The Think Wildlife Podcast
S3|E2- Exploring threats to urban owls in India with Debangini Ray
The festive season is underway in India, Diwali is around the corner and everyone is celebrating the festival of lights, however, India's hours are doomed for darkness. It is around this time of the year when hours succumb to the illegal wildlife trade. There are various superstitions around them and they are often used for black magic. In this episode of the Think While Live podcast, I interviewed Deban Guinea-Ray, who is the founder of the Urban Hour Network. As part of her PhD, she is studying human hour affiliations in Indian cities. Due to this and more about her research and the conservation of hours in India's cities and all the superstitions around them. So welcome to the podcast, it is a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much Anish for having me, it's amazing that you've invited me and I'm always glad to talk about hours in my work. So what is the idea behind the Urban Hour project and what is the idea behind Urban Hour project? So the Urban Hour project actually started from my PhD research. I'm a PhD scholar with MIT World Peace University and I have always been sort of fascinated with multi-species interactions and ethnographies in urban spaces, especially in India. And I think much like everybody else, I have always been fascinated with hours. So there was a time, I think post-pandemic, I remember. So I get these calls often from my friends and from other people who ever has my number you had coordinate some rescues, whatever, you know, urban wildlife rescues. It can be sevets, it can be snakes, it's mostly snakes. So during that time, I remember, I started getting more calls for hours. And this is Gohati, which is my hometown. And so that got me a bit interested, it was either a banal or a spotted outlet. And also I started, you know, so this owl kept popping up everywhere. There were more owl articles I came across, I also saw an increase in, you know, more reporting of owl rescues in social media around, you know, India, not just in Gohati. So it was like, there was some sign and that really intrigued me and I decided to dig deeper. And when I dug deeper, I realized that we have, we hardly have any studies on urban owls in India. We have so many questions, but we don't have any answers. And I think that's when I realized that I really want to do something and I met my PhD guy, my now PhD guy, Dr. Panguch Kopalay from Chaturulu Lab, and I decided to collaborate with him and do some research. I think that's when he told me that you can also, you know, apply for PhDs, that's something you want to do. I always knew I wanted to do PhD, but I mean, I never really thought about what exactly it would be. I think I wasn't prepared at that time, but I somehow knew this was the right moment. This is something I really want to do. And, you know, this is something I want to do for the rest of my life in fact. It sounds pretty, you know, ambitious and I don't know too much into the future, but I knew that I would want to definitely focus on urban ecology and human bird or human wildlife interactions, especially urban spaces. So I took him up on this offer and I sat for the exams and the interviews and I decided that, oh, okay, great. Through my PhD, let me start my research on owls, of course, hopefully carried forward even beyond that. So but, you know, there is, there's only so much you can do in four or five years, right? There's so much that I think we all need to, you know, there's so much potential for urban our research in the country, but so far because of limited time, I have decided to focus on three things. So what I'm looking at or let's see what the urban owl project is looking at is to understand the threats to, you know, owls in different cities in India that might exist, then documenting citizens' knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards owls, the owls that they share their spaces with, right? In the cities. And the third is more of a case study, I would say. So we are trying to get an in-depth understanding of habitat preference and owl occupancy in the city of Guwahati, which is very fast urbanizing. So hoping to extend the study to other cities, maybe beyond beyond my PhD. So it's a very multidisciplinary project. I'm not just looking at, it's also muddy species because I'm not looking at only one particular species of owls, right? And the Instagram page urban owl network is something I use mainly for outreach and to stay connected with, you know, citizens and owl enthusiasts and fellow researchers. So that's, I think, the gist of urban owl project. And what are the most common species of owls found urban settings in India? Okay, so I wouldn't say most common, but I would definitely say that the most widespread would be the eastern, eastern barn owl, which is the title Javanika. So barn owls, as a lot of us might know, are also the most widespread owls, you know, they are found across the world, in fact, not just in India. But in India as well, they are the most widespread. And they are also generalists, they are wide-ranging generalists, which means that they have a very broad dietary preference, which is why they can adapt easily, they can survive much better than other owls. So this is something interesting that I, you know, keep telling people, which it also interests me, because we often think that owls are not very accustomed to, you know, sharing spaces with humans, they are not very used to human presence, right? But it's absolutely not the case with barn owls. I mean, barn owls and humans have shared spaces since the earliest of times. So since humans started farming, I mean, we all know this, right? Humans have shared resources, spaces, food, there