On the trail of India's wild dogs

Every field has its share of icons and nature is no different. Here, the ones that hog the limelight with picture postcard perfection are usually tigers, lions, cheetahs and elephants, the quintessential poster boys and girls. So it was surprising - and refreshing - to know that The Pack, a film about the wild dogs of India, won the Green Panda in the Animal Behaviour category at the Wildscreen Awards, also popularly known as the Green Oscars, in Bristol, UK, late last year. The Pack was chosen for its brilliance in portraying animal behaviour.

Wild dogs are notoriously shy of humans. Known in India as the dhole, they are the most elusive "of all the predators in our forest," say the opening lines in The Pack.

The film, a series of five episodes commissioned by Animal Planet and produced by Krupakar Senani Features, India, follows the story of Kennai, the wild dog who ‘dared to be different'.

To watch Kennai's growth from a four-month-old pup when she loses her mother, to the alpha female leader of her own pack, is to witness a stirring family saga of love, coming of age, confusion, death, betrayal and courage in the face of unimaginable danger. You watch Kennai surviving wild fires, outwitting deadly predators, coping with the death of two partners in close succession and through it all forming her own pack and struggling to stay the leader. Finally, she leads her pack to glory.

Such is the force of the film, that in the end you care about what happens to Kennai. The film makes you sympathise, rejoice and finally, cheer for her.

The makers of the film, BS Krupakar, 53, and Senani Hegde, 50, are based in Mysore, south India, a city that is as famous for its royal palaces as it is for its proximity to the nature parks of Bandipur, Nagarhole and Mudumalai, which, as part of the Nilgiris biosphere, span an area of 500 sq km in southern India.

The Pack is the duo's second film on wild dogs (their first was the much-acclaimed Wild Dog Diaries) and is the result of nearly 16 years of research in the Nilgiris where they doggedly pursued the dhole to learn about its behaviour.

What brought a former journalist and an engineer together to dedicate themselves to following the dhole? Destiny and a shared love for wildlife, they say. Hegde and Krupakar go back a long way - as children they lived in the same neighbourhood in Mysore and went to the same school. As high-school kids, they both had a passion for wildlife and spent many hours exploring the forests around them.

Growing up however, neither of them chose to pursue wildlife as a career. Krupakar studied business administration and worked as a journalist before taking up photography full-time and Senani went on to study engineering, became a structural designer and set up his own business. The business was a success but after about seven years it became apparent to him that he would need to expand. "And that was a scary thought," he admits. "[In hindsight] being stuck in the wild without any resources seemed less scary." So he chose to become a wildlife photographer as well.

Through the years pursuing their respective careers, the two remained intermittently in touch and one day, when they caught up with each other in person, it was time to ask the burning question: was there something more to life? Were their successful careers enough? When the answers came, they were not really surprised.

"We decided to get back to the wild."

What draws them to the wild? A host of childhood memories and a way of growing up. The call of the wild and the wonders of nature had always been a part of their lives. Hedge says, "Nature was part of our family conversations right from childhood. I remember my mother talking about the migration of birds. Why, for example, the brown leaf warbler, one of the many migratory birds that visit Mysore, had not put in an appearance even though it was already the second week of November. Where a city person would hear the honks and screech of traffic every day, we would hear bird calls and look for different kinds of plumage."

Once the decision to return to their childhood passion was made, Senani and Krupakar took a couple of years to wind down their respective businesses and projects and set off to spend time in the forests of Bandipur. That was in 1990.

For three years after that, they both worked on various projects such as Project Elephant, a Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) initiative being researched in the Nilgiris biosphere. The knowledge they gathered during these years formed a firm foundation for their future research. Both were avid photographers and their huge collection of original photos of rare bird species was published in several international magazines such as GEO, The Times, Nature, BBC Wildlife and Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (Odyssey publishers). They also acted as consultants for various television channels such as BBC Discovery, National Geographic, etc.

In 1993, they decided to go independent and make their own films on wildlife. Step one was to invest in a movie camera. Step two involved choosing a subject. After much deliberation, they decided to focus on the dhole.

