Wanderings in the forests and estuaries of the North and East – Part 1

by Junglewallah

The northern forests around Mankulam, situated some 200 miles from Colombo on the main Jaffna road, consist of tall trees and the undergrowth. These forests are densely populated by the sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), perhaps more so than any other area in Sri Lanka. A vigil by a water-hole during the dry months of July and August will show an average of five to 10 bears coming to drink at it before dusk – on occasions, even more.

Bears

The reason why bears are so numerous in this area is worth investigating. The prime reasons, I feel, are the presence of dense forest cover and an abundant supply of food favoured by bears.

I owe much of my experience and knowledge of this part of the country to the guidance of a famous Northern Province outdoorsman and shikari named S. C. Rasaratnam (known as Master throughout the Northern Province). He had been a much-respected schoolmaster from Hartley College, Point Pedro, who had retired from teaching and settled down in a little farm that he owned at Karupaddaimurippu on the Mankulam-Mullaitivu Road. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was a tiny hamlet situated about eight miles from Mankulam and was in the heart of the bear country.

Master was a person who was reluctant to talk about himself and his achievements. According to what I was able to extract painstakingly from him in evening discussions at his camp, he and his good friend, Brigadier C. P. Jayawardena, who was then an Assistant Conservator in the Forest Department, had been requested by Mr. D. S. Senanayake, sometime before Independence, to drive off the herds of elephants that were devastating the cultivated lands of the colonists in the newly opened out settlements in Minneriya and Hingurakgoda. Apparently the colonists were chiefly from Mr. Senanayake’s electorate, Mirigama, including his ancestral Botale, and there had been numerous instances where the elephants had destroyed their huts and killed the colonists.

The settlers were threatening to pull out and return home unless something was done to drive off the elephants. According to Master, Brigadier Jayawardena and he took on the commission of driving off the elephants; but except for saying that they were successful in keeping the colonists back, he was very reticent on how many animals had to be destroyed in order to drive off the predatory herds. It was during these early days, when Master as a youth was engaged in the assignment given to him by the Government, that he had acquired his knowledge and love for the wilds.

According to what Master stated, bears are extremely fond of the fruit of Polyalthia korinti (uluvinthai T; miwenna, ul kenda S). I have observed that it is found in profusion in the Mankulam area, more than in any other forests in Sri Lanka. Huber (1985) describes it as a treelet that is widely distributed, but specifies Mankulam as one of the type localities. In the Mankulam area the uluvinthai is found growing in thickets stretching over large areas of the forest. It is a tallish bush with fairly slender and fragile trunk and branches. The bushes afford thick cover for the bears, but the trunks or stems are not strong enough to support the weight of a man. There is little chance, therefore, of a threatened hunter or villager escaping an enraged bear by climbing one of these bushes.

The uluvinthai bush yields an abundant supply of sweet reddish berries in December and January. The ready supply of this berry, together with a fair profusion of palu (Manilkara hexandra,) which yields a sweet yellow berry in the drier months of the year, as well as the presence of out -cropping rocks containing caves. scattered throughout the forest and providing shelter to the animals, makes this area a virtual paradise for bears. Additionally, there are tracts of the forest where clayey soil is found, where termites build their nests in the form of hills. These termites afford yet another source of favoured food for bears.

The sloth bear has a fearsome reputation in our forests. It is an animal with poor eyesight and only slightly better hearing, but possessed of an excellent sense of smell. In the forests where it is found, if an unwary jungle villager is unfortunate enough to approach a bear down-wind (that is, where the wind is blowing from the bear towards the villager), the animal will not be able to get the scent of the man. Nor will it hear his footsteps, for the little sound the footfalls make will be drowned by the wind. The first thing that a bear with its poor eyesight sees is an intruding villager almost upon it. This-normally happens when the bear is grubbing for termites behind a tree or an ant -hill. In these circumstances, the animal thinks it is about to be attacked. Believing that offence is the best form of defence at close range, the bear launches an attack on the intruding villager with a view to protecting itself. With its fearsome claws and strong teeth it inflicts terrible wounds on the villager. Those who are fortunate enough not to succumb to their wounds are left fearfully maimed and scarred for life.

Victims of bear attacks are not uncommon in the remote forested parts of the Island, particularly in the Mankulam area. I have come across two such maimed persons in this area, one of whom had been reduced to being a cripple as a result of the bones of his legs having been reduced to almost splinters by the bear’s teeth. Until 1963 bears were regarded as vermin and could be shot throughout the year. In the Mankulam area they were profuse enough to be a threat to jungle villagers, who had to go into the forest to cut grass and firewood. The villagers in this area were, therefore, strongly supportive of the shooting of bears. The methods of getting to grips with bears with any degree of certainty were twofold.

