Haryana’s first wildlife survey expected to commence this week
GURUGRAM: A statewide wildlife census, to be conducted in protected as well as nonprotected forest areas of Haryana, will commence this week, officials in the forest and wildlife department have confirmed.
This will be the first such wildlife count conducted across Haryana, although sitespecific surveys in ecologically sensitive areas have been executed in recent years.
Department officials also said that an advance payment of ₹20 lakh has already been made for the same to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, which is the organisation tasked with conducting the census.
First proposed in March 2019, the census could not be immediately taken up due to scarcity of funds, as reported by HT last February, despite financial approval having been granted in July 2019.
Commenting on the matter, Haryana’s chief conservator of forests, ML Rajvanshi, said, “Availability of funds is no longer an issue. We have taken the matter forward with the Wildlife Institute of India. This census has been pending for a few years and now that the winter is retreating, fieldwork can be taken up for installation of camera traps and other wildlife surveillance systems. The estimated cost of the exercise is just under ₹40 lakh, of which half has already been paid to WII.”
While the upcoming census will focus on ascertaining biodiversity counts in known ecosensitive zones — namely Gurugram’s Sultanpur National Park and nearby Aravalli hills, and Kalesar National Park in Yamunanagar — in addition to eight wildlife sanctuaries in Panchkula, Kurukshetra, Jhajjar, Sirsa and Rewari districts, open fields and buffer zones adjoining protected forest areas will also be surveyed for the presence of wildlife, Rajvanshi said, adding that the entire exercise may take a year to complete.
“We have also requested that there be an emphasis on reducing man-animal conflict, steps for which will be recommended by the Wildlife Institute after a thorough examination of the data,” Rajvanshi added.
Bilal Habib, head of the department of animal ecology and conservation biology at WII, could not be contacted despite multiple attempts.