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Type: Species

  • Botswana cheetah released in MP’s Gandhi Sagar park

    Why in the News

    The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister has released CCB-2, a female cheetah brought to India from Botswana, into Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary on the boundary of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Gandhi Sagar became the country’s second cheetah habitat in April 2025, when two male cheetahs, Pawak and Prabhas, were moved there from Kuno National Park. The release follows the birth of four cubs at Kuno on 18 September to an India born female, the first cheetahs of a second generation born on Indian soil. The tension is that Project Cheetah is now producing animals inside India faster than it is establishing sites able to hold and breed them, and the cheetahs already moved to the second site have not reproduced there.

    What is Project Cheetah?

    1. About: Project Cheetah is the programme to reintroduce the cheetah to India by importing animals from Africa, the species having been declared extinct in the country in 1952.
    2. Who runs it: It is administered by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change through the National Tiger Conservation Authority, with the Wildlife Institute of India as technical partner.
    3. The imports so far: Eight cheetahs were brought from Namibia in September 2022 and twelve from South Africa in February 2023, with Kuno National Park as the first release site.
    4. Why more than one site: The programme’s action plan requires multiple release sites, because a single population in one park carries the full risk of disease, prey failure and territorial conflict.

    What does the CCB-2 release change at Gandhi Sagar?

    1. The animal and the move: CCB-2 is around three years old and was relocated from Kuno National Park in the Gwalior and Chambal region of Madhya Pradesh.
    2. The site’s population: Her arrival takes Gandhi Sagar to four cheetahs, two males and two females.
    3. The breeding objective: Wildlife officials expect her to start a new family at the site, because the female already there has not mated with either of the two resident males.
    4. What a working second site would mean: A second breeding site converts the programme from a single park holding every animal into a landscape with more than one viable population.

    What does the Kuno birth signify for the programme?

    1. The litter: An India born female, KGP12, gave birth to four cubs at Kuno on 18 September.
    2. Second generation born in India: KGP12 was herself born in India to a cheetah brought from South Africa, which makes her cubs part of a second generation born on Indian soil.
    3. The population count: The latest births took India’s total cheetah population to 56.
    4. Why generation depth matters: A population reproducing across two generations inside the country no longer depends on continued imports to sustain its numbers.

    Challenges to Project Cheetah

    1. The prey base has to exist before the animal arrives: A release site needs a stocked ungulate population before a cheetah is introduced, and building one takes years of protection and supplementation. Eg. Chital were translocated into Kuno from other reserves to raise prey density ahead of the first release in 2022.
      The Fix: Fix a measured prey density threshold for each site and make meeting it a precondition for any further release.
    2. Enclosure survival is not wild survival: Animals held in soft release bomas and large fenced enclosures are managed rather than free ranging, so survival figures recorded inside them do not test the reintroduction. Eg. Several Kuno cheetahs were returned to enclosures after wandering out of the park into surrounding farmland.
      The Fix: Publish the share of the population that has completed a full year free ranging outside enclosures as the programme’s headline metric.
    3. Mortality from conditions the source population never faced: Indian monsoon humidity produced infection under radio collars, a failure mode absent in the African range. Eg. Cheetahs at Kuno died in 2023 from septicaemia arising beneath satellite collars during the wet season.
      The Fix: Standardise a monsoon collar protocol with scheduled removal and veterinary inspection through the wet months.
    4. Conflict at the boundary of a small park: A cheetah ranges far beyond a sanctuary’s notified area, so animals enter village land where compensation and local tolerance decide whether they survive. Eg. Kuno cheetahs have repeatedly moved into farmland in Sheopur district and been recaptured.
      The Fix: Extend a dedicated compensation and rapid response scheme across every village in the dispersal belt of each release site.
    5. One state carries the whole programme: Both release sites lie in Madhya Pradesh and in the same Chambal basin, so a disease outbreak or a drought in that landscape reaches the entire Indian population. Eg. The cheetah conservation breeding centre approved at the Banni grasslands in Gujarat remains outside the active release plan.
      The Fix: Bring a release site outside Madhya Pradesh into the plan on a fixed timeline rather than as a future option.

    Conclusion

    Project Cheetah has passed the point at which its success is measured by arrivals. A population that has now bred to a second generation inside the country is no longer an import programme, it is a management problem, and the binding constraint has shifted from securing animals to securing landscapes that can hold them. What to watch is whether the pair at Gandhi Sagar produces a litter in the coming season, because a second site that holds cheetahs without breeding them extends the programme’s footprint without reducing its concentration of risk.

