The Mountains of the Monsoon Natural World


The Mountains of the Monsoon

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It may not look like it, but this is India.

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The Western Ghat mountain range is one of the world's

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great natural treasure troves.

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Its multi-storeyed worlds

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have fascinated wildlife photographer Sandesh Kadur.

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He's spent the last decade documenting

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its astonishingly varied but fragile ecosystems.

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This is the story of Sandesh's

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journey through one of India's last wildernesses.

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There is a saying that goes,

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"We will only conserve only what we love,

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"we will only love what we understand,

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"and we will understand only what we are taught."

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My photography is a tool that I use to help people make that first step.

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My parents, of course, wanted me to join the family business.

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But the Western Ghats were always there,

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boiling away in the back of my mind.

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My friends got careers,

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went into business, manufacturing, property, and into IT.

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I took photographs!

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CAR HORNS BEEP

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How could I go to an office

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with the Western Ghats only a few hours drive away?

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Also known, as the Sahyadris or "Benevolent Mountains",

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what makes the Western Ghats so hospitable to all life

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is the range of different habitats these mountains embrace.

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Ghats means steps,

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and the Western Ghats are a very step-like mountain range.

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We're on a journey along this

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staircase and we're ascending into discreet worlds.

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Below me is a familiar Indian jungle,

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the jungle of Rudyard Kipling, the Jungle Book.

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Tigers, elephants and monkeys.

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But as we go up into the mountains behind, we enter the rainforests,

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and in the rainforest

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we have strange monkeys like the lion-tailed macaques.

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As we get further still, we ascend into the high grassland,

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and this is an area that very few people have been to,

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the animals that live there are virtually unknown,

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and nothing has been filmed.

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In his quest to show not just

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the beauty but also the importance of this wilderness,

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Sandesh recalls an extraordinary turning point.

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Ten years ago in the high-altitude grasslands,

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he had an encounter with a mysterious cat,

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a type of feline he'd never seen before.

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It was nine o'clock in the morning,

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lovely light filling this valley and

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this cat comes up over the shoulder of the hill, sniffing the grass.

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It was a very uniformed greyish-coloured cat

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with a long tail.

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My mind is flipping through

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the book of Indian animals by Prater,

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and I couldn't place which cat this was.

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It could only be one of 15 or 16 species of cats found in India,

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and it wasn't matching any one of them.

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Sandesh is driven by the tantalising prospect

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that somewhere in the Western Ghats, there's an undiscovered predator.

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Sandesh is now back to spend a year in the Western Ghats.

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He'll revisit old haunts and explore new ones,

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and perhaps he'll solve the mystery of his cat-in-the-Ghat.

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Sandesh and his field assistant, Mandanna,

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arrive in the dry deciduous jungles of Bandipur in April.

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It's the peak of the dry season.

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Everything's just dried out. It's the middle of the summer.

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It's very hard for the animals

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during this time, because there's very little water anywhere.

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So we're gonna go and try and see

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if we can find some water holes that still have some water.

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During the dry summer months, water is everything.

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WHISPERING: We just spotted a

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tigress with four cubs just as we rounded this bend at the waterhole.

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So we're gonna set up a blind and see if she comes back to the water.

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It's most likely that she's made a kill close by,

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so they'll be hanging around the same water hole all day long.

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So we're just waiting here and let's see what our luck does to us.

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Tiger's back, tiger's back, tiger's back!

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I use my camera as a notepad or a diary.

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From these snaps,

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I can later identify individuals and share that information.

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Tigers are the undisputed top cats of the Western Ghats,

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with nothing to fear from anything, except, of course, man.

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The question for Sandesh is,

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could the high grasslands and dense

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rainforests hide one more cat to add to that list?

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Sandesh knows that if he's going to document any species of feline,

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let alone a new one, he'll need more than just luck.

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We're just on our way to an old friend of mine,

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Nisarg, who is based here in Bandipur.

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He's been here setting up camera traps,

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and he's got an amazing collection of photographs.

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So let's go meet him and see what new pictures he has for us.

