Jackal numbers up in Chennai, foresters thrilled

CHENNAI: Luck has little to do with it. Efforts of forest department officials have borne fruit and the jackal population in the city and on its outskirts is steadily increasing. Foresters estimate that there are more than 50 of the animals in the Guindy National Park (GNP) alone.
A few of these scavengers who help keep check on the rodent population have also been sighted in such places as the Adyar Poonga (Adyar estuary), the Theosophical Society environs in Adyar, Nanmangalam forests and Madras Christian College (MCC) campus in Tambaram.
Selva Singh Richard, the professor of botany at MCC who spotted a pair of jackals during a walk through the verdant interior of the campus a couple of days ago, said he was thrilled. “While one immediately hid under a bush, the other stood on the road and stared at me for a few seconds before the pair completely disappeared,” Richard said.
While the sighting of a jackal on the MCC campus, which is contiguous with the Vandalur reserve forest, or in the sprawling GNP is not a big surprise, it is the presence of these animals in places like the Adyar poonga, where four were seen a few months ago, that has excited foresters and renewed hope that the rise in their numbers can be sustained.
T Murugavel, founder of Environment Monitoring and Action Initiating (EMAI), an NGO, says these small mammals were once commonly found in the city limits. “Actually, these scavengers can adapt easily to changing environs and stay close to human habitations,” he said. But the increasing urbanization destroyed their habitats and they were gradually forced out of the city, he added.
The revival began six or seven years ago when forest officials noticed that the jackals confined to the enclosures at the Children’s Park in Guindy were multiplying rapidly and released a few pairs into the surrounding GNP. The experiment worked. The animals fit perfectly into the park’s ecosystem and bred well. “Now, several jackals are roaming freely around the GNP. They keep a check on the spotted deer population by feeding on fawns. Earlier, spotted deer used to thrive in this forest within the city,” a senior official said.
Murugavel says there has been no study on the population of jackals in the city and urged the forest department to undertake a census of the mammals. Such an effort will not only give an idea of their population but also help in understanding their habitats which require adequate protection, said Murugavel.