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With a resolve to remove the Nilgiri Tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius) from the endangered status, the Tamil Nadu government will execute a synchronised survey of the State animal from April 29.
The three-day exercise is being done to estimate the population of the Tahrs, which once roamed the length and breadth of the Anamalai and Nilgiris landscape. The animal is listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and protected under Schedule-I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
At present, there are around 3,000 Tahrs in the Western Ghats, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund India in 2015, and a sizeable portion is concentrated in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR). In 2020, the Nature Conservation Foundation found around 510 individuals in the ATR, which houses the second largest population of the species after the Eravikulam National Park in Kerala.
“We have roped in the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Institute of India for the population estimation. The third is IUCN, whose country director will be an observer in the exercise,” said Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary to the Departments of Environment, Climate Change, and Forest.
For the survey that is being done with Kerala’s Forest Department, the habitats in Tamil Nadu have been divided into 13 forest divisions, 100 forest beats, and 140 feasible blocks. More emphasis has been given to areas along the Kerala border, Ms. Sahu said.
While the bounded-count method will be used in all the areas, the double observer method is adopted additionally in large contiguous landscape having a major population in two areas like Grass Hills National Park and Mukurthi National Park and one block in Silent Valley National Park and two blocks in Eravikulam National Park.
With the result of the estimation as the baseline data, Project Nilgiri Tahr will focus on stabilising the population by taking steps to address the threats faced by the mountain ungulates and also possibly reintroducing the animal in sites such as the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve.
