorded 'Tiger or Leopard approaching call' used?

Jason Fisher (Las Vegas, USA)

Suresh, please tell us where the places you are referring to are.

I had been travelling a lot by road over the past 10 years, and have come across reported sighting of Leapord and Tiger in the Malshej Ghats. Once when we had gone during the Monsoon season during mid noon a Tiger did cross the waterfalls and seen by a lot of picnickers. After that I have been doing rounds from 11.00PM to 4.00AM and sighted a Tiger twice. Many of the lorry drivers who pass the ghats have reported the sightings. In addition I have seen a bunch ( 20 to 25 ) deers near the road that leads to Nane Ghat. Its not very far when the traffic could become a danger to the wildlife as the Big cats have to cross the Highway to reach the river during summer season. Can we take up the issue and reroute the entire ghat road?

Dear Vaibhav,

 If you go to our homepage and write "Mumbai Leopard" in our advanced search button, you will get 10 items which match the words. Please read the article "Leopard Conflict in Sanjay Gandhi National Park." which has further links to published pieces on th esame topic.  Various suggestions have been put forth to save the leopard and the Park.

BNHS is the right NGO to contact in case you can do some voluntary work. Thanks for raising this issue, which is crucial to the well being of all Mumbai residents.