‘Indiana Jones’ might be a bombastic moniker for a field biologist. But when the wildlife filmmaker Shekhar Dattatri compared Ravi Sankaran to the fictitious American archaeologist-cum-action hero, he might have had a point.
Sankaran didn’t carry a whip but wore a fedora-like hat as Jones did. He didn’t have a satchel but sported an inseparable smoking pipe. Nor did Sankaran wear a leather jacket while in the field; but he preferred the humble rubber chappals during long months of rigorous fieldwork. Sankaran was light on his feet. The accouterments gave Sankaran an inimitable maverick identity.
Sankaran had a great gift of repartee. He could put you on the spot with his sharp observations and incisive questions. If the archaeologist Jones was portrayed to have a vast knowledge of ancient civilisations, Sankaran developed great insights on the incredibly diverse landscapes he worked in and everything natural that came with them, including human communities. He could hold you in rapt attention while he narrated stories from his fieldwork or described the bird species he was researching.
The energy in the room shifted when Sankaran walked in. His booming raspy voice held sway over the gathering as Sankaran passionately explained his current work and future ideas he was working on.
Ravi held a fascination for the natural world from a very young age. In the late 1960s along with his older brother, Hari Sankaran, who also had an interest in animals, he would sneak out in the Borivali national park in Mumbai from their house close by. Once they climbed up a machan next to a now non-existent pork factory. From there they watched a leopard walk from the forest out in a clearing in the warm glowing evening light. The brothers were thrilled.
Ravi formally cut his teeth as an ornithologist when he joined the Bombay Natural History Society in 1985. Under the guidance of Asad Rahmani, then a senior scientist, Ravi carried out his doctoral research on the breeding behaviour of the Lesser florican and Bengal florican – both endangered birds then and now too.
For five years between 1985 and 1990, Ravi shuttled between the Sailana florican sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, where he studied the lesser florican, and the Dudhwa national park in the Terai of Uttar Pradesh for the Bengal florican. This research is the first detailed study on the two birds in India. Ravi brought out some fascinating aspects of the birds’ biology.
The natural history and behaviourial observations he made as a young researcher just starting out on his scientific journey are a testament to his keen observations and alertness in the field. Besides studying the floricans for his doctoral work, Sankaran, along with Rahmani and other collaborators, published short reports on a Large Grey shrike removing ticks from a camel, the atypical nesting of a Purple sunbird and a Black drongo feeding on a dead bird.
These observations, the sheer amount of time spent on the field and the wonderful analysis and inferences Ravi made, forged him to be one of India’s finest wildlife biologists.
While continuing to be involved with studying the lesser florican, from 1993 Sankaran shifted his gaze to study some endemic birds of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands after he joined the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) in Coimbatore as a scientist. Initially through his own work and later through the work of his students, Sankaran filled gaps in our ecological understanding of the birds’ life cycles.
From his study of the Narcondam hornbills, Ravi recommended the total removal of goats who were running feral after being introduced for the sake of consumption by the policemen stationed on Narcondam Island. The goats browsed all the new saplings that would normally grow into big trees, providing nesting for the hornbills. In the long term with little new tree recruitment, hornbills wouldn’t have their preferred nesting places – impacting their future populations.
Along with his student K. Sivakumar, now a faculty at Pondicherry University, Ravi carried out the first detailed study on the nesting needs of the Nicobar megapode, an endemic bird that incubates its eggs inside a mound.
But perhaps Ravi’s most telling contribution is from first studying the cave-dwelling edible-nest swiftlet along with his student Shirish Manchi, a scientist at SACON, and later devising an outlandish but pragmatic conservation plan for the local community to continue to sustainably harvest the nests that are a sought after delicacy in Southeast Asia.
The swiftlet was brought under schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972) sometime in the 1990s. This meant the harvesting of the birds’ nest was illegal. From the time Ravi and his colleagues started to engage with the swiftlet, they realised the bird’s nests were being stolen no later than they were formed, depriving the bird of successful breeding. If this continued, with time, the population would crash.
So after a go-ahead from the locals to form a cooperative to sustainably harvest the nests, Ravi and his colleagues lobbied with the environment ministry to delist the species to schedule IV. Although the decision came after Ravi died of a sudden heart attack in 2009, the swiftlet was delisted, enabling sustainable extraction of the swiftlet’s nest.
This remains the only such instance of the delisting of a wild species for the benefit of the local community in India. The case is a legend in the folklore of Indian wildlife conservation. Ravi’s reputation was enhanced to a defender of local community rights besides a brilliant biologist.
By the mid-2000s, Ravi was also starting a program in Nagaland in collaboration with many organisations. The idea was in collaboration with the local community to strengthen the mechanism of conservation beneficial to both humans and animals. Ravi was acting on his ideas of bottom-up conservation plans as opposed to the prevalent top-down approach.
According to Ravi Chellam, CEO of Metastring Foundation, senior biologist and a close friend of Sankaran, the basis of his good research and conservation is rooted in not hero-worshipping anybody.
“Ravi didn’t mind challenging authority and calling things out – both of which are critical and core to doing science and at the same time using that to inform conservation,” shares Chellam. “He didn’t look at any problem as if he knew the solutions to it. He approached every issue with an inquisitive and open mind, an approach that was very broad based and at the same time very focused.”
Ravi Sankaran is a great reference for solid science and out-of-box practical case-based conservation solutions. The current practitioners could draw inspiration from his unusual but rooted ways.
Had Ravi’s life not been cut short in 2009, he would’ve turned 61 today. But his legacy endures – not only through his research, his students and his many admirers, but also the Inlaks-Ravi Sankaran Fellowship constituted by Hari for the benefit of upcoming wildlife ecologists. Sankaran’s family and friends donated his material to form the Ravi Sankaran Papers at the Archives at the National Centre for Biological Sciences.
Vrushal Pendharkar is an independent journalist covering the environment.
Note: Ravi Chellam’s quote has been updated slightly since publication.