The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Inventories of State’s wildlife released

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Thursday, Oct 25, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Inventories of State’s wildlife released

Staff Reporter

Reports on fauna of Bannerghatta, BR Hills and Kudremukh published

Collection, identification took three years
Survey of Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary has begun

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Discussing conservation: Zoological Survey of India Director Ramakrishna, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests A.K. Verma and Additional Chief Secretary Neeraja Rajkumar at the release of Faunal Documents of Three Conservation Areas of Karnataka, in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Bangalore: The biodiversity of the 26 wildlife sanctuaries and national parks of Karnataka is legendary, and perhaps epitomised by the rainforests of the Western Ghats, a world “biodiversity hotspot.”

But while the State’s flora has been recorded in detail, it is for the first time that its wildlife diversity has been documented meticulously by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). The inventories of the fauna of three important conservation areas were released here on Wednesday.

These include the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary, considered a “living bridge” between the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats because of its unique location and ecosystem; Kudremukh National Park, a tropical evergreen forest with the largest population of the endangered lion tailed macaque in the country; and Bannerghatta National Park, which forms an important migratory corridor for elephants.

Records

Each of the documents has records of all known species of mammals, birds, crustaceans, fish, reptiles and insects — some of which have been discovered for the first time globally — and others that are previously known from other parts of the country but discovered in these areas for the first time. Ramakrishna, Director, ZSI, Kolkata, said it took several groups of scientists three years to collect and identify the species.

“But we have a long way to go before we can claim to have a complete sense of the wildlife diversity in the country. We still do not know our resource base. For instance, in 1989 the number of species of fauna recorded was 89,000; in 2006, the estimate went up to 92,000 species. And in all likelihood the numbers will rise to 1.5 lakh species in the coming surveys,” he said.

The next conservation area that ZSI plans to document in Karnataka is Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary, where the survey has begun, he said.

A.K Verma, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka, said that such surveys provided essential data for management action plans for protected areas.

“We are falling short on technical data for these plans. If we do not have such inventories of biodiversity, we cannot expect our conservation efforts to be successful,” Mr. Verma said, adding that this new data on fauna, along with Botanical Survey of India reports on flora, should find place in management plans.

Neeraja Rajkumar, Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka, said that while inventories of biodiversity, both flora and fauna, need to be done with a “missionary zeal,” the involvement of local communities was essential for successful conservation strategies.

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