was easy prey in the form of rodents. They used to, you know, roost and nest in the barns in the sheds, which is why they call barn owls. And in fact, I would like to quote Salimundi here, Salimundi described barn owls as quote, "Inseparable from the haunts of man." And this is pretty amazing, and there is Mirim Darlington, who very beautifully describes in her book, I will say, and she says that, you know, our closeness has developed over time, like a marriage, but not in altogether happy one. And I feel this is the most accurate description one can give about the barn owls in human relationship, because I'm pretty sure we can all, you know, sort of fathom when things started turning sour, when we had the urbanization, you know, coming up and habitat fragmentation, and then barn owls and no choice between race cities as their, you know, new homes, new habitats, right? So barn owls, I would say, barn owls can really be called an urban owl species, even in India. And then, so the citizen science data, you know, you can search e-bird, and we are also collecting a lot of rescue data on owls, and through that, we can also see that some of the roles like the spotted owllet, then there is the brown hock owl, spotted owllet is, are those, you know, small round spotted owls that you see huddled against one another, the cute ones, yeah, you see pairs of them, you see four, five, four, five of them, you know, huddled together, that's the one brown hock owl, which sort of looks like a hawk with very large torch like ice, they're pretty common in urban spaces, you have Indian Scopes owl as well, Indian Scopes owl though is not found in Northeastern cities, it's not found in Guahati, but it's found here, it's found everywhere, everywhere else, and it's also pretty much, it's often rescued as well, then you have collards, cops are, I would say, at least for Guahati because back home, collards, cops are pretty common in the city, you hear the calls, you often see them as well, and we also have some species called Asian bar owllet, Asian bar owllet is again, it's a diagonal owl, it's very much active during the day, you can't see it in the night, and it has a very, you know, unique call, you see it perched on a pole in the middle of the day, again, that's back home in Guahati, I don't think we have Asian bar owllet anywhere else in, in, in, at least in Central Western Northern or Southern India, so I think we need, we really need more studies to specify which are the owls that have actually managed to adapt themselves to urban scopes in India today, and yeah, I don't think we are, we are there, we don't, we have a nearly good enough idea through this data, but yeah, that's all I think I, I can tell you, yeah, I think the bar owllet only found in North East India and South East Asia, so what is the cultural significance of owls in India? That is, that's a Pandora's books, to be honest, because I mean, see, humans are obsessed with owls, we can't deny that, that's not just in India, this, this obsession, it exists across time, culture, space, and you know, if you really dig into, I don't know, stories, folklore, mates, everything, everywhere, you will have owl references, you will have owl stories, and in India, we have so many different cultures, right, and every culture has their own notion, they have their own perception towards those, every religion, every culture, every region, I would say, and I, I really believe that this very rich and vivid oral storytelling and ethanol mythology that has survived till date, even now, so Hinduism, a lot of us may know that the bar owl is associated with goddess Lakshmi, and it's considered as her baha and baha and basically, basically the vehicle on which a god or a goddess arrives or travels in, so goddess Lakshmi is a belief to have, you know, the owl for company as a vehicle, so she's always accompanied the owl, but we also have this obsession with the color white, you know, the color white is something with other owls, you will not see that they are not white, the bar owl is very distinct as in its beige white color, and yeah, because of this, in a lot of parts in India, the bar owls are worshiped, so they are regarded as sacred, they are regarded as lucky in fact, so if a bar owl comes into your, enters your house, it means, I mean, it's often believed that there will be a flow of wealth, it will suddenly get a lot of money, and also, in a lot of cities, I've seen that if a bar owl comes in, some puja is performed also, so, you know, because they want to worship the owl, basically, because it's like, what is Lakshmi herself is coming to the house, that's sort of thing, now that being said, there are many parts of India, where exact opposite perceptions exist, where the bar owls are considered as bad luck, they are feared, so you know, a lot of birds have their melodic tunes and calls, and I know each is distinct, but you still, you know, scared easily by these calls, now the bar owl has a very, its creatures, it has a screech like one, which may be a little, a little different, unique, and especially because they call it night, a lot of people are scared by the call, and that is sort of this, anonymize it with, with bad luck, or some bad omen or something like that, and so, they are, they are sure the way stones are painted at them, they are not, because they have a habit of roosting and nesting young human habitations, they're not allowed to do that, so it's like a mixture of these two things, but other than this, I would say the small to medium-sized dark colored owls, they mostly face bad luck from people, and they are considered as bad luck by people, so in Guwahati, Kolkata, these cities, so banal is called lokhipacha in Bengali, so pacha means owl, in