Nod to 2 new wildlife protected areas for endangered goats

Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, October 28

Listed as “near threatened” in the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), highly endangered mountain goats, Tahr and Goral, found in high-altitude areas of Pir Panjal and the Greater Himalayas of Jammu and Kashmir will get the long-awaited protected areas.

The government has approved two new “wildlife protected areas” in the Jammu region inhabited by two species facing the threat of extinction from hunters, loss of habitat due to human intervention and climate change factors.

According to officials, the formal process for implementing the proposal approved by the 15th Board Meeting of the State Board for Wildlife recently will come after J&K will formally become Union Territory (UT) on October 31. For years, the proposal had been ignored by democratically elected governments due to political reasons.The Bani Wildlife sanctuary in the Bani-Sarthal area, spread over 100 sq km in Kathua district touching Himachal Pradesh habitat of Himalayan Tahr and 21.50 sq km of area in Rajouri district’s Gambir Mughlan (Goral wildlife conservation reserve) inhabited by Goral species, are the two new protected areas.

“The government has approved our proposal and now we are waiting for formal notification. After this, the department will formally take steps to demarcate the boundary taking into account the rights of people living inside or near the protected areas,” said Suresh Kumar Gupta, Chief Wildlife Warden, J&K.

Both wildlife protected areas are also the habitat of endangered Musk Dear, Black and Brown bears and other wild animals.

“This is an important development as both species are endangered and there are also very few sightings. It was a long-pending step to ensure marking special areas having maximum sightings,” said Tahir Shawl, former Regional Wildlife Warden, Jammu region, who had extensively worked on endangered species in Shivaliks and Himalayas of J&K. He has taken over as Joint Director, State Forest Research Institute.