CHENNAI: The polo ground in Raj Bhavan, one of the last remaining prime habitats for blackbucks in Chennai, is likely to be restored as a grassland after the monsoon season this year. Highly-placed sources told TNIE senior forest officials and Raj Bhavan authorities had an informal meeting and agreed to undertake the restoration work. However, there is no official statement on it.
The sprawling 30-acre polo ground is in Raj Bhavan’s possession though it is a reserve forest. For the last few years, due to lack of maintenance, the grassland has turned into a scrub forest with thorny, thick, and tall vegetation taking over, thereby drastically shrinking the blackbuck habitat in the Guindy National Park and Raj Bhavan forest complex, which are contiguous.Meanwhile, last November and December, Raj Bhavan authorities replaced native grass with alien non-palatable Mexican grass in star garden, another blackbuck area, causing further stress to the animals.
Forest officials clarified that 20 blackbucks did not die in the past five months, as reported by TNIE recently. Between January 2021 and April 2022, 16 blackbucks died. Of this, nine died between November 2021 and March 2022. In comparison, only 10 died in 2017-20 period.
Officials said, “After rains, it will be easy to remove tall vegetation and restore the area with native grass. Over the years, several open grasslands in Guindy National Park were taken over by trees. Currently, nearly 73% of the NP is a wooded forest,” said an official.
G Sundarrajan, of Poovulagin Nanbargal, an environmental advocacy group, demanded the forest department take over the unutilised land, especially the ground, from Raj Bhavan. The entire area is a reserve forest where large-scale land use and cosmetic changes cannot be made, he said.