asymis it's called lokhipasa, pasa is again owl, pasa pacha, the, the small dark colored owls, like the ashen bar outlet, I would say scopes owls, spotted owls, all of these owls, they are sort of the dark brownish, right, they are not white, they are regarded, they call is kal pasa or kal pacha, now kal pasa can be translated to either owls of death or black owls, black or dark owls, so either way, they're, they're bad omen's, in fact, I think, so you know, this is very interesting perception I've come across recently in Guwahati, where Gangajal is sprinkled in the house, you know, to, if by chance there is one of these owls comes inside by mistake, flies inside and gets trapped or whatever, or even comes near the house, flies near the house, Gangajal is sprinkled because, you know, to sort of, I don't know, I mean, do away with the evil spirit or whatever, bad omen might have bought, and that, that, I mean, it's a city, these are citizens who have told me this, and we still believe that, so yeah, and another thing is, I think another interesting fact about the brown hock owl is that a lot of people have told me that you cannot see this owl, you can only hear it, and if you hear it all at night, then someone in the neighborhood is going to die in the next 48 hours, and this is something I try to sort of ask them, how do you know this, do you have any proof, and they all seem to tell me, these are all individual stories, right? They all seem to tell me that no see, I mean, we are all educated, we know this, but this is one thing that they have seen with their own eyes, apparently, so when someone in the neighborhood has heard the brown hock owl call out, somebody has died in the next 48 hours, so these are very deep-rooted beliefs, right, and I personally think that it's because we don't really understand, you know, the basic behavioral ecology of owls, and it's the whole thing about night and day, right, I mean, it's very unusual for an owl to be active at night, is if you look back, well, I mean, we are not nocturnal beings, right now we are, I mean, we stay awake at night, but early times, the night time was a time when we all slept, it was not a time of activity, right, we were all active during the day, and we saw and observed a lot of birds there, and after we slept, or let's say in the dark of the night, when there was very little light back then, these owls are active, screeching, you know, flying and hunting and all of that, so I think it was very difficult for us to understand the behavior back then, and yeah, I think that's what led to all the fear and the superstitious beliefs that still exist today, these are some of these, this is in fact, I'm just scratching the surface, there's just so much of perceptions and beliefs that we really need to document and wherever it's illogical and wherever superstitious, I think we should really try and bridge the knowledge gap and make people aware. And why are barn owls under such severe threat to Dune the valley every year? Okay, so two things there I would like to say, one is, it's not just barn owls that were under threat, the other large owls like Bigo bengalensis, which is the, in an eagle owl, there was zylonis, which is the brown fish owl, there are other eagle owls like dusty eagle owl and spot belly eagle owl, so basically all these owls which have, you know, those horns in their head, they actually not horns of course, or the ears, they are not even ears, they are just feathers, but basically in colloquial language, the horn owls were also very much under threat, yeah, and the second thing is this IWT, this illegal wildlife trafficking that used to happen for owls was very intense, honestly, it was probably until about 10 years ago, but it is really going down significantly. Now whether it is because people are getting more aware or is it because the law is more stringent now, I mean, we have special task force every year now before the valley, around the valley, which, you know, I think there are still people apprehended, you know, caught and handed with owls, illegally captured, but it has gone down a lot, we have data from traffic India and, you know, wildlife trust of India to actually prove that, now coming back to the why, as I said, gourish luxury and barn owls go hand in hand synonymous with that. So there is this belief that existed against superstition, that existed in most of the, it mostly in not Indian states, that if you sacrifice the ban, the owl, whichever owl it is, if you sacrifice the owl, then either it will appease the gourish, it will make the gourish happy, that is one, another, or there was another alternate belief that if you sacrifice the owl, it means that the gourish cannot leave your house, because how will she leave the house without her vehicle, without the ban, which means that your wealth is protected, your wealth cannot leave the house as well. So just this obsession with wealth, there are also a lot of sacrifices and black magic and other rich ways that used to go on, and owl products, not just, you know, for sacrifice, I mean, owl talons and eyeballs and feathers and all of that were also in demand in between. So I mean, that's all, I think associated with the most ridiculous of reasons like increasing wealth or gaining wisdom, because owls are considered to be wise. So you know, all of this, but thankfully it's going down and I hope that it really vanishes for good very soon. So what role do owls play in both urban and rural ecosystems? I was seeing, owls have appeared with this planet much before us, right? And I think they have appeared, I think, around about 60 million years ago, and their evolutionally wonders, they have been evolving since then. And I mean, with their hearing and their eyesight and