    Back2Basics: Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary

    1. Designation and location: Gandhi Sagar Wildlife Sanctuary was notified in 1974 and spreads across the Mandsaur and Neemuch districts of Madhya Pradesh.
    2. River and reservoir: It lies along the Chambal river and adjoins the Gandhi Sagar dam reservoir, which forms part of its boundary.
    3. Terrain: The habitat is open savanna type grassland over rocky ground with dry deciduous scrub, which is the terrain the cheetah hunts in.
    4. Contiguity across the border: It adjoins the Bhainsrodgarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Rajasthan, which gives the two states a shared dispersal landscape.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Recently there was a proposal to translocate some of the lions from their natural habitat in Gujarat to which one of the following sites? (a) Corbett National Park (b) Kuno Palpur Wildlife Sanctuary (c) Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary (d) Sariska National Park”

  • Urban demand is reorganising global wildlife trafficking web

    Why in the News

    Five critically endangered baby orangutans, each around a year old, have been recovered from a forest in Odisha, roughly 2,000 km from their natural range in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. The animals showed no fear of humans, which indicates they had been held in captivity for a period before the recovery. India’s Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) has been asked to investigate how they entered the country and who held them. The recovery coincides with a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that combined thirty years of confiscation records with spatial network analysis and found that urban centres, rather than source habitats, are now the demand nexuses of the wildlife trade. The tension is that enforcement is built around seizures at the point of recovery, while the network that produced the consignment is organised around a city thousands of kilometres away.

    What does the Odisha recovery reveal about the route?

    1. Condition at recovery: The five apes were found on 8 September with limited mobility, huddled together and feeding from a container, and are now being monitored at a zoo in Bhubaneswar.
    2. Evidence of captivity: The complete absence of fear of humans indicates the animals had been kept in captivity for a while, according to the chief executive of the Wildlife Trust of India.
    3. A prohibited trade with a market price: The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) prohibits commercial trade in orangutans, and they are nonetheless sold routinely as exotic pets at up to Rs 20 lakh each.
    4. Not the first instance: Two baby orangutans were found abandoned near the Assam and Mizoram border in 2022.
    5. What remains unknown: The route taken, whether by sea, air or road, the identity of those who captured and smuggled the animals, and the identity of the intended collectors are all still open.

    How was the trafficking network mapped?

    1. The dataset: The study integrated thirty years of confiscation data with spatial network analysis to reconstruct trade routes end to end.
    2. The species studied: It traced the movement of Mexico’s parrots from biodiverse habitats to urban centres around the world.
    3. A transferable method: The same approach can be adapted to map other complex illicit networks, including the trafficking of timber, marine life, drugs and weapons.
    4. What it offers enforcement elsewhere: The reconstruction provides clues to criminal networks in parts of the world that hold no comparable confiscation record of their own.

    What does the shift of demand to cities do to the trade?

    1. Cities as the demand nexus: Urban centres are now the nexuses of demand, and that demand is reorganising the global trafficking network rather than merely feeding it.
    2. Distance between habitat and seizure: For many commonly traded species, confiscations occurred hundreds of kilometres from native habitats, frequently in major cities such as Mexico City.
    3. Extinction risk from trade alone: No less than half of Mexico’s native parrot species are directly threatened by the illegal wildlife trade, which elevates their risk of extinction.
    4. Selective poaching: Poachers consistently targeted charismatic and high value species at unsustainable rates, particularly macaws and Amazon parrots.

    Where does wildlife trafficking converge with organised crime?

    1. Shared logistics with narcotics: Drug cartels in Mexico run illegal logging operations, sharing transport logistics and laundering illicit timber alongside narcotics.
    2. Scale of the enterprise: The illegal wildlife trade comprises global, multibillion dollar criminal enterprises rather than a set of opportunistic local offences.
    3. A public health dimension: The trade threatens biodiversity and elevates the risk of zoonotic disease transfer and emergence.
    4. Why these networks resist mapping: The networks are complex, adaptive and largely invisible, which makes them difficult to map, to track and to disrupt.

    What does this mean for India’s own trafficking profile?

    1. Most smuggled groups: Primates, turtles and lizards are the species most smuggled into India.
    2. Principal route: The movement runs primarily through land routes between India and Myanmar.
    3. How the network behaves: The criminal network reconfigures itself to safeguard the business, so a disrupted route is replaced rather than closed.
    4. The enforcement gap: The lacunae in understanding the mechanisms that feed these networks obstruct law enforcement, which is why a seizure rarely reaches the network behind it.

