Sharing Spaces with Wild Life on a University Campus

Living inside a university campus, run-ins with wildlife are a common occurrence. Like when I decided to go for a run on a foggy winter evening, only to run straight into a nilgai. Or the time I was cycling to work when something whizzed past me with long, green tail feathers trailing behind it. Wondering if this was a new bird species (unlikely, but you never know), I jumped off my bicycle and raced after it. To my initial disappointment and subsequent delight, a scaly breasted munia was flying away with long blades of grass to line her nest.

I love telling these anecdotes to all and sundry, especially as they point to how our lives inside a college campus are so intertwined with those of wild beings. At IIT Kanpur, which is located about 10 kms outside of the main city and is currently the place I call home, it is quite normal to see a Bengal monitor skittering into the thicket on our walks or a snake curled up outside our door. It always amazes me to see these wild beings living relatively peaceable lives amidst the urban hustle-bustle.

Ask anyone living on a university campus, and chances are they will have similar stories to tell. It is well-documented that educational/residential campuses in India provide ideal conditions for wildlife to thrive – access to food and water, safe areas for mating and nesting, shelter and plenty of open spaces. In their 2019 book Cities and Canopies, Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli mention that “For many years, the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bengaluru was host to a rare breeding pair of Egyptian vultures…In Patiala, too, the campus of the Punjabi University now boasts of a breeding pair.” In August 2021, researchers at the Department of Zoology, University of Goa found two specimens of a new gecko species, named Hemiphyllodactylus goaensis, from within the campus itself (another specimen was found about 30 km away).

As our cities turn grey with concrete, more and more wildlife finds sanctuary in these campuses. In February of 2021, I organised the Campus Bird Count (CBC), an annual event to document the bird species on campuses in India, at IIT Kanpur. In this citizen survey of the biodiversity of a small part of the campus, we documented around 20 bird, 6 butterfly, and numerous insect species.

CBC has been held since 2015 by Bird Count India. According to their website, in 2019, “a total of 173 campuses participated across 21 states/union territories...recording a total of 535 species and clocking a total of 2,397 person-hours”. The highest number of species reported was from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) at 195, followed by the Forest Research Institute (FRI) at 179.

Both WII and FRI are located in the heart of Dehradun, a city where I grew up. In the nineties, the city had numerous canals and thick forests. Leopard sightings in the heart of the city were not unheard of. Now, with rising population pressure and poor municipal maintenance, the green spaces in the city have shrunk and become confined to the institutes’ campuses the city is famous for. FRI and WII are the only two places in Dehradun from where over 300 bird species have been documented on eBird.

This makes one wonder, what makes our campuses so rich in biodiversity? The answer can probably be found in the way they are set up. Many of them were (and continue to be) developed in areas set apart from cities. IIT Kanpur was established on agricultural land on the outskirts of Kanpur city, and the newer IITs too – IIT Mandi and IIT Palakkad, for example – have been set up in less urbanised areas with typically more biodiversity than the big cities.

Also, many university campuses in India occupy large swathes of land with several microhabitats. So even though the greenery there might not be contiguous due to constructed areas, the fragmented spaces often act as mini-ecosystems supporting specific flora and fauna. The IIT Madras campus, which was carved out of Guindy National Park, has fields that are similar to open grasslands, where blackbucks and spotted deer can be visible. It also has a lake and oxidation ponds visited by little grebes, herons, lapwings and ducks, thick forest patches with several native trees, and a few scrublands supporting butterflies and small animals.

At IIT Kanpur, I now know where certain birds are most likely to be found. Every winter, to see the white wagtails, I walk over to the sports grounds — the grassy fields are their typical haunt when searching for a meal. And nilgais, along with smaller animals like porcupines, are best spotted in the residential bungalow areas where they are less likely to be disturbed by crowds of students.

Botanical gardens on campuses also help in preserving and promoting the plant diversity of the region. Botanical gardens and universities have a long history; according to the UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention website, the oldest botanical garden in the word is the Orto Botanico at the Padua University, Italy. IIT, Mandi set up a botanical garden in 2015 to study and collect flora from the Kamand region in Himachal Pradesh. The Institute has planted several endemic and even endangered plants of the region in the botanical garden, thus creating a sort of register of local plant diversity. Apart from this, they have also developed a herbarium, which typically plays a crucial role in the taxonomic study and in preserving the genetic information of the species should they go extinct.

More and more universities are now realising the importance of conserving biodiversity on their campuses. In 2018, Symbiosis International University (SIU) started a Biodiversity Cell to “study, collect data and document all biodiversity conservation-related matters” on their campus. Since then, with the help of student volunteers, they have developed a butterfly garden and organised nature walks and seminars with experts on a wide range of issues.

One of their biggest successes has been the restoration of two water reservoirs within their campus to make it more attractive for birds and other animals. “We planted native aquatic vegetation along the banks of the reservoirs, restricted human activity there, created perches, and very soon we started to see birds such as ruddy shelducks and northern shovelers,” says Shilpa Avate, Biodiversity Officer, SIU. Avate also tells me that observing their initiatives, the security guards around the campus became interested in the cause. Now, they send reports of animal sightings and recorded bird calls to Avate, thus contributing to an informal survey of the campus biodiversity.

I think it’s hard to remain indifferent towards how our wild neighbours are faring when we live in such proximity to them. In the five years of living inside a campus, I have gone from someone who hilariously saw a sunbird and thought it was a hummingbird to an avid birder and naturalist. It’s a privilege and a joy to live amidst this greenery, and maybe someday, these campuses can serve as a blueprint for the rewilding of our cities.