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Hi, Nisarg, how's it going?

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-Fine.

-How have you been?

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We put this camera trap in a wild dog den,

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and over a period of ten days, this is what we got.

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Wow.

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How old are those pups? They seem like just a few days old.

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Yeah, might be a week or so.

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-How many pups were there?

-I think there are six pups there.

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And the dogs didn't mind the camera being there at all?

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-And they seem totally natural, look at that.

-Yes.

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That's beautiful stuff, that really is gorgeous.

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I'm sure no-one's seen anything like this.

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Oh, so what happened here? A tiger came to the den?

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Yeah, a tiger came to the den.

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They are looking for the pups because of the scent.

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Maybe even the dogs knew the tiger was in the area,

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and they decided to shift their den, probably.

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Exactly. And the other thing is I also saw a leopard,

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which is not on this camera trap, in exactly the same place.

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Whoa, that's a massive leopard.

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Yeah, huge.

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Oh, wow!

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Wow, this is a great insight into, like, an unseen world.

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And this is the famous elephant called Onti Kombu,

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a single-tusker, found on the highway.

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Is this the one that's been killing a lot of people?

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-Yeah. It's killed around two to three people.

-OK.

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On the way out of Bandipur, the menacing still becomes a reality.

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With an unpredictable lone male,

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any sudden movement could be extremely dangerous...

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OK, stop.

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..and retreating even more risky than staying put and holding ground.

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These males, they're just

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roaming around and they're making their way to the backwaters.

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You can see this one's been shot through the ear.

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Males get into combat quite often over females,

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and this one seems to have lost his other tusk in combat.

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And right now, he looks very tense again.

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His ears are frozen, he's just not moving.

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He's hardly six feet away from the front of the vehicle.

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One charge and he'd have this vehicle turned over.

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No, no, it's OK, it's OK, Mandanna.

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HE WHISTLES

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Stop, stop.

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Wow.

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Look at the size of this animal!

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The elephants have to move from one water hole to another

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as they dry out,

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and they travel great distances during the summer.

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And a beautiful ivory-bearing tusker like this one is now a rare sight.

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The unrelenting heat of the Indian summer

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is briefly tempered by pre-monsoon showers.

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This is not the deluge that will transform the Western Ghats,

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but it's an absolute lifeline that will keep plants and animals going

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until the rains proper arrive in a few more months.

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The first drops of rain prompt an eruption of termites.

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With waiting armies of ants,

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most will never even take off, let alone land.

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Bears, monkeys, birds will all join the feast.

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This year, with these good showers,

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a lot of animals are gonna tide over

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and they're gonna make it to the monsoon.

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It's filled up the water holes a little bit,

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left lots of puddles for the wildlife.

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Without these rains,

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summer is just a terrible place for the animals down there.

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Sandesh does what all other animals

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of the Western Ghats do during the summer.

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He looks for water.

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I'm now heading to the Western edge of Bandipur Tiger Reserve,

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to an area called Kabini.

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This place is known for its gatherings of elephants,

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and it's one of my favourite places at this time of year.

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But even here in Kabini with its perennial water sources,

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the elephants are reduced to scratching a living,

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kicking up short shoots of grass.

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Like all the creatures of the Western Ghats,

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the elephants are waiting for the annual miracle,

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the monsoon that will transform all it touches.

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We have over 200 elephants here right now,

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and elephants from all the neighbouring states,

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all the neighbouring national parks,

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they all converge right here to the Kabini backwaters,

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because this is the only place left with any water.

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'Ever since this reservoir was created here in 1974,

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'this area has become a magnet for large herds of elephants.'

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WHISPERING: We're following these family herds and the tuskers.

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This is the time for them to mate.

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This is the only place you can get

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so intimately close to the elephants.

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Leaving the dry jungles and elephants at Kabini below,

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Sandesh begins his ascent to the second of the steps

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that make up the distinct worlds of the Western Ghat Mountains.

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It's the smell of these mountains

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as much as anything else that I love.

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If I were blindfolded, I'd immediately know where I was going.