    Challenges to curbing wildlife trafficking

    1. Seizure based enforcement measures the wrong thing: A confiscation records the failure of one consignment, not the disruption of a network, so a rising seizure count is fully consistent with a growing trade. Eg. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau runs periodic pan India drives such as Operation Save Kurma for turtles and Operation Lesknow for lesser known species, built around recovery rather than prosecution of the network.
      The Fix: Require every confiscation to open a parallel financial investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, so a recovery starts a case rather than closing one.
    2. Penalties are set against the offence, not the market: Statutory punishment is fixed by schedule while the return is fixed by the buyer, so the expected cost of detection stays below the commercial value of the animal. Eg. The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 prescribes imprisonment of up to seven years for a Schedule I offence.
      The Fix: Add a proceeds linked fine calculated on the traded value of the specimen, imposed in addition to the statutory term.
    3. Exotic species sit outside domestic schedules: The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 protects species listed in its own schedules, and a foreign species such as an orangutan historically fell outside that list. Eg. The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022 added a schedule for CITES listed specimens precisely because the earlier schedules did not reach them.
      The Fix: Make registration of every live exotic specimen mandatory against a traceable identifier, so possession without a record is itself the offence.
    4. Detection capacity sits at the wrong points: Customs and forest staff are posted at ports and protected areas while the demand nexus is an urban household, so a consignment is intercepted only while in transit. Eg. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau operates through a small set of regional, sub regional and border units for the entire country.
      The Fix: Extend enforcement to the demand side by requiring online marketplaces and pet traders to verify a legal acquisition record before listing any exotic specimen.

    Conclusion

    The unit of the wildlife trade has moved. It is no longer the forest the animal came from, it is the city that ordered it, and a network organised around demand will not be broken by enforcement organised around habitat. What the confiscation study offers is not another inventory of losses but a method, since the same records that currently close a case can be read as a map of where a network is thin. What stays unresolved is that the authority to act on such a map sits with forest and customs enforcement, while the vulnerability it identifies lies in urban markets that no wildlife agency polices.

    Back2Basics: CITES

    1. What it is: The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is an agreement between governments regulating trade in listed species across national borders.
    2. Origin: It was drafted in 1973 and entered into force in 1975, and its Secretariat is administered by the United Nations Environment Programme.
    3. How it lists species: Appendix I bars commercial international trade in species threatened with extinction, Appendix II regulates trade in species that could become threatened, and Appendix III covers species a member country asks others to help protect.
    4. Legal character: It is legally binding on the States that have joined it, and it does not take the place of national laws, which each party has to enact to give the convention effect.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “With reference to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which of the following statements is/are correct? (1) IUCN is an organ of the United Nations and CITES is an international agreement between governments. (2) IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the world to better manage natural environments. (3) CITES is legally binding on the States that have joined it, but this Convention does not take the place of national laws. Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3”

  • Orangutans in Odisha: The laws governing animal trade and repatriation

    Why in the News

    The Odisha Forest department has rescued five baby orangutans, a critically endangered animal, from a forest in Balasore district. Orangutans are native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, and the animals found in Odisha are suspected to be from Sumatra. All three orangutan species are listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which restricts their movement to non commercial purposes. The tension is that a suspected commercial trafficking case creates an obligation to secure the animals’ welfare but no obligation to return them. The case also marks a shift that wildlife crime control experts have repeatedly flagged, that India is no longer only a transit route but is itself fuelling demand for exotic pets.

    What is CITES?

    1. Regulation rather than prohibition: International trade in wildlife, their body parts and trophies is not prohibited, and the treaty instead regulates it strictly. Its aim is that cross border trade in wildlife and plants is legal, sustainable and traceable without harming survival in the wild.
    2. How it operates: It is essentially a licensing system that places checks and controls on the import, export and re export of live animals and plants, wildlife body parts and trophies.
    3. The three appendices: Controls run through an exhaustive CITES species list divided into three appendices, and the appendix a species sits in determines the level of protection it is accorded.
    4. Coverage: The treaty protects around 6,700 animal species, comprising 339 mammals, 159 birds, 113 reptiles, 24 amphibians, 26 fish and 69 invertebrates.

    What does Appendix I listing mean for the orangutans?

    1. The Appendix I threshold: Appendix I lists species that face the threat of extinction.
    2. What trade remains permitted: Such species can be traded only with valid permits, provided the specimens are captive bred and the purpose is conservation.
    3. Contested allowances: Trade permitted for some charismatic species includes elephant ivory, rhino horn, elephant and lion trophy hunting, and crocodile skin.
    4. The three orangutan species: The Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutans are all Appendix I listed, so their movement is confined to research, transfers between recognised zoos and breeding projects.
    5. The alleged breach: The Odisha animals appear to have been traded for commercial purposes, which would place the consignment in violation of the treaty.

    How does Indian law connect to the treaty?

    1. Treaty membership: CITES came into force in 1975 and India became a party to it in 1976.
    2. The harmonising amendment: The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 was amended in 2022 to harmonise it with the treaty. The amendment added a Schedule covering CITES listed species.
    3. What the amended Act requires: It calls for consultation with the country of export for the animal’s return. Where return is not possible it provides for the animal’s welfare at a recognised zoo or rescue centre.

