CHENNAI: In a first, the state forest department, with the help of World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-India, has successfully radio-collared a fully-grown ‘saddleback’ Nilgiri Tahr in Mukurthi National Park. The whole operation was completed without tranquilising the animal.
A team from WWF India led by scientist A Predit kept visiting Mukurthi, western catchment area of the Western Ghats, for two years, familiarising with a herd of Nilgiri Tahr.
Since, it’s the first time a mountain ungulate was being collared, the Nilgiri Tahr project officials and WWF team zeroed in on a saddleback, which is the most matured male individual that has high stress-tolerance levels.
Salt licks were used to lure the animal to them. Supriya Sahu, additional chief secretary, Environment, Forests and Climate Change Department, told TNIE, “It’s our conscious decision to capture the animal without tranquilising it. Drop net method was used and the male was released back into the wild within 20 minutes. As of now, the individual is doing good. We have started receiving signal from the radio-collar. Post release monitoring is going on by the team.”
To a query, Sahu said the collar is less than 750 grams. Ideally, the collar should be less than 5% of the animal’s body weight. The body measurements that were taken after the capture indicate the animal weighs around 100 kilogrammes. So, the collar weight is less than 1%, which will not have any bearing on the Tahr’s movement.
“This is a milestone in the Nilgiri Tahr project. And, it will reveal information which can be critical for the conservation of the state animal of Tamil Nadu,” Sahu added.
Project director M Ganesan said, “The radio-collaring was done on March 21. Since then, the saddleback has moved from Mukurthi to Devil’s gap gorge in Kerala. The animal is resting well and its movement is normal. We are mapping the habitat, atmospheric temperature etc. Insights are invaluable. The battery in the collar can generate data for at least one to two years.”
The Union government had given approval to the state forest department to capture 20 Nilgiri Tahrs.
Census in April
Ganesan said the first ever synchronised census of Nilgiri Tahr in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is tentatively planned during the third or fourth week of April. Currently, a population estimation is under way in the fragmented forest patches, where there is past documented presence of Tahr.
Ganesan said efforts are being made to complete the population estimation in all the 123 fragmented habitats as soon as possible and begin the synchronised census. “We have finished the task in the Anamalai Tiger Reserve,” he added.