Their reasons for this choice were many; the dhole is necessarily an underdog in the food chain of the wild. Historically, dhole or wild dogs received few column centimetres' mention in books or publications. For the media, they held none of the lethal charm of the tiger, lion or leopard nor the formidable grace of the pachyderm. But Senani and Krupakar wanted to tell the story of the dhole because the animal had amazing hunting skills, hit a powerful stride despite its short legs, was fierce in protecting its territorial rights and extremely reclusive by nature. The dhole also had fascinating pack behaviour norms, something akin to a complex social system with clear dos and don'ts and rules of engagement on hunts.

Another compelling reason to focus on the dhole was a survey they came across that alerted them to dwindling numbers of this fascinating creature in the Indian forests.

From 1994 to 2010, Senani and Krupakar followed the wild dogs of the Nilgiris biosphere charting all they could learn about the animal. The challenges were numerous. One, the dogs stayed clear of humans. They would not come closer than 400m to the nearest human being. Although they had invested in a top-end movie camera, they were not sure if it could generate good footage from such distances. So their first task was to get the dhole habituated to their presence while they learnt to recognise individual dogs in the pack they were following.

Their first break came when one of the pack dogs showed signs of getting accustomed to their presence. Once one dog let them get closer, the rest of the pack would follow suit, they were certain. Sadly, the particular wild dog died in a skirmish and the duo had to start from scratch.

There were several other challenges during the filming of The Pack. The biggest was of losing track of the entire pack when the alpha male of the pack staked out new territory, took on the leader of the resident dhole pack and got into a fierce battle that ended in his own death, after which the rest of the pack fled for their lives. Senani then set off across the jungles with his movie camera in pursuit of the fleeing pack.

Apart from the challenges in tailing the subjects of their story, their own adventures over the years exposed them to considerable risks many a time. For instance, chased by a herd of elephants once, they ran headlong into the forest cover and lost their way. Given the conditions in the jungle, this seemingly small departure from norm can actually end up as a life-or-death situation.

"Our learning from this episode was that we ought to know the forest better - not just by identifying the topography more skillfully but also by listening to the sounds of the forest. Often in the afternoons, a herd of elephants will lie in a cool place. They will be so quiet you could just walk into their midst unsuspectingly. But by listening to the thwap thwap of their ears flapping to ward off flies, we soon learnt to avoid trouble," says Hedge.

The skill of listening to the sounds of nature is like learning a new language, says Krupakar. "Once you make the forest your home," he says, "you need to know this language to survive. You hear bird calls, animal calls, and then the ultimate alarm - a langur's whistle that signifies the presence of a predator on the prowl. When you are sitting in the forest by yourself, these sounds become snatches of dialogue between invisible characters and you can actually weave a story together based on what is being said."

Another time, in October 1997, they were kidnapped, along with a few tourists, by Veerappan, one of the most infamous forest brigands in Indian history (Veerappan was eventually killed in 2004 in a covert operation by the Tamil Nadu government). They sought their release by convincing him of their common love for the wild, a proposal that found resonance with the man who had dodged his arrest for decades thanks to his formidable knowledge of the forests of south India. A fortnight after shifting the dialogue from their capture to the appeal of the captivity of nature, they, along with the other hostages, were released unharmed.

Apart from the challenges from man and beast, the other big challenge the duo faced was to direct the The Pack without a script. "I chose to narrate the story from the point of view of the protagonist, Kennai the pup, that grows up to become the alpha female leader of her pack," says Hedge, who was director, with Krupakar being the cinematographer of the film.

"Throughout the 16 years we tracked Kennai, new dimensions kept cropping up in the story and I was very conscious of its changing dynamics even as I was filming." It was a morally challenging process that often threw a shadow between his intent and the result. "For example, there is a scene in which Kennai is closing in on a chital in a pond. I realised that if I lingered for a second more on her - as she went for the chital's jugular - I would turn her into a villain. The reality of the jungle is that animals hunt for survival. There are no heroes and villains out there. Getting this message across as unambiguously as possible was a continuing challenge for us."

"Our aim," says Hedge, "has always been to tell the true stories of the wild as they are, to delink them from the so-called scientific documentaries that unfortunately leave the audience untouched by the wonders of nature. And we could do this only because Animal Planet gave us a free hand."

The Pack is the first Asian film to have won an award in the category for documenting ‘animal behaviour'. "We felt greatly encouraged by wining the award because it means that your peers have recognised your talent," says Senani. He quotes Susan Western, internationally renowned scriptwriter and BBC ex-producer, who said to him, "I remember someone telling me a long time ago that filming dhole would be impossible! But you've pulled it off, not in a way that draws attention to your own achievement but by allowing the audience to understand, on a very deep level, how the lives of these amazing creatures unfold. It's such a hard feat to pull off!"

Hedge and Krupakar's engagement with the wild for the past 16 years has resulted in another dimension to their thinking - the issue of conservation. Throughout their stay in the forest, they had noticed how villagers often strayed into reserved areas for collecting fire wood. So they undertook a survey of the volume of wood that was being cut and arrived at an astonishing figure: 50,000kg of wood was being harvested from the Bandipur forests for fuel every day. Bandipur comprised an area of 214 villages and was home to about 35,000 families. The obvious solution was to persuade the villagers to use LPG cooking fuel, which however was beyond their means.

When they bounced this problem off their friends and family, the latter all readily agreed to pitch in generously to pay for the LPG connections for the villagers. So the duo founded Namma Sangha, an NGO that today has 24 full-time employees aiding the villagers use LPG connections. Happily for the NGO, the Indian Oil Corporation, a public sector LPG supplier, agreed to supply free stoves to the 27,000 families that have taken the LPG connection. Hedge and Krupakar believe the wood-fuel consumption has now been reduced by 90 per cent at least. This has been one of the biggest environmental conservation success stories in recent times, they say not without a note of pride.

Their domain expertise - the biosphere of the Nilgiris - apart from fetching them well-deserved rewards and fame, is also enabling them to live a comfortable life, materialistically speaking. "Do we make enough money to live comfortably? The answer is yes," says Hedge. "Our knowledge of the Nilgiris biosphere is sought after by many agencies including environmental research institutions and media. We make budgets for the year and sometimes when we are lucky we manage to achieve those within the first couple of months." And the moment they meet their budget, they stop the pursuit of money. "Otherwise we could get lost just pursuing money instead of our passion," explains Hedge. He is married to Dr Neema Manjrekar, a wildlife biologist. Apart from pursuing her own projects, she assists the duo in production planning, sound and script.

What's next? "We look forward to training youngsters in bridging the knowledge gap between environmental awareness and citizen participation," says Krupakar. "We already have a couple of young people working with us and hope to train more."

In all of these endeavours what they wish to do is pile the experiences high. For themselves and the world. The richness, the magic, the momentum of wildlife, they believe, must be maintained at all costs. For every honk and screech in the urban jungle man wakes up to, there must be an alternate call of the wild he can tune himself into whenever he wants. Keeping this choice alive is entirely up to mankind.

Inside info

Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park, a continuation of the Bandipur National Park is situated at the tri-junction of the three southern states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka. The park attracts a large number of wildlife enthusiasts from all over the world.

Getting there:

Coimbatore is the closest airport, at 160km from Mudumalai. You can also travel by road from Mysore (95km) or by train from Ooty, a hill station in the blue mountains of the Nilgiris, which is 65km from Mudumalai sanctuary.

Did you know?

The dhole or Asiatic wild dog (Cuon alpinus) is usually the size of a border collie but looks different with a sturdy body on short strong legs and a bushy tail. It has a rusty red colour coat that may vary in shades from yellow to dark grey depending on the geographic region. Its intelligent eyes indicate that it is always on alert. The dhole is a good swimmer and prefers to drive its prey into water.