Rohan Chakravarty's Blog, page 4

Kashmir and Climate Change

Gulmarg’s ski businesses suffering from the lack of snow, is barely the surface of a larger crisis unfolding in Kashmir. A Himalayan Black Bear takes you through it, in my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine.

The Crocodile Bark Tree

The crocodile bark tree (Terminalia elliptica) has a little secret- crocodile tears! Comic for Roundglass Sustain.

Lakshadweep versus Maldives

Lakshadweep versus Maldives. Cartoon for The Hindu.
Here's hoping that the tourism make-over of Lakshadweep, which is already grappling from mass coral bleaching and crashing fisheries, will have sustainability at its core. 
Bonus marks to each one of you who identifies the bird in the cartoon correctly!

Rice's Whales versus the USA

The Rice's Whale, earlier considered a sub-species of the Bryde's Whale, was discovered to be a new species only in 2021! Just when it was the whale's time to 'rice and shine', USA decided to lease its habitat for oil.
Cartoon for DW Environment. 

The Secret Superpower of the Softshell Turtle

Softshell turtles are softies for a reason! Cartoon for Roundglass Sustain.

The Snowy Sheathbill

There are only two species of Sheathbills, the other being the Black-faced Sheathbill. That is, until we all become sheathbills eventually!

I first came to know of this unconventional, disgusting and remarkable species while illustrating a habitat panorama of the Antarctic Peninsula for the Save Our Seas Foundation. The illustration is now at the Penguin Research Centre in Antacrtica, and has also been auctioned as prints at cruise ships visiting Antarctica to raise funds for penguin research! Read more about Save Our Seas work in Antarctica here.

Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine.

Sea Skate

Meet the sea skate, a cartilaginous fish closely related to the better known stingrays! Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain.
The cartoon also ran as a caption contest last month on Roundglass's social media platforms. Check out the winning entries here.

A New Restaurant in the Hood

A familiar sight across the forests of peninsular India, Rufous Treepies are opportunistic foragers and very dependable earbuds for Sambar deer!

Comic from my Roundglass Sustain column. 

Rediscovery of the Golden Mole

Jessie, a South African Border Collie trained to sniff elusive ground moles out by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, rediscovered the De Winton’s Golden Mole, which had been presumed extinct! Here’s a new year reminder for humanity to do better this new year, because Jessie and the mole still seem to be hopeful about us.

I had the pleasure of working with the Endangered Wildlife Trust earlier in 2016, when I designed a mascot ‘Mwitu’ for their Painted Dog conservation initiative. Congratulations to the team for this rediscovery!

Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine

Extinct Species 2024

Say hello, well, goodbye actually, to five among the twenty one species to be declared extinct this year. While the Little Mariana Fruit Bat, Bridled White Eye, Molokai Creeper and the Flat Pigtoe Mussel were delisted from the US Endangered Species Act because of extinction, the Java Stingaree was declared extinct after a recent IUCN survey. Oh, and a very happy new year to us all, from the Flat Pigtoe Mussel!
Comic for DW Environment.