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There's nothing like the rainforest just before the rain.

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For the highly adapted species found here,

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the arrival of the rains determines everything.

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It feels that life is on hold.

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In this multi-sensory world,

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smell and, above all, sound, are as important as vision.

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If he's going to be successful in documenting a new predator,

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interpreting alarm calls will be essential to him.

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DEER YELPING

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Can you hear that? Barking deer alarm call.

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It's probably a leopard

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or a tiger that's walking through this area right now.

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DEER YELPING

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It's very hard to see these animals in the rainforest.

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So you've got to follow these calls.

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And just hearing the calls is exciting enough.

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With the long-awaited arrival of the monsoon,

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the Western Ghats are about to be transformed.

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The arrival of the rains coincide with the ripening of the jackfruit,

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irresistible to the lion-tailed macaques.

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With such a harvest, there's no real need to fight,

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but nonetheless, a strict hierarchy is observed.

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The rains bring species out into the open for both food and for mates.

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Like this group of scimitar-babblers,

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another rainforest species often heard but rarely seen.

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There are 216 species of amphibians in India.

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Over half come from the Western Ghats,

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of which 75 at least are found nowhere else on earth.

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These mountains hold many more species yet to be described.

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There are over 100 frogs still waiting for a name,

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including this one.

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I could spend the rest of my life here just photographing frogs,

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and I'd still just scratch the surface.

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One of the most extraordinary recent finds is this.

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Nasikabatrachus, never before filmed,

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the purple frog.

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Very little is known about this weird-looking creature.

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It's thought to spend most of the year underground.

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This is a female,

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and it emerges once a year with the rains

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to mate with the much smaller male.

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Amazing!

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Its closest relatives are found in the Seychelle Islands,

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3,000 kilometres away,

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suggesting that two populations were separated

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during the continental break-up of Gondwanaland.

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During British rule,

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the discovery that a variety of camellia grew here very well

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would transform these slopes.

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Tea bushes replaced rainforest.

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Roads created new towns just as deforestation led to soil erosion,

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the silting-up of rivers,

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and ultimately, the extinction of animals and plants.

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What life is found up here

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is confined to the last fragments of forest,

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clinging on between the tea estates.

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Elephants are frequent migrants through these inedible tea bushes.

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We're here in the tea estates,

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and I heard that there's a group of seven elephants here.

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If you can see, we're just walking along this trail,

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and there's these big craters in the ground,

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and that's the elephant footprints.

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Wow, there's a herd of elephants.

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They're just working their way through the eucalyptus.

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There's about seven of them right here.

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'I'm here to document this too.

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'The good, the bad and the ugly.

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'Photography is not always meant to be beautiful.

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'We need to show what's actually happening.'

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Some wildlife holds on,

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but crops like tea and exotic plantations like eucalyptus

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have removed nearly 90% of these forests.

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Migrating animals now face an

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obstacle course through their fragmented world.

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But what remains is of unparalleled richness.

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Above the tree-line, with little value to humans,

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the high-altitude grasslands have remained virtually untouched.

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And it's here, in this most remote level of the Ghats,

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that Sandesh first saw the mysterious cat

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that has haunted his imagination ever since.

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The tribal people of the area have told Sandesh

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that they too have seen his mystery cat.

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They call it the pogeyan,

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the cat that comes and goes as the mist.

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It's hard to imagine that anything could make a living up here

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in this severe and exposed landscape.

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But with so much habitat gone, or disturbed,

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all sorts of creatures, some resident, some just passing through,

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seek sanctuary in these grasslands.

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Here we are in the high ranges of the Western Ghats.

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This is the land of the cloud goat, the Nilgiri tahr.

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These are the mature adult males.

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They get their name with that light greyish patch on their back.

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And right now, this is the season of the annual rut,

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and that's when these males come down here to these grasslands

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and these adults vie in attention for a mate.

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Oh, and by the way, it smells being out here.

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These saddlebacks, they keep spraying their face with urine

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and following the females

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and checking their urine to see if they're in heat.