everything, their hunting prowess, their apex predators, mesopreditors, key indicators and all of that, right? So I mean, they hunt rodents most importantly, they hunt the mid-level consumers, I would say, and they suppress them, they keep them in check. And this is true for the case of rural ecosystems as an urban ecosystems. Now it's extended to urban ecosystems, of course, because I mean, rural scapes are diminishing and urban scapes are increasing, but it's the same in both cases. They are very important in suppressing mid-level consumers. And of course, they were, regardless, farmers' friends, or if you talk about rural scapes, they are the best natural pest control agents. And a lot of, even in India, in Assam, recently launched the, and of course, in other countries, scientists and researchers, as well as farmers, they've actually joined hands and tried to introduce these nest boxes for burnouts to come in groups so that the chemical agents and pollutants can come down, the rodenticides can come down, and barnoughs can actually do their job naturally and very sustainably control the rodent populations. Everybody is happy at the end of the day, you are increasing the population of barnoughs, which are going down in a lot of places, and you're also making the farmers happy. Researchers and scientists are equally happy. So that's, and one more thing I would like to say, which we often overlook, is the cultural value, the cultural importance, the cultural services that ours provide. And this is, of course, true for every other, like all other cultures, not just in India, but also in India, there are so many beliefs associated with the owls, right? I mean, so this is something that I feel is some, we neglect that, and cultural value and ethnomontology is equally important. And owls, I think, are one of the, one group of birds that humans have always been obsessed with and culturally revere them. So then, in both ends of the spectrum, of course, they're either seen as very evil and bad omens, otherwise they're revere and worshipped, right? So yeah, I think owls play a very important role, both in open and rural ecosystems. And I feel like there might even be more services that we might not know about, given the fact that we are when I sing rapidly and we are having very less studies on, you know, owls in urban ecosystems. So we might want to check those out. So what are the primary threats to owls, especially in urban ecosystems? Any threats? So I wouldn't, I'm not on stage to categorize the threats as primary or secondary yet, but I can tell you from my research, whatever we have discovered, that we have discovered through recorded data on our rescues, right? So the first thing, I think I've already told you about the habitat destruction part. Now in cities also, so this is urban scapes, right, urban owls? Yeah, right, right, right, so I mean, see, I think we all are aware that we are cutting down whatever old and mature trees that we have left in cities. Those old and mature trees provide good notes and crevices for small owls to roost and nest in. And then we are also cementing for purposes of beautification trees which are dying in the end. So all of this is leading to habitat loss, of course, destruction, along with that, there is nest displacement that happens. So these are partly natural and anthropogenic causes which happen because of urbanization, but there are mixed, you know, causes, right, storms might come and then, you know, for beautification purposes, a tree needs to be cemented. So there's a lot of habitat loss happening because of which nests are getting displaced and that's a big threat actually. Apart from that, a very major threat, especially in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, even New Delhi, I think, is the Chinese manja. So we have the normal manja, the Chinese manja, you know, it's not just a yarn, just not a string, it's covered with glass shards. So the Chinese manja is so dangerous that it can severely injure humans even, human skin. It can cause severe injuries to human skin. So imagine the injuries that might cause to an owl or to any bird for that matter, right? So I think we have received a lot of data which points towards the fact that majority of birds in these cities are rescued because of the Chinese manja, rescued if they are lucky. Otherwise, a lot of them even die. So other threats are ACR poisoning, anti-cobulin, rodenticide poisoning, so this poisoning we might as well, I mean, we might think that this happens only in farmlands and in rural scapes, but that's not the case. Nowadays, we have peri-urban areas, we have, you know, a lot of edge habitats, and you know, the lines between habitats are blurry. So it's not just farmers which use rodenticide, there are a lot of citizens, there are a lot of residents who use rat kill, like at least in Gohati I've seen after speaking to a lot of vets and witnessing it for myself, you have very bad diswaste disposal systems in cities. You have open garbage dumps, right? At night, if you are an urban owl, if you are an owl in the city searching for prey, see, inherently when you are embracing or trying to adapt to urban habitats, your behavioral ecology will change to some extent. It may depend on which species and all other factors, but it will go through some changes. Now, your sea, let's see, you are an owl, right? And you are flying and you are trying to hunt and you come across easy prey in the form of dead rats, let's say, in the garbage dump. So if you already have dead rats, why would you go and waste your energy trying to hunt for a life one, right? So you soup down and you have those dead rats and a lot of these dead rats are killed using rat kill or whatever. So the immune system gets severely