Diario de amarbharathy

A pilgrim's walk from Alipiri to Tirumala in Metlu (steps) turned out to be a great mothing session. There were a lot of Callitera thwaitesii moths resting in the steps. Indian giant squirrels were abundant and they sometimes come down to shop keepers to steal fruits. Sambars, Spotted Deers and Indian Boars are other common wild animals to watch out for.

Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) is the administrative authority of this eastern ghats range, which does a very good job in pilgrim service. But there is a dire need for TTD to put more boards with accurate descriptions of birds and animals that can be seen in the adjacent forests. Also this can be a transformed into a good place to educate people on wildlife, putting up signs like "Dont feed animals" etc.

As far as I have noticed, AP forest department doesn't care much about wildlife in Tirumala because there are pictures of foreign birds being drawn there to represent birds residing in the forest. They should up their efforts in Tirumala, and bring more initiatives to instill wildlife awareness.

From April 14 to 16, we went on a family trip to Munnar. We stayed in Anachal and went to nearby places. I have added observations from this trip.

Highlight is Cricula moths which were in abundance near the hotel we stayed. Racket tailed Drongo wasn't shy to catch one when I was photographing the moth in close quarters!

One worrying observation about the Idukki district in particular is the abundance of resorts, homestays, hotels and the likes. Already the pristine shola forests are replaced by Tea, Cardamom and Cocoa monocultures, and now these hugely growing tourism industry with no foresight on the ecological issues they pose are only making things worse in Idukki which was one of the main victims in Kerala floods and landslides. I don't think Kerala tourism has a complete control over these "homestays" in the middle of Sholas and cardamom plantations; Do they have proper permits? Do they pay their taxes or are these homestays just a side job for the owners?

Kerala government needs to check these rapidly growing hotel industry in the forests and try to strike a balance between Forests and Tourism.