HYDERABAD: Mouse deer, which had become extinct in the Nalamala forests, has once again begun springing in the dense and thick bushes of the jungle after more than a decade.Officials of the Amrabad Tiger Reserve on Tuesday reintroduced eight mouse deer (2 males and 6 females), which were bred in captivity at the Nehru Zoological Park here for last seven years. State forest department’s conservation breeding programme started at NZP in March 2010 with just six mouse deer (3 males and 3 females), which were brought from the Mangalore Zoo. The numbers have swelled to 172, out of which 76 are female.
However, the animals were supposed to be released into the wild in 2013 itself. “In the last five years, many of them were dead in captivity and the lifespan of mouse deer is relatively short, with most living up to five or six years only,” said a senior forest official.The Nehru Zoological Park in association with Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) has been taken up for the conservation programme, said Mohan Chandra Pargaien, field director of Amrabad Tiger Reserve.
In order to reintroduce the mouse deer, which are bred in the NZP, a suitable location was identified in Mannanur forest range of ATR duly creating a protected enclosure, which is spread over 2.14 hectares of forest. The enclosure has been completely protected by providing solar fence, watering facility through solar powered bore and CCTV cameras to monitor animals.“The animals will be kept under observation and get adapted to wild conditions for three to four cycles of 15 days each. For the next two months, their behaviour will be monitored constantly under the supervision of field biologist,” said Pargaien, adding that every 15 days, the animals will be shifted to another part of the enclosure.