These are the forest guards who could creep out from the dark and damp bush or for that matter slither down from the tree top without the slightest noise. And they are cool and deadly if they indeed strike. They are the newest and very unlikely sentinels of the Reserved Forest in South Tripura - eight huge pythons. Forest department had been facing a problem of illegal timber smuggling from their 160 hectares teak plantation at Garjanmura RF in Radhakishorepur for
quite some time. But of late they noticed the timber felling had mysteriously reduced to a great extent though there were not any special measures from department as such.

The mystery was soon resolved as the members of NGO 'Souro Sabuj' that looks after the Teak Plantation under the Joint Forest Management scheme, found presence of eight pythons. "The pythons are huge and at least two of them are as big as 13 feet. Interestingly, if someone comes to cut a tree in the forest the pythons arrive on the spot. As their deadly hissing fills up the silent wood, the tree fellers make good of their senses and take to heels", says Swapan Bhattacharjee, a teacher of Radhakishorepur who recently visited the forest to see the pythons.

Of late, the NGO members said, the pythons have extended their families as they found small baby
pythons also in the forest. "The Garjanmura teak plantation is full of jungle fowls and pythons are
very fond of these birds. Moreover there are also plenty of rabbits which again help grow the big
snakes", says Range Officer Lalmohan Sen. "You see, people believe python can swallow even a human. So none now dares to venture in the forest -not even the villagers who used to collect fire-woods from there". "The presence and increase of python family in the forest is a welcome development. It seems that nature has taken care of herself with her very own sentinels. Not only they scare away the illegal timber smugglers and helped a lot for the 109 family members of the
Soura Sabuj NGO, it is also good news for the environmentalists as well as ecologists",
Bhattacharjee said from Radhakishorepur over telephone.

Date: Nov 27, 2005