First, during the dry season in July and August each year, when the kachan wind blows consistently as a dry land wind blowing towards the north-east, and parching the Wanni forests and drying all the water-holes, the customary mode of lying in wait for bear was over water- holes. The Mankulam area was almost devoid of rock water-holes (or kemas), which are normally found towards the coastal forests. Where the bear came to drink in Mankulam was in deep burrows in the dry sandy riverbeds, which it had dug itself, after scenting the underground water springs with its acute sense of smell. These deep holes went sometimes as much as eight feet into the river beds, and were called puval by the villagers in the area. They contained a small puddle of clear water at the bottom which dried up with the drought as time went on, requiring the animals to dig even deeper. It is of interest that the only animals in the forest, besides the bear, that actually dig for water are the elephants. I have observed them digging for water using their feet and trunk in the dry bed of the Akkarayan Aru, off Murukandy in the Mankulam area.

The customary method adopted by the Wanni villager of sitting up for bear and other game was on the bank of a dry river bed, with a barricade built upon four sides with enough dry branches and driftwood to conceal the hunter and his guide. The kachan wind during the drought blew consistently from the. south-west to the north-east. It is, in fact, the south-west monsoon which has shed its rain over the central hill country, and which blows as a dry-land wind over the north-east of the Island. On several occasions I have sat on the ground in complete safety. The hide is usually built with game paths approaching from the front and sides, and the hunter faces the wind blowing into his face. Any animals getting the human scent from behind, invariably flee from the hated scent, while those that come along the game paths in front and from the sides, unable to get the human scent, proceed unawares to the water to drink.

Whilst on the subject of the extraordinary powers of scent that bears have, I may relate an interesting experience I had in the company of Master. We had gone out to inspect a remote water-hole in the morning, where a hide had already been built a few days earlier. The drought was fierce, with the blistering kachan wind being able to dry even a sodden bath towel hanging out in the shade in a couple of hours. Whilst there had been a small puddle of water when the hide was built, the burrow was now bone dry at the bottom, and since it was the only water-hole for miles around, I was disappointed that I would not encounter any bears that evening. Master however, gave a smile, and told me that I need not worry. He knew of a trick that would attract bears that evening.

After an early lunch, we set off in a Land Rover with Master, the tracker and another villager. When we left, I noticed two large brass vessels of water in the back of the vehicle, which Master had got filled from his own well. On inquiring what this was for, Master told me the purpose. On sitting down at the hide about 4 pm he asked the tracker to empty the two containers of water into the bottom of the dry water-hole dug by the bears. He said that he had done this successfully before, and although the water would be immediately sucked into the bone dry sand, its scent being borne on the kachan wind and carried into the forest would be strong enough to bring the bears to what they thought would be a source of drinking water. Indeed, he proved correct, as before sunset, several bears came to the water- hole.

In retrospect, however verminous they might have been considered, shooting bears over water-holes when they come to drink, crazed with thirst, cannot be justified in any way on ethical grounds. In mitigation, I could only say that bears were so numerous in the area around Karupaddaimurippu that they were a positive threat to the jungle villager. In fact, the son of the headman of the neighbouring village called Manavalapattaimurippu was the victim of a bear attack and reduced to being a cripple. The destruction of bears was therefore something that the villagers pleaded for, and unless they were shot by hunters they were quite safe from the villagers as their skins had no commercial value whatsoever, unlike the skins of leopards.

In my experience a 12 bore shot-gun loaded with SG cartridge was not adequate to bring down a bear with certainty, and this was the weapon the normal jungle villager had at best. The villager therefore avoided having any encounter with a bear unless he was compelled to shoot in absolute self-defence, and even then the animal was seldom killed outright with a shot- gun charge. My experience is that a centre-fire rifle of .30/06 or larger calibre, using soft-nosed bullets is the safest weapon to use on bear.

The second mode of shooting bears in the Mankulam jungles, was not quite as certain as water-hole shooting, but certainly more exciting and risky. It consisted of tracking them in the uluvinthai thickets in December, which was the berry season. There were large tracts of forest around Karupaddaimurippu where these bushes grew in profusion. In fact, some sections were almost exclusively overgrown with these bushes, which in that area were about 10 feet high at the most, but the trunk and branches were quite slim and could not support the weight of a man and certainly not that of a bear. The bears’ technique of getting at the berries was to reach up and tear down a branch and then gulp them down. At the same time, these berries were favoured by the villagers as they were edible and sweet. It is in search of these berries and jungle bees honey that the villagers would come into conflict with bear and be attacked.