Haryana to conduct wildlife census in Aravallis

Gurugram: The Haryana Forest Department has written to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for a wildlife census in the Aravallis to assess the wildlife population, as the last such census was conducted in 2017 and before that in 2012, an official said on Thursday

Gurugram: The Haryana Forest Department has written to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for a wildlife census in the Aravallis to assess the wildlife population, as the last such census was conducted in 2017 and before that in 2012, an official said on Thursday.

According to the forest department, the state has no recent population estimates for wildlife in the Aravallis (HT)

The census is conducted by state forest department in collaboration with WII. Although a wildlife census was conducted in 2022, the official said it was restricted to the Shivalik belt, leaving the Aravallis unmonitored and without updated data.

According to the forest department, the state has no recent population estimates for wildlife in the Aravallis, as no subsequent surveys have been carried out over the past nine years to track changes in the region.

The 2017 survey report mentioned that the Aravalli belt is a rich leopard habitat. The report also highlighted that a total of 10 carnivore species were spotted in the southern Haryana Aravalli region, including 31 leopards, 166 jackals, 91 porcupines, 50 mongooses, three wolves, 26 jungle cats, four foxes, 126 hyenas, two rhesus macaques and 61 civets.

Meanwhile, forest department officials spotted a leopardess, mother of two cubs, in Sehrawan, a village in the Aravalli foothills in west Gurugram, on Wednesday.

On September 4, a three-year-old leopard was found dead in the Aravalli foothills near Paldi in Nuh. Another leopard cub was spotted twice in Sector 54 society in July.

The official said the 2017 census was the first-ever comprehensive ecological mapping of the Aravalli range in southern Haryana, as it focused heavily on a 200-square-kilometre area spanning five critical districts: Gurugram, Faridabad, Mewat, Rewari and Mahendragarh.

The 2017 survey also found that Gurugram and Faridabad held the highest concentration of leopards, with the big cats occupying nearly 85% of the forested landscape across the two districts.

The official said that the 2012 census recorded eight leopards. While the 2012 survey relied heavily on traditional tracking methods such as pugmark identification and scat detection, officials said the 2017 survey used extensive camera trapping installed in various locations, along with traditional methods.