To keep wild cats in park, SGNP starts ‘grasses for leopards’ scheme

Park authorities aim to reduce the growth of weeds and allow edible grasses for herbivores to thrive. (File)

Peculiar as it may sound, but in a bid to sustain the natural food chain at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), the authorities have launched a scheme called “grasses for leopards”.

But for the grasses to thrive, park officials have a task cut out — control the growth of weed Eupatorium odorata in the park, which is inhibiting the growth of grasses, to ensure that the population of herbivores doesn’t dwindle so that the wild cats have enough food and stay within the park.

“In the last decade, we have seen this weed invade the park. It does not allow any other grass to grow and we realised the meadows and grasses will decline, depleting the food sources for herbivores. So, we began a scheme called ‘grasses for leopards’,” said Anwar Ahmed, director, SGNP.

The herbivores in the park generally prefer to eat leguminous plants, grasses and herbs. Through this programme, park authorities aim to reduce the growth of the weed and allow the edible grasses for herbivores to thrive. “The idea is to have more grasses for herbivores so that they multiply. This will ensure that the leopards have enough to eat inside the park and do not venture out in search for food. So, we are technically growing grasses for leopards,” said Ahmed.

Being a national park, the weed’s growth cannot be controlled by chemical means like insecticides or pesticides, and has to be removed manually. “We remove the weed manually just before the onset of monsoon and then plant seeds of grasses in their place. Over the years, their growth will decline,” he said.

While authorities managed to remove the weed from around 30 hectares of the park last year, it is quite a task to get rid of it. “Odorata is just one of the weeds growing here. We also have weeds like Lantana and Congress Grass. Also, it is not possible to remove it from the entire 104 sq km area. So, we cut the weed only in accessible areas. After removing the weed, we burn it so that the seeds do not spread further,” said Yatin Gholap, naturalist from SGNP.
Being an exotic species, Eupatorium tends to compete with the Indian plants leaving very little space, nutrients and water for the other plants.

“If it continues to grow unhindered, the plant biodiversity in the forest will decrease, gradually heading towards mono culture like conditions, where only a single dominating species survives in the forest,” said Gholap.

The weed is known to have created enormous damage to teak plantations in Kerala and has also infested forests in Karnataka.