Salelkar the Wild Cat

Six in the morning and I am sitting in the jeep that is bouncing along the stony wildlife trail leading into the depths of the Mollem National Park. Behind the wheel sits Prakash Salelkar, his coarse and ruggedly handsome face frowning into a grim expression. The brow is furrowed.
‘I can’t believe your bad luck,’ he says finally. ‘There is usually not a day when we don’t sight animals now.’
But I am actually enjoying myself. I have come here to see the forest. If I should see an animal it’s an added plus point.
Dawn filters grey colour through the densely packed trees and when the jeep stops at a stream an eerie stillness and silence hangs in the jungle air. The stream gurgles like a sleepy baby and snakes over smooth pebbles meandering through the giant trees on its banks. I make a promise I am coming again sometime.
The previous night I had had a chat with Salelkar: he was sitting limp in his office chair, exhausted after interrogating a conductor for illegally carrying about a hundred live crabs on a bus to Bangalore. Salelkar emptied the bus of both, the crabs and the passengers, and it was a good while before the conductor and the driver had signed all his forms to get their vehicle back.
I had a look at the crabs and I was as stunned as Salelkar was earlier. Each crab was bigger than two palms of my hand put together, and the biggest ones measured more than ten inches across the carapace. Salelkar was actually checking for Star Back Tortoises, a protected reptile whose illegal trade still continues across Goa’s borders.
Salelkar began his wildlife career in 1975 as a watchman for the forest department, earning six rupees a day. In 1980 he joined the department as a Round Forest Officer, and balancing eight transfers by the year 1985, moved up to the post of Deputy Forest Officer at Collem. At present he holds the post of Range Forest Officer and his total working years in Collem alone amount to eleven.
‘I have covered every inch of this forest on foot, and I know my forest like the back of my own hand,’ he says proudly. I notice he uses the word ‘my’ often when talking of the forest and its animals. Sentences like ‘my leopard will not eat your polluted cattle’ betray the fanatic possessive nature of a man madly in love with ‘his’ forest and its inhabitants. His most memorable experience: Once when he was sitting quietly next to his jeep in the forest, a leopard unawares walked within six feet of him. Salelkar doesn’t romanticize the memory.
‘It was one of the scariest moments of my life,’ he smiles. ‘But the leopard just looked at me and walked away unconcerned.’
Mollem sanctuary holds Gaur, tiger, leopard, deer – spotted, Sambhar, barking and Mouse – Pangolin, wild boar, Sloth bear, Slender Loris and three endemic mammals i.e. the Brown Civet Cat, the Indian Flying Squirrel and the Brown Napped Mongoose. There are also a variety of birds and snakes as well. The largest venomous snake in the world i.e. the King Cobra is also found here. Recently one of these huge reptiles strayed away from the forest to enter a school area in Mollem. This 12 foot long snake was captured by Salelkar and a colleague, Amol, and returned to the forest.
Salelkar is also the man instrumental in bringing to justice persons involved in the killing of eight Gaurs in the Mollem sanctuary. The Gaur is our state animal. Each of these massive animals stands six foot at the shoulder and can weight up to a ton.
These Gaurs used to cross over a plantation fence to feast on the crops of banana and pineapple. They were electrocuted and killed immediately on touching the charged single wire circuits laid around the plants.
This serial killing of the Gaurs took place between 11th June and 27th August this year. Apparently after the Gaurs were killed, they were quickly buried away in pits at the plantation site.
Salelkar himself wouldn’t have found out about the mass killing if it had not been for one of his Forest Guards patrolling the nearby area. The guard found an unusually large skeletal specimen lying on the forest floor. Salelkar says he himself patrolled the area the whole night after that so that the offenders wouldn’t tamper with evidence. The first thing in the morning he organized a raid on the killers. Before long he had found the remaining skeletons concealed in pits dug all over the plantation.
As a Range Forest Officer, Salelkar’s activities include patrolling for poachers, habitat and water management, civil works and ecotourism which brings 16-17 lakh visitors to the Dudhsagar waterfalls annually.
He complains bitterly, however, of the infrastructure and facilities, considering he has only three Forest Guards and two Round Forest Officers to manage the 240 square kilometers of forest under him. Collem Range Forest on the other hand possesses twenty four Forest Guards, five Round Foresters and one Range Forest Officer just to monitor 150 square kilometers of forest.
As I leave Goa’s largest wildlife sanctuary, I ask Salelkar one final question. ‘Do you entertain visitors at the sanctuary?’ I am sure many of my friends would be dying to come here once they hear these stories.
‘Of course,’ he says happily. ‘The sanctuary is everyone’s to enjoy. Provided the only thing they leave behind when they depart are their footprints and the only thing they take away from it are their sweet memories.’
Two days ago, I read that a full-grown panther was killed in a hit-and-run outside the Mollem Wildlife Sanctuary. Salelkar was soon found at the scene. The car left no footprints. But it left a big hole in Salelkar’s heart. I suggest you call him and cheer him up atleast-----2605872