The Wildlife India

         It may not be an iconic wildlife species yet pangolin is the most trafficked animal on the earth - both dead and alive.  When the world was busy protecting tigers, the wildlife criminals shifted their focus to pangolin following  the increasing demand for its scales and meat in Chinese and Vietnamese markets.  More than 1,000,000 pangolins were trafficked over a 10-year period, with 2019 data indicating that a pangolin is poached every three minutes.  As the mammal started depleting alarmingly , Madhya Pradesh started a pioneering work by radio tagging pangolins with the help of Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) . Radio Tagging Ray of Hope  In a major conservation programme for the scaly anteater,  the radio tagging  of the shy nocturnal  animal started in the central India state in 2020 . The WCT along with  the state forest department radio-tagged the first Indian Pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) on February 14 2020 in Satpura National park . So far six pangolins have been ra

                                                               Gujarat’s lion is knocking at the doors of the capital city of Ahmedabad. As if seeking attention from the politicians and bureaucrats for more space and  a new home, a lion was spotted about 140 kms away from the capital city of Gujarat on Ahmedabad-Dhandhuka-Bhavnagar highway in the third week of February. In the last few years, the lion-spill -over  from Gir National Park and the Asiatic Lion landscape (ALL) has increased.More and more  big cats are now cited near Gujarat cities including Rajkot, Surendra Nagar and Botad districts, causing even traffic jams on some occasions. Over 674 lions were counted in the ALL in the last census. Experts said the number may be more and the landscape is over populated . Alert after the new sighting closer to Ahmedabad, experts feel this is high time when Gujarat reads the writing on the wall. Is Project Lion proposing Five New Lion  Relocation Sites Shelved? Lion relocation has been t

They were looking for Red Panda but stumbled upon the white-cheeked macaque, the latest among the 23 macaque species on the earth.A group of scientists the Zoological Survey of India were excited after their “newest mammal” species in the country — the White Cheeked Macaque (Macaca leucogenys).Though it was first discovered in China in 2015, its existence was unknown in India before this. The India researchers found the mammal barely 197 kms away from China, in the remote Anjaw district in central Arunachal Pradesh. The discovery has been published in the February 3 issue of international journal ‘Animal Gene’.  Accidental Discovery   Long white whiskers extended from the cheeks and chin gives the new monkey its name- the White Cheeked Macaque.The American Journal of Primatology explains their physical features as  “Relative hairless short tail, prominent paleto white side- and chin-whiskers creating a white cheek and round facialappearance, dark facial skin on the muzzle, long and th

  Seven years ago, a tiger sitting atop a building in a busy Bhopal locality attracted the attention of the whole country.  To be precise on December 25, 2015, the tiger was found sitting on the rooftop of the Central Institute of Agriculture Engineering (CIAE) in Nabi Baugh of Bhopal.  Horde of onlookers assembled on the surrounding buildings and many climbed nearby trees to have a glimpse of the tiger. Wary of  the large number of people , the tiger jumped onto a shed and the roof caved in making it difficult for the forest department to carry out the rescue operation to capture the tiger. The operation took a few hours  to complete when the big cat was tranquilized and shifted to Van Vihar national park   in Bhopal around 3 pm. 60 Tigers Ready To Move From Ratapani  The presence of the tiger over a building left the forest department clueless. Perhaps for the first time, the department realized that there were a number of tigers roaming around Bhopal -  less than 10 kms away from th