The Otter Trotters

Gopakumar studied at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (well, actually, he lost his way, wandered into a CAT exam and found the exit door locked).  Facilitates workshops in negotiation and influencing skills, when he is not following otters - now, don't ask how  these interests came together.  Fascinated by behavioural economics in general and interested in applying the principle of pride-in-my-backyard-wildlife to conserve otters and otter habitat (riparian buffers and wetlands).  Is a member of the Otter Specialist Group of the IUCN.

Gopa lives in Bangalore, because he loves getting stuck in traffic, but would otherwise have migrated to his holt in the beautiful village of Javalagiri years ago.  

Yashas lives, well, wherever he thinks he should and can forget himself when following birds.  Generally enthu about most things.  Such as food (he once ate six Unniappams.  If you don't know what Unniappams are, do a search; normal people take two days to digest one).  Has walked more kilometres in streams that anyone I know, but then that food has to be used somewhere, right?

Anumol is the quiet sort who joined the team in November 2023.  When Gopa asked her in December, if the project was fine with her, she said, "It's a fairy tale!". Both Anu and Yashas are post-grads, one in environment science and the other in ecology, which makes them (in our view) educated elite.  

In otter season, this motley team walks along and in streams, recording otter spraint (that's our codename for poop),  keeping an ear for reports of tigers around the area and one eye out for elephants.  The other eye is on otters, so we multiply our abundance findings by two (yes, that was a joke).  All that stuff is uploaded on Google Earth, which might appear an entirely pointless exercise to you but is precious data for us because it lets us know what we need to conserve. 

Finally, on Vipin Baliga, the most valuable member of the cohort, a skilled photographer, ex-software guy and allegedly an engineer, though he has stoutly denied any resemblance to the species.  Has put up with some difficult folks because of his sense of humour and a genial ability to get along with everyone, including wildlife biologists, who are generally an irascible sub-species of Homo Australopithecus. Vipin has everyone eating out of his hand (while he eats the fish out of theirs - this is called sympatric species distribution.  Hope you are impressed.).

We have some friends who are otter enthusiasts too (they have stayed as friends, against their better judgement).  Peeyush is an architect and a wildlife educator and has been a sounding board for the team (there are times when he is sounding bored as well).  He lives in an Airbus 320, but goes home occasionally to wash his clothes and use his solar cooker.