Latest Members to the "wildlife" in Grassroots

Sometimes I feel that the Indian Government and its widespread institutes are a blessing to citizens. Hessarghatta has some prominent ones like the Indian Institute for Horticulture Research (IIHR), Central Poultry Development Organization (CPDO), Fisheries Department and Karnataka Milk Federation Research Unit (KMF – Nandini). From IIHR you can buy seeds and sapling for vegetables, fruits and flowers; From CPDO you can buy/ own poultry – “desi” chicken, turkey, duck and emu.  The KMF unit is accessible to local farmers and regularly interact with them on livestock and cattle improvement and maintenance. The Fisheries Department (located on the edge of the “dried up” Hessarghatta lake), are ever obliging to guide one through varieties of aquarium fish or just an algae cleaning fish – the Common Carp. Its been long overdue that we tackle our algae formation on our water storage tank, which is open to the sky and used mainly for irrigation. The labour intensive chore of cleaning and scraping the algae (which forms almost 5 inches thick on the floor and walls, not mention the floating islands) 2 to 3 times a year got us thinking. We turned to nature and we had the answer. For a tank size of 30 x 40 ft, we were advised 200 small fry which would cost us an grand sum of Rs 40. The caretaker obliged and gave us 2 month old fish (about 30) for Rs 100, not to mention the a generous dollop of their diet (groundnut and straw paste).

It was an action packed evening, when we brought the bag of fish (oxygenated) and thus peppy to introduce them into our tank. The cleaned tank was handed over to them to consider their own and keep it clean! They are busy munching, swimming in formation and seem happy. We need to act quickly to cover the tank with green mesh so my other winged wildlife – birds, don’t make a Sunday brunch out of the Carp!