Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 October 2022 | 14(10): 22026–22028
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893
(Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8067.14.10.22026-22028
#8067 | Received 19 June 2022 | Final
received 31 August 2022 | Finally accepted 21 September 2022
A coastal population
of Honey Badger Mellivora capensis at Chilika Lagoon in the Indian east
coast
Tiasa Adhya 1 & Partha Dey 2
1 Centre for
Conservation of Natural Resources, The University of Trans-disciplinary Health
Sciences and Technology, 74/2, Post Attur via Yelahanka, Jarakabande Kaval,
Bengaluru, Karnataka 560064, India.
2 Fishing Cat Conservation
Alliance, PO Box 1488, Navasota, Texas 77868, USA.
1 adhyatiasa@yahoo.com
(corresponding author), 2 parthamarsh2@gmail.com
Editor: Honnavalli N.
Kumara, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore,
India. Date of publication: 26
October 2022 (online & print)
Citation: Adhya, T. & P.
Dey (2022). A coastal population of Honey Badger Mellivora
capensis at Chilika Lagoon in the Indian east coast. Journal of Threatened
Taxa 14(10): 22026–22028. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8067.14.10.22026-22028
Copyright: © Adhya & Dey 2022. Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.
JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this
article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the
source of publication.
Funding: Mohamed Bin Zayed
Species Conservation Fund - 172516628.
Competing interests: The authors declare no
competing interests.
Acknowledgements: We thank the
villagers residing around Chilika lagoon, without whose documentation, the
presence of the Honey Badger in Chilika would have remained unknown. We remain
grateful to Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund for supporting our
Fishing Cat research and conservation work which resulted in this
documentation. We would also like to thank Will Duckworth and Dr. Ajith Kumar
for their comments on the manuscript.
The Honey Badger or
Ratel Mellivora capensis (family Mustelidae) is the only species in its
genus. It is distributed widely all across Africa and southwestern Asia with
the easternmost distribution being the Indian subcontinent (Prater 1980;
Harrison & Bates 1991; Neal & Cheeseman 1996). It has a very wide
habitat tolerance, occurring from sea-level to >2,500 m and from desert
steppes to rainforests but prefers drier arid landscapes and avoids regions
with very heavy rainfall (Proulx et al. 2016). Its status and distribution in
Africa and western Asia are well documented (Proulx et al. 2016). However, it
remains one of the least studied small carnivores in India with a majority of
occurrences reported from central and western India but barely from the
northeastern states (Kumara & Singh 2007; Gupta et al. 2012; Gubbi et al.
2014; Krishnan et al. 2016). Only recently has its presence been documented
from the Papikonda National Park situated in the Eastern Ghats (Aditya et al.
2020).
We report the Honey
Badger, for the first time, from human-dominated landscapes of the Chilika
lagoon, Odisha, roughly 500 km to the north-east of the recent record from the
northern Eastern Ghats in the state of Andhra Pradesh (Aditya et al. 2020).
There are no previous reports of the Honey Badger from the landscape in
literature.
Chilika is Asia’s
largest brackish water lagoon and one of India’s oldest Ramsar sites. It is
partially encompassed by the Eastern Ghats in the north, is drained by
tributaries of the Mahanadi River in the north-east and is connected to the Bay
of Bengal in the south. The lagoon is situated in a human-dominated multi-use
landscape. We got three independent reports of Honey Badgers from the northern
sector of Chilika (drained by Mahanadi’s tributaries and partially encompassed
by the Eastern Ghats fringes) and the lower central sector (islands separating
Chilika from the Bay of Bengal).
These reports were
collected during interview surveys conducted by us to understand Fishing Cat Prionailurus
viverrinus distribution in Chilika. The Honey Badger at Mangalajodi on
November 2019 was found by villagers who upon seeing such an animal that they
had never seen before, reportedly beat it to death (Image 2). The Honey Badger
in Baliabanka fell into a well in January 2020 and was rescued and released by
the fire department. We identified the species from videos that villagers took.
The one at Titipa was from June 2018 when a juvenile fell into a dry well but
escaped during the night. We confirmed the identity of the species from video
records taken by villagers.
Location details of
Honey Badger occurrences in Chilika.
Name of village |
Latitude |
Longitude |
Mangalajodi
(Northern sector) |
19.909°N |
85.445°E |
Baliabanka
(Northern sector) |
19.846°N |
85.379°E |
Titipa (Central
sector) |
19.625°N |
85.327°E |
In all three cases
local villagers could not identify the badger and thought it was a bear
(Ursidae), and in one case, a panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca. Our findings
highlight the need to conduct awareness campaigns on the species among local
communities to dissipate fear of the species and promote acceptance and
tolerance.
For images – click here for full PDF
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