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And when two evenly-matched males get together,

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you'll see them just head-butting.

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We started off this morning down in the tea estates

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at about 1,900 metres,

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and walked up here. We're at about 2,400 metres.

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This whole mountain range is just enveloped in mist.

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I wish I was as adapted to this

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mountain climate as the Nilgiri tahr.

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THUNDER

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But it is this rain that makes the Western Ghats what it is.

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Ten metres falls here each year, and the run-off is not only spectacular,

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but vital to providing the water for the thirsty plains below.

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Water is one of the biggest issues facing 21st-century India.

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All the major rivers in peninsular

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India originate in the Western Ghats,

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and we need to protect this mountain range as a catchment area

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for all of the rainwater

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that provides for the growth of 21st-century India.

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And if we can't protect the Western Ghats,

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we're destroying our own future.

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Sandesh decides it's best to head home, back to Bangalore.

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His friend Nisarg's camera traps have shown

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what a few strategically-placed boxes can reveal.

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Back in Bangalore, Sandesh has some research to do.

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What could the pogeyan,

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the mystery cat that he saw in the high grasslands actually be?

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With its solid grey colour, rounded ears and long tail,

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it fits none of the standard descriptions.

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With the help of his sister, a wildlife artist,

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Sandesh tries to put a shape to what he has witnessed.

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Seeing the form of the pogeyan come to life here.

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The Western Ghats certainly has many new species yet to be discovered,

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mainly reptiles and amphibians.

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But a new cat in 21st-century India?

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Sandesh now knows what he needs to find out.

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Finally, the clouds clear.

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Sandesh is back above the tea estates,

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and ready to return to the high grasslands

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and renew his quest for the pogeyan,

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and whatever other creatures his boxes of equipment might reveal.

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The expedition is entering Eravikulam National Park.

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Eravikulam is probably one of the

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most guarded national parks that I've ever been to.

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Hardly anyone is ever allowed to come up here.

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So we're actually very privileged to be here,

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and to be able to explore this area to be setting up camera traps.

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Shola is the name given to the

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stunted forests that grow in these undulating high-altitude grasslands.

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Like oases in the desert,

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the sholas are the focus

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of all life up on these exposed and windswept plains.

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An old corrugated building sits

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incongruously in the heart of Eravikulam National Park.

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Built in the early '20s by the British,

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it will be Sandesh and his team's base for the next few months.

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We're bringing all the camera traps and in addition to that

0:32:360:32:40

these metal contraptions that are really heavy,

0:32:400:32:43

but we've had to bring them up here

0:32:430:32:44

because I lost two cameras to elephants last year,

0:32:440:32:47

so I don't want that to happen again.

0:32:470:32:49

The old British fishing hut

0:32:550:32:57

has a panoramic view of the surrounding ranges,

0:32:570:32:59

dominated by the highest peak in India south of the Himalayas.

0:32:590:33:04

This is Anamudi, the Elephant's Head, rising to nearly 9,000 feet.

0:33:060:33:11

Scientists still know very little about what lives up here,

0:33:130:33:17

except that many of the animals that are found here

0:33:170:33:20

are found nowhere else on earth.

0:33:200:33:22

Hey, over here!

0:33:260:33:27

Beautiful.

0:33:300:33:32

Beautiful snake. Look at that.

0:33:330:33:35

It's a shield-tail.

0:33:370:33:39

She was probably just basking on

0:33:390:33:40

this trail in this early morning light.

0:33:400:33:44

He's got tiny red spots along the side here,

0:33:440:33:47

and a lovely speckled underside. Look at that.

0:33:470:33:50

I'm sure this is an endemic.

0:33:500:33:52

I'm sure this is not found anywhere else in the world.

0:33:520:33:55

This is a bio-diversity hotspot,

0:33:550:33:57

and every year, scientists are

0:33:570:33:59

discovering new species in these mountains.

0:33:590:34:02

Some of the high-elevation species, like this shield-tail, perhaps,

0:34:020:34:07

could possibly be new.

