Nature Indian Bison To Roam Bandhavgarh Reserve Again, After A Decade

[spnadmin]

Five gaurs (Indian bison) have been shifted from the Kanha Tiger Reserve to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, where these herbivores had become extinct a decade ago.

“We have brought five gaurs - three male and two female - from Kanha in the first phase of the translocation,” Bandhavgarh Reserve’s Field Director C. K. Patil told PTI today.

“The gaurs were transported to Bandhavgarh in specially designed trucks,” Mr. Patil said. Both the reserves are located in eastern Madhya Pradesh, 300 km from each other.

He said that under the first phase of translocation (between Jan 20 to Jan 30), authorities are planning to bring about 20 gaurs to Bandhavgarh, for reviving bison population there.

The five gaurs, the new residents of Bandhavgarh, have been put in an enclosure spread over 50 hectares for now.

Mr. Patil said that they would be released into the wild in March.

“We have already radio-collared four gaurs to track their movements,” he said.

Mr. Patil said that Madhya Pradesh Forest Department along with a wildlife conservation group - KZN Wildlife, South Africa, is carrying out the translocation under the supervision of Wildlife Institute of India. The first phase will cost around Rs. 5 crore, he said.

The field director said that the gaur population of Bandhavgarh was at its highest at 39 in 1989-90, but in the next few years it went down, and the last gaur was spotted in 1998.

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article1118683.ece

 

[Gyani Jarnail Singh]

This is a totally AWSOME ANIMAL....similar to the MALAYSIAN BISON called SELADANG. British hunters called the Seladang the Most dangerous wild animal..as they are usually in groups of 40-50 in the Jungle and even if just one is somehow wounded...the rest will not leave until the "opressor" is done in. Once such a hunter managed to "save" his life by climbing a huge tree..but the herd of seladangs surrounded the tree and kept goring it for weeks until the trunk became weak and came crashing down. The dead hunter was found only later..also gored all over.
I saw one fine example of the Indian gaur and malaysian Seladang in the Kuala Lumpur Zoo...astonishingly large and well built handsome animals. Man loses out alot if such magnificence in nature is allowed to go EXTINCT. Our future generations will never forgive us for robbing them of this heritage..