compromised and initially I thought this might be like a one time thing, it's not that serious of a case, but there's been a lot of discussion around why barn owls, immune systems are so compromised, because if your immune system is compromised, then other factors kick in and become threats. For example, you collide, your sensory skills are affected, you collide against other structures or you're not able to digest or detox and spread and this bio accumulation happens inside the body if you don't know, so they haven't been enough studies to actually figure out what's going on, but most of the mortality rate of barn owls are very high compared to other owls. So then there are glute traps as well, glute traps are used to again trap so-called pests, rodents and all of that. So again, glute traps, if a bird soups down and this even it's a very big threat for reptiles as well, then you're stuck, your feathers are stuck, your wings are stuck and that can provide deadly if human intervention is not there. And then of course there are other threats like urban threats, very urban threats like alien artificial light at night. Now a few years ago, until a few years ago, we didn't have these very ugly harsh LED lights right now we have these LED holdings all around the city, we have very harsh lights, we have noise pollution, we have like, you know, marriages or whatever festivals, we have very very high noise. I mean, even humans are like a lot of people cannot all the difficulties think about owls which are nocturnal and are active at night, that's their hunting time. And then you have smoke and see, of course you have to understand that owls rely on their you know, ears and their eyesight as well as other factors like sabbanos hunt very low, not sabbanos, banals hunt low because that's the way they hunt, right. And unfortunately because of this behavior, they also collide against you know, speeding vehicles, speeding vehicles with that you know, those very harsh, you know, headlights. And that's one, one, one sort of one kind of coalition that happens, other collisions that happen are reflective architectures. So you have these glass buildings, there's a lot of you know, reflective balls and other surfaces and even smaller birds collide against them. Owls are same for owls like at night owls collide against the structures and when they collide, they collide at very high speed, right. So that causes neurogenic, you know, trauma and all other kinds of free, the freeze and they are in the ground, let's say, and at night there's nobody around to come and help. Citizens may find them in the morning and by then maybe stray dogs and cats or cats may have attacked them and cost further injury. So there's a lot of cases where we've seen that there's mobbing in attacks happening by strays. Now how will and why will strays attack an owl can fly, right. So all of these cases are when the owls have already been compromised in some sort of way. They are there on the ground, they're either injured already or they are in shock. And then again you have electrocution and there is one other thing that happens is citizens have this knowledge cap where they cannot they don't know how to exactly handle an injured bird, an injured raptor on top of that so that every bird has a different, you know, you can't handle all the birds in the same way and they have very good intentions. Maybe they want to save the bird, they want to take the bird to the vet or to the forest department. But when you are picking the bird up, let's say, you know, holding the wings like that, maybe spread the wings and hold them or, you know, in their legs with their talons or you are wrapping something around them, you don't have to know how to do that even if your intentions are really pure. So this further aggravates and worsens the situation if the owl, let's say, has fractured wings or fractured legs and you are holding it up, you know, with your hands, then it just further worsens the situation. A lot of cases surprisingly, so this depends on from city to city, like in Guahati, we don't have organizations or NGOs that conduct wildlife rescues. So almost all the owl rescues calls have been placed either by citizens, either the calls are placed by citizens or the citizens themselves carry the owl, the injured owl to the rescue center, which is in the state zoo. And most of the times where the citizens have handled the owls, the owls have succumbed to their injuries because you have to understand how sensitive it is to it's already in shock and it's already traumatized and injured and you're handling it in all possibly wrong ways. So these are a lot of different threats and a lot of these threats also play out in combination, it might not be one single threat, it might be different threats which, you know, are acting together to sort of, yeah, but hopefully, I mean, there might be even more threats that we haven't come across and which is why, again, I kind of reiterate that we really need more studies on us in cities, yeah. So what have been the most prominent challenges you have faced in the urban owl project and PhD challenges, well, so, well, sort of setting aside the field work part of it, I would say there are some challenges which we can all overcome if we continue the research, not something that is not, not something that we cannot overcome, but they really have been challenging so far and the most, the biggest of them is to get in touch with forest department in different states. So I think we all know that it's challenged for everybody working in this field unless of course you have contacts or, you know, sometimes they can be really nice, but in my case, to get in touch with forest departments and to persuade them to share their data with