0:34:070:34:09

It's the first time I've ever seen one of these,

0:34:090:34:12

and we'll be taking it down

0:34:120:34:14

and trying to identify what species it is.

0:34:140:34:17

The high grasslands are windswept.

0:34:190:34:21

It gets cold up here.

0:34:210:34:23

But despite the apparently inhospitable surroundings,

0:34:380:34:41

there's life here, and with the help of his camera traps,

0:34:410:34:44

Sandesh is determined to find out exactly what's out there.

0:34:440:34:48

A pack of dhole, Indian wild dogs,

0:35:030:35:05

have moved up into the grasslands around the fishing hut.

0:35:050:35:10

When a sambar doe and her calf are also seen in the area,

0:35:120:35:15

Sandesh and Mandanna move in with their cameras.

0:35:150:35:19

Dhole are India's most expert and remorseless group hunters.

0:35:200:35:24

Once on the trail of their quarry, they rarely, if ever, miss.

0:35:240:35:29

The mother sees a way out, and seizes the chance...

0:35:380:35:41

..but is forced to abandon her calf.

0:35:450:35:47

Sandesh has set out to document the

0:36:510:36:53

flora and fauna of the Western Ghats.

0:36:530:36:56

He wants to build as complete a picture as possible

0:36:560:36:59

of what makes the region so unique.

0:36:590:37:01

But the longer he spends in the misty mountains of Eravikulam,

0:37:130:37:16

the more determined he becomes to document one species above all.

0:37:160:37:20

Desperate times call for pretty desperate measures,

0:37:240:37:29

and...I think I'm gonna have to put a bird as bait.

0:37:290:37:35

OK, the camera's in place, the cage is in place,

0:38:000:38:04

and all I need now is the bird to put in the cage.

0:38:040:38:06

And here it is,

0:38:110:38:13

a black-capped chickadee.

0:38:130:38:15

BIRD CHIRPS

0:38:150:38:18

That's good.

0:38:200:38:21

I saw the pogeyan in broad daylight,

0:38:310:38:34

but my hunch is that like most Indian cats,

0:38:340:38:38

the pogeyan is going to be a nocturnal creature,

0:38:380:38:41

and it's at night that I reckon

0:38:410:38:42

we're going to have our best opportunity.

0:38:420:38:45

I'm up here on a hillock,

0:39:030:39:05

and I'll be waking up every couple of hours,

0:39:050:39:10

and scoping the hillside

0:39:100:39:12

and see what I can get.

0:39:120:39:14

All right...

0:39:160:39:17

I was just looking out there.

0:39:180:39:20

It's pitch black. I can't see a thing,

0:39:200:39:22

but looking through this monitor,

0:39:220:39:25

I can actually see what's going on in the landscape in front of me.

0:39:250:39:28

The grasslands are completely blue in colour,

0:39:280:39:31

so any warm-blooded animal passing from one shola to the other,

0:39:310:39:35

we'll be able to get a very, very clear image as they cross the shola.

0:39:350:39:40

Monkeys, Nilgiri tahr, even

0:40:080:40:11

elephants appear on the heat-seeking camera,

0:40:110:40:14

but no cat.

0:40:140:40:16

Ah, Tweetie Pie is still alive!

0:40:380:40:41

BIRD CHIRPS

0:40:430:40:45

Well, the camera's still running.

0:40:480:40:50

So Tweetie Pie lives to tweet another day,

0:40:530:40:56

so let's keep the bird out there a little longer and see what happens.

0:40:560:41:00

Tweetie Pie may have evaded attention,

0:41:040:41:06

but Sandesh's video camera traps have had a busier night.

0:41:060:41:10

A mouse deer and a leopard cat

0:41:120:41:14

manoeuvre around one another in the dark.

0:41:140:41:17

A jungle cat has reason

0:41:270:41:29

to be timid, with leopards sharing the same territory.

0:41:290:41:32

But once again, the cameras record

0:41:350:41:37

nothing that cannot be found in the textbooks.

0:41:370:41:40

Like all naturalists, Sandesh knows that local knowledge is essential.

