Syllabus

GS 3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Context: India’s first-ever nationwide Ungulates assessment reveals declining ungulate populations in India, impacting tiger conservation and highlighting urgent habitat and prey base protection needs.

More on the News:

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority and Wildlife Institute of India prepared this survey of ungulates based on data from the 2022 All-India Tiger Estimation exercise.
  The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body established under the amended Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (2006), to strengthen tiger conservation efforts in India.
  The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) was established in 1982 as an internationally recognised institution that offers training programs, academic courses, and expert advisory services in wildlife research and management.
• The report drew on extensive direct and indirect evidence, like field surveys, camera traps, and dung signs collected during the 2022 estimation exercise. 
• The report provides a detailed assessment of ungulate populations within India's four major tiger-bearing landscapes:   
  Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains
  Central India and Eastern Ghats
  Western Ghats
  North East Hills and Brahmaputra Floodplains.
• The report highlights a decline in populations in several states due to habitat loss, deforestation, and human pressures.
• India hosts over 3,600 tigers, representing 70% of the global tiger population. 
• A decline in ungulate populations directly threatens tiger survival and increases human-wildlife conflict.

Findings of the assessment:

• According to the findings, spotted deer, sambar, and gaur populations are thriving in large parts of the country, but declining in east-central India in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
• The signs of prey decline and low density are due to severe habitat degradation, infrastructure development and mining that fragments forests, left-wing extremism, and subsistence hunting by residents.
• Forests in Uttarakhand, Western Ghats, central India and the northeast have a fairly healthy population of ungulates. 
• However, small and isolated populations of species such as barasingha, wild buffalo, pygmy hog, and hog deer face bottlenecks in their genetic diversity, with habitat fragmentation preventing the intermixing of different animals.

Species of Concern:

• Hog Deer:
  Lives in grasslands and floodplains.
  Severely affected by wetland degradation.
  Now found only in Terai, and Brahmaputra and Ganga floodplains.
• Barasingha (Swamp Deer):
  Once widespread, now limited to Kanha, Dudhwa, and Kaziranga.
  Reintroduced in Bandhavgarh and Satpura, but remains vulnerable due to habitat specificity.
  Species-wise Population Trends: