European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 30, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Later the British rulers took a heavy toll of the cat. Tie scene is changed now. Man is at the receiving end Sayn Nimai Das who Sells Candy and cells Lola Lales to passengers from terries that make Brief slope in Alampur Alampur is about 45 Miles Southeast of Calcutta reachable Only by Waterways. At the nearest port town of Canning a Boatman insisted his Craft be anchored Ott Shore not tied to a Jet by As a condition for a trip to the Sundo bans. Otherwise we May be eaten by tigers explains the Boatman Kanai Debnath. Arriving in Alampur he hold his five Man Crew be careful when you then he and his men prayed with folded hands to Mabon bib the hindu Forest goddess and sprinkled holy water on the launch o keep evil away. Alampur meaning the resting nest once was a bustling place where traders came to Biry Honey and fish. Villagers recall life then As easy and relaxed but since project Tiger began Alampur has been transformed. About 80 percent of the Village s 300 Homes have no Man. All eaten by tigers says Roy the Village headman. Three years Back he adds someone said this is no More Alampur but bid Hava Palli the Village of the Tiger widows the tigers roam the dark estuarine Forest where crisscrossing Rivers lagoons Sticky swamps and an abundance of mangroves make a formidable habitat but the Lorest attracts men Loo those who depend for a living on fishing collecting Honey and Felling Trees tigers prey mostly on Deer Antelope and wild boar. But once a Tiger accidentally attacks a Man it discovers humans run far More slowly than other animals. The Tiger is Temple to try again and becomes a Man eater. Official records show 579 people filled by tigers in the Sunc turbans since 1973. Of those. 373 were fishermen 107 Honey gatherers and the rest woodcutters. Villagers say Many More As Many As 2,500, have been killed. Bodies of most of the victims have never been found. On March 13, a Man eater took Alampur s latest victim Sherman Shaki Charan Mondal and another woman became a widow. Mondal s 24-year-old son ult am described his father As a daredevil and expert fishermen. Mabon Bibi has been protecting him but this Lime she did not. Ii was her wish uttam says. His Mother Nirmala Devi Sal on the porch weeping i am one of the widows now one More among Many she says. Mondal died when he went ashore to collect firewood Lor cooking aboard his Small fishing boat. He was collecting twigs on the River Bank. Suddenly a Tiger came and took him away says Harahan Debnath a fellow Fisherman. To were on the boat and could do no sign of Mondal or his clothes were found. The worst part is that some of the Young widows do not believe that their husbands Are dead says Pradip Ghosh a guide. Since bodies Are rarely found they think he will come Ghosh says one 24-year-old woman Maharani Adhikari still tells her two children that their father will return soon. Her husband Kanu was eaten by a Liger two years ago. The widows Are left to their fete. Many toil the whole Day fishing on the Village River to get one Square meal. The Young go to Calcutta in search of work and some became prostitutes. A Tiger is a monster end it is you people from cities who love the beast. We Don t. We want to Kilt them App Holp the latest Ugar census showed More than 4,000 roaming India this one is in a now Delhi zoo. Bum them end finish them says Nira Pada Sardar tha area s most experienced Fisherman. I have seen at least two dozen people being taken by Ganeath Chandra a Forest officer at Sajn Khali five Miles from the Bangladesh Border says it la Man s encroachment that turns the Tiger into a Man eater. He Saya men persist in going into the Core of the Forest that is reserved for the tigers Protection. What can we do he asks. Forget the killer bees in Florida it s flying Roaches byjoe Nordheimer new York times Jemy Hinton took a step. The Heel of her shoe dug Inlo a springy Cushion of dead Oak leave son the ground. And from beneath her Foo came a heeling fluttering dash by legions of creatures from a suburbanite s Nightmare. Cockroaches. Asian cockroaches. Roaches that live in stunning abundance outdoors in Fields lawns and lower Beds. The asian Roach an insect that has been identified in the United Stales for the first time in a widespread infestation around Tampa Bay in Florida has a lust for indoors come dusk. Unlike its nimble looted Cousin the commonplace German House Roach that it closely resembles in size and color the asian Roach is attracted to Light. Turn on a porch Light or a television set Al night in the late summer in Brandon and other communities East of Tampa and that s an invitation for feral Roaches to come calling buzzing right in an open door and Landing on a television screen or lampshade in daunting numbers. That s another difference the asian Roach can Fly. We be measured flights of 120 said Richard s. Patterson a United slates department of agriculture Erma Bombeck entomologist who is investigating the infestation. Thai s the distance of the Wright Brothers first flight. The reputation of the asian Roach which is also annoyingly unafraid of Man. Has spread faster than