0:41:450:41:50

He turns to the indigenous people of this area.

0:41:500:41:53

The Muduvan have exchanged their

0:41:550:41:57

semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer existence for village life.

0:41:570:42:01

But they're expert trackers,

0:42:010:42:03

and retain a close affinity for the wildlife of the area.

0:42:030:42:06

Sandesh has come to see one of Muduvan elders.

0:42:080:42:11

HE SPEAKS IN TAMIL

0:42:120:42:16

Krishnan has seen the pogeyan three times in his life over here.

0:42:230:42:28

He saw one most recently, about a year ago just beyond this hill,

0:42:280:42:32

behind this hamlet of Lakkam Kudi.

0:42:320:42:35

In all the areas that he says he has seen the pogeyan,

0:42:350:42:37

we've had our camera traps, but we just haven't had any luck.

0:42:370:42:42

THEY SPEAK IN TAMIL

0:42:420:42:46

Well, I mean, in summary,

0:42:550:42:56

basically he says that it's one of the larger cats,

0:42:560:43:00

with a long tail, a uniform darkish grey,

0:43:000:43:05

almost brownish colour, rounded ears.

0:43:050:43:08

He says that there's one,

0:43:080:43:11

and it's the same one that he has seen several times.

0:43:110:43:14

Sandesh is running out of time,

0:43:180:43:21

but Krishnan's descriptions of the pogeyan

0:43:210:43:23

have suggested another explanation for the mystery cat's true identity.

0:43:230:43:28

Sandesh is reminded of a tantalising note his researches threw up.

0:43:280:43:32

While albino leopards are very rare, they are not completely unknown.

0:43:340:43:38

Could the local leopard population have a mutant gene

0:43:420:43:45

that occasionally throws a grey individual?

0:43:450:43:48

I've spent ten years documenting the wildlife of these mountains.

0:43:540:43:59

The idea that I'd be able to add

0:43:590:44:01

another mammal, a new carnivore to the portfolio, has been a dream.

0:44:010:44:05

Back in the field with a Muduvan tracker called Vijian,

0:44:130:44:17

it's time for a last push.

0:44:170:44:19

Well...

0:44:250:44:27

..it's been several months,

0:44:280:44:30

and I've just had no luck up here in this part of the National Park.

0:44:300:44:35

So I've been talking to Vijian earlier this morning,

0:44:380:44:41

and he believes that the best chance to find the pogeyan

0:44:410:44:45

is going to be around Anamudi.

0:44:450:44:47

Vijian insists that the Elephant's Head

0:44:490:44:51

is the most likely place to find the cat

0:44:510:44:54

that comes and goes like the mist.

0:44:540:44:56

Sandesh and Mandanna leave camera traps on the trail up to the summit.

0:45:230:45:27

We're on the summit of Anamudi, Elephant's Head.

0:46:160:46:20

We're at nearly 9,000 feet above sea level,

0:46:200:46:23

and this is the highest point south of the Himalayas.

0:46:230:46:26

At the start of the quest,

0:46:270:46:28

I was really hoping that the pogeyan would be

0:46:280:46:31

a cat that ends up with a Latin name, a new species.

0:46:310:46:35

It has been frustrating and unfortunate

0:46:370:46:40

that we haven't found the pogeyan,

0:46:400:46:42

but I'm happy that we've come across many things along the way.

0:46:420:46:46

It's been a great experience.

0:46:460:46:48

The fact that in 21st-century India,

0:46:530:46:56

there are still places like this that are wild enough, remote enough

0:46:560:47:01

and unexplored enough for a new species like the pogeyan to exist,

0:47:010:47:06

is cause for a celebration and hope.

0:47:060:47:08

Sandesh has still to prove the existence of the pogeyan.

0:47:150:47:19

But his extraordinary images have revealed a little-known wilderness,

0:47:190:47:23

and shown why preserving these mountains is essential,

0:47:230:47:26

not only to its wild inhabitants but for the future of all Indians.

0:47:260:47:33

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