I love animals, birds and pretty much any kind of wildlife (Irrespective of size, shape, odour, texture and tendency to intimidate). I am the kind of person who would marvel at its magnificence while face-to-face with a ravenous crocodile. Ornithology and Trekking are two of my biggest interests, and I am completely at ease in the wildest of forests.
So I'm guessing you can imagine my reaction when recently, I got an opportunity to work with one of India's pre-eminent wildlife scientists!
The aforementioned scientist, Dr. Y. Jhala, works at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), located in the sleepy city of Dehradun in the hilly Indian state of Uttarakhand. WII is the leading wildlife research centre in India, and the work going on over there is quite amazing. They are concerned with everything from carrying out the Indian National Tiger Census to using wildlife forensics techniques to provide conclusive evidence in poaching cases. Being the nature-loving, wildlife-obsessed individual that I am, I couldn't wait to hop on the first flight to Dehradun from Mumbai, with my spanking new digital camera slung around my neck!
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| The student's hostel at WII |
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| Another building at WII - just to give you an idea of the place |
My internship was divided into 2 phases - work in the lab and work in the field.
Genetics has always been an intriguing subject to me, but I never got a first-hand, practical experience of the multitude of its applications through all my high school years. Up until now, DNA was always a stringy, helical macromolecule to me. Working in the genetics lab at WII changed all of that. I was working under the supervision of a PhD student of Dr. Jhala's, and my project was based on using genetic analysis for wildlife conservation. For wildlife scientists, the samples most easily available in the wild are scat (faeces) samples. Using genetic analysis techniques, researchers can identify the species, sex and even each individual animal from these scat samples! Not only does this help them keep a track of various animals in a region, but also study the population dynamics and gene pool of a particular species. In this manner, they can even analyse the distribution of alleles in a population and determine whether viable corridors exist between two populations.
One of the difficulties that naturalists face in the wild is that tiger scat and leopard scat are similar in appearance. It is a combination of analytical techniques that helps them differentiate between the samples of these two big cats, which is necessary if they are studying a particular species out of the two. My project in the genetics lab at WII, a part of the overall research project of my supervisor, involved studying scat samples collected in the field and determining whether each sample had come from a tiger or a leopard.
To do this, I had to carry out a number of experimental analysis procedures - Silica based Nucleic Acid extraction to isolate the genetic material from the samples, PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) Amplification for replication of selected Mitochondrial DNA fragments, and Gel Electrophoresis to verify the results of PCR and to obtain conclusive proof of the species from which each sample had been obtained. The final results were interpreted by comparing the diffusion of each sample with that of a known DNA ladder and a pre-decided positive control.
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| A photo of me vortexing solutions for homogeneity |
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| Incubation of the samples is an integral part of the DNA extraction process |
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| A PCR Machine |
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| Yours truly preparing the samples for Gel Electrophoresis |
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| The experimental setup for Electrophoresis |
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| The final results of the 2nd electrophoresis |
Working on this project was an invaluable experience - not only did I learn how to carry out and apply a range of experimental techniques, but also honed my laboratory management skills. I learnt how to work efficiently in a lab - carrying out experiments systematically, while making sure that they are as foolproof as possible. I also understood that failure is a fickle maiden that may present herself during any scientific endevour (when some of the samples did not get amplified correctly during PCR), and the importance of keeping faith in oneself and one's abilities during such times. The realisation dawned upon me that scientific exploration is a never-ending struggle to understand our universe, during which one has to keep reinventing one's thought processes to cope with the problem at hand.
WII also has an outstanding wildlife forensics lab (the only one of its kind in India). It was there that I got to interact and share ideas with some of the most passionate people that I have ever met - people committed to wildlife conservation with a remarkable degree of resolution. This kind of commitment to one's work can only be possible when one loves and truly believes in it. The forensics lab at WII is fully equipped with top-of-the-line instruments and is an integral institution in the fight against poaching and black-market trade in animal body parts.
During my internship at WII, I had a major epiphany when I experienced first-hand the scale at which wildlife research is being carried out in India. I got the opportunity to meet a large number of remarkable, like-minded individuals who are the silent heroes at the forefront of wildlife conservation in the country. I was also saddened by the fact that the general public has no idea of the wonderful work being carried out at institutes like WII, and I think that the Indian media is partly to blame for not highlighting this.
To a nature-lover like myself, the WII campus was like paradise - heavily wooded, with a variety of birds dotting the trees all around - kites, lapwings, bulbuls, kestrels, and many more. The campus is often frequented by wild leopards and boar, looking for their next meal (my single biggest regret of the internship was that I didn't come across a leopard; my camera would have probably burst with excitement!)
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| A nice snap of a Red Wattled Lapwing that I managed to get outside the student's hostel in the WII campus. |
I am an environmentalist at heart. Irrespective of what career path I follow in the future, I want to be able to contribute significantly to environmental protection and wildlife conservation. The experience I have accumulated at WII has fueled this desire to even greater levels, and has provided me with a starting point on which I can build over the years.
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This blog post has been about one part of my recent internship at WII; I shall write about the other part in the next one (tentatively titled: On Wildlife Conservation and How Not To Get Trampled By Elephants - Part Two). More light shall be shed on the meaning behind the title in the next post.
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