it Haa. Homeowners along the Atlantic Seaboard have been alerted that the Roach May eventually head their Way but so tar tha front lines of defense Are being manned by Roach fighters around Here like Hinton. She said the Roach s tendency to be drawn to people rather than run trom them can be unnerving particularly when they land on clothing or bedsheets people get freaked out when Roaches Fly into their Homes particularly people from up North who associate Roaches with filth said Hin Lon a Florida native. We have retirees moving into the area who keep calling the exterminator every time an asian Roach flies into their House and they in overloading their lawns and houses with German Roaches dwell almost exclusively with Mankind and Are House pests rarely found outdoors. It has wings but it has been with Man for so Long it has lost the need to Fly like a Chicken Patterson observed. Turn a Kitchen Light on and a German Roach will flee into a crack. Turn a Kitchen Light off Patterson smiled and an asian Roach will Roflow you Inola lighted bedroom. Trie ability to Fly plus a flair for hitchhiking on cars Rucks boats and planes leads investigators to conclude that the asian Roach May spread quickly through Florida and in Solher states. So far the Roach is found in pockets Over a 600-Square-mile area extending from the port of Tampa where scientists suspect it arrived a few years ago on a ship from Asia its eventual Range Uliey say May reach to Washington d.c., though the insect s arrival is so recent in the United slates Hal Little is known about it other than it is fecund. Ii reproduces More rapidly than the German Roach reaching adulthood in six to seven weeks and thereafter the Majes Are Able to produce an egg Sac bearing 40 eggs every 10 Days at the moment the asian Roach is cyclical. The adults Dio off while the eggs and immature nymphs remain in the ground Reedy to give Rise to the Noel generation once the Sun bakes the layer of dead leaves which the adults inhabit and feed on. But that might change Patterson said. Once the Roach is firmly established the generations May overlap like tha German Roach which is present through the seasons while some might find i hard to distinguish Between the asian Roaches and their German cousins a first glance they did t fool Jim Gillum. When i saw them 1 knew they were a new kind of Bug said Gillum the manager of a Mobile Home Park near Here. They were As fast flying As they were last running. What settled it for me was on a warm Day in january when they swarmed like bees and covered the Side of my garage like a biblical in a dream the other night i saw my future. The Story in the newspaper said that for years i was a Recluse who lived in a private world that was open to no one. When neighbors noted there had been no activity police came and tried to push open the doer. The door was blocked by shoulder pads. Thousands of them. They were stuffed in drawers cluttered the nightstand were jammed in the refrigerator and the sewing Basket and carpeted the rooms. They found them under sofa cushions stored in boxes in the garage and under the mattress. I begged them to take me away. Has it Only been two years since shoulder pads came upon the american scene to prove that All female linebackers Are created equal when the style first came in it was Cool running around like a no neck spreading Little wings and creating a Breeze whenever i moved. Then designers got crazy and could t control the pads anymore they Slid into strange places on my body causing people to stare and to reflect you be had something done surgically but for the life of me i can t figure out sometimes the pads slipped Down my Back making me look like i had just overdosed on steroids. What had been designed to create an optical illusion and make my Waist look smaller made a look like a bad Avocado. That 3 when i began ripping out shoulder pads and for reasons i will never understand. Saving them. I now have a collection of shoulder pads that is unbelievable. They re preserved and protected from being thrown away right up there with envelopes of extra buttons that come with a Blouse subscription cards that fall out of magazines 3.000 tiny Luggage keys and hundreds of tags that read do not remove this tag under what i failed to realize is that shoulder pads always come in pairs. A male and a female. They Are at their Peak sexually and multiply faster than flies on the face of a child who has just eaten an ice Cream Cone. You toss a couple of those Little suckers in a drawer and a couple of weeks later you have pads with velcro tabs spilling out of the drawer sometimes when i tall asleep i m reminded of the Barge Ulof garbage that cruised from Islip n.y., to every port in the Atlantic trying to unload its waste and no one allowed it to . It s going to be the same with shoulder pads someday. Waste fills having consumed Allol them they can handle will be forced to put them adrift at sea. Fleets of them will float irom City to City asking permission to unload and will be known As the lumps without a country. When you think about it. It s a sad ending for an illusion that Only tried to make my Waist look smaller Clad saturday May 30,1987 the stars and stripes Page 17