me that has been a very big challenge, I mean, see, this is not even data that we need permission for, you've conducted rescues, you've coordinated rescues, you have the data for rescues, there's nothing really to hide, but I have been unsuccessful mostly in this and I still struggle with this challenge. And again, another thing, again, it might be generic, but it is very true. It's a huge challenge, it's funding. I think a lot of people working in this field will also say that funding is a huge challenge for them, but me especially, you know, with this project being multidisciplinary and all, it doesn't really fit into those very rigid categories or areas of funding that we mostly, you know, know of the funding opportunities that we get because I'm not working on a species that is very vulnerable or endangered. Also I'm not working on this critically, you know, very fragile ecosystems or biodiversity hotspots. We're working in urban areas, in cities. So it's very difficult to convince vocally or in return, you know, to emphasize how important the project is and might become in the future. So there is one new challenge, but from that, I think, see, urban ecology and urban wildlife are very new and emergent concepts in India, right? They're pretty, I mean, we have a lot to catch up on. So I do, sometimes it's just a little bit discouraging when you have these seniors or even, you know, fellow researchers who question you on, you know, why is this, like, how is this positive and relevant or significant if there is no proper, you know, there's no scientific methods or quantitative methods. So I employ a lot of, let's say, oral narratives and interviews and, you know, multi-species ethnographies and all of that, which a lot of people might question say that they are not quantifiable, right? You can't really quantify them. You can't measure this. You can't put them on apps and find out, get numbers. And I strongly believe that quantitative research and qualitative research about equally important can balance the blue, mixed methodology. You have, I think you can conduct really amazing research, whatever it is you're working on. But I do face, so initially I was also very, I was not that confident because these questions bothered me, this attitude bothered me, it was like, whatever I'm doing, is it worth it? Is it really significant? So that has reduced a bit now more, you know, I just try and be sincere and I'm more confident in what I'm doing and I really, truly believe that it's extremely important, but it does get discouraging sometimes when people you look up to, let's say, the other ones who come in, you know, sort of share that, you know, share their worries or concerns and sort of give you that feeling like, hey, this is not something that's, that's, that I expected you to do, you know, but yeah, apart from this, I don't think, I mean, there are always challenges in every research that you're doing, maybe I'll face more challenges tomorrow when I start conducting other facets of this research, but that's, that's about it. And how, my final question is that, how can individuals contribute to the urban hour project? Oh, first of all, I really request everyone to contribute. And of course, you can follow urban hour network page on Instagram. It's just at urban hour network, simply that you can also write to us at urbanhournetwork@gmail.com. And so we have links in our bio on Instagram. So one of those links is a questionnaire, the survey that we are doing. It's called living with owls and I implore every person, time doesn't matter which city you're from, what is your age to please fill that questionnaire out because it really helps us understand the relationship between humans and owls in cities. And of course, if you have suggestions and comments and collaborate, you know, ideas for collaboration or outreach for owls, I'm always available, like I'll be delighted to connect and collaborate. So does a fun question actually today. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much, Anish. It was wonderful chatting with you, thanks for the opportunity. We have reached the end of this episode of the thing while the podcast. If you are still listening, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed this podcast, then learn something new about conservation. Feel free to leave your thoughts on the episode. I don't forget to share and subscribe before we end the podcast, I would like to share another podcast on Indian wildlife called the thing about wildlife by Ishika Ramakrishna. Also for those who would like to learn more about coins mission in India, I have attached a link to three books on Indian wildlife, which I highly recommend. One is a field guide to the mammals of India by a very common end, which is by far one of the most detailed field guides I have seen from anywhere in the world. The second is titled at the feet of living things written by the various conservationists at the Nature Conservation Foundation. It covers 25 years of the organization's research ranging from conservation of snow leopards in Spriti Valley to rain forest restoration in Anamalai and dugong conservation in the Anamananakupa Islands. The final is a four-part series by Mr. H. Pabla, a former Indian Forest Service officer, which provides a very in-depth analysis of the state of India's conservation and a four-way forward. He covers species-renetoxin, wildlife, tourism, the forest rights, and poaching. He also talks about his time as an officer, heading various conservation projects in multiple ways ranging from the re-interduction of Para-Singa and Blackpurk to the core and tackling the panna-ching crisis. And with that, we end this episode of the thing while at the podcast. Thank you once again. [BLANK_AUDIO]