    Does India have to send the orangutans back?

    1. No obligation to return: The treaty does not make it obligatory to return confiscated animals to the wild.
    2. Survival comes first: The first task facing enforcement agencies is the survival of the trafficked animals.
    3. Who decides: The management authority implementing the treaty’s provisions, here the Environment Ministry, is recommended to consult the scientific authorities and, where possible, the state of export or origin before taking a call on repatriation.
    4. Who pays: Where repatriation is feasible it has to be carried out at the expense of the state of origin. Where it is not feasible the animal goes to a rescue centre or such other place as the management authority deems appropriate.
    5. Indonesia’s approach: Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has reached out to Indian authorities and is preparing technical requirements for repatriation if investigations confirm the animals came from there.
    6. Informed receipt: The confiscating authority must ensure that recipient states are aware of the impacts of a repatriation before it happens.

    Why is repatriation difficult in practice?

    1. Establishing origin: A repatriation requires the country of origin to be established, the protocols to be followed and the legal tangles to be resolved first.
    2. Animal health through the process: Maintaining the health of confiscated animals across that period is the hardest part of it.
    3. Consignments change hands: Wildlife consignments pass through multiple holders and geographies, which makes a return to the wild rarely feasible.
    4. Captive bred specimens: Many species in this trade are captive bred and carry no known geographic origin at all.
    5. Origin is not the same as habitat: The place of origin is frequently not the range or the habitat where the species is found in the wild.
    6. Airport seizures work differently: Most seizures at airports are returned immediately to the place of origin, under the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) guidelines of July 2025.

    What does India’s exotic pet trade now look like?

    1. From transit route to demand market: The appeal of unique and unusual pets is driving rising trade in exotic wildlife within India rather than only through it.
    2. Two routes: Seizures indicate overland movement through the North East’s borders with Bangladesh and Myanmar, and movement by air through the international airports at Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
    3. Trade beyond the treaty list: Indians are acquiring many CITES listed species, and there is also a large trade in species that carry no CITES listing at all.
    4. What the amnesty revealed: A voluntary disclosure scheme in 2021 drew 43,693 applications for amnesty from 30 States and Union Territories, on data obtained under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Lemurs, kangaroos and rhinoceros iguanas were among the species declared.
    5. How a typical seizure looks: Consignments intercepted at airports, sea ports and land border posts usually carry multiple animals in bulk, with small mammals, reptiles and amphibians stuffed into gunny sacks, small cages or plastic boxes.
    6. Why Odisha is atypical: A rescue of five animals from a forested area does not fit that pattern. Eg. Authorities in Mizoram’s Champhai district near the Myanmar border seized 468 animals from six or seven different species in May 2022.

    Challenges to enforcing CITES in India

    1. Exotic species sat outside Indian law until 2022: Foreign species held in India had no schedule under domestic wildlife law, so possession itself could not be penalised. Eg. The 2021 scheme offered voluntary amnesty to holders rather than prosecution.
      The Fix: Require registration and microchipping of every CITES listed exotic animal in private possession, with periodic physical verification.
    2. Porous land borders: The North East’s forested international borders are hard to police against small consignments moved on foot. Eg. Cross border movement along the India Myanmar border has long been governed by a special regime for border residents.
      The Fix: Station Wildlife Crime Control Bureau officers alongside customs at the main land border posts rather than only at international airports.
    3. Welfare during custody: Recognised rescue and holding facilities are scarce, so confiscated animals die before any decision on their future is taken. Eg. Trafficked reptiles and small mammals arrive dehydrated and injured after transport in sacks and boxes.
      The Fix: Designate and fund a national network of rescue centres with species specific quarantine capacity.
    4. Demand generated online: Listings on social media normalise exotic pet ownership and create buyers faster than enforcement can identify sellers. Eg. Data drawn from social media and seizures shows Indian buyers acquiring many treaty listed species.
      The Fix: Place exotic wildlife listings under a takedown obligation for online intermediaries, with mandatory reporting to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.
    5. The treaty list does not cover the whole trade: CITES controls reach only species in its appendices, so a large part of the exotic pet trade is lawful to import. Eg. Many small reptiles and amphibians sold as pets carry no listing under the treaty.
      The Fix: Extend the domestic Schedule to species assessed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) even where CITES does not list them.

    Conclusion

    The case sits at the point where a rescue turns into a legal question with no default answer. The treaty and the amended Act both supply a procedure and neither supplies an outcome, so the decision rests on what can be established about origin and on what the animals can survive. The unresolved part is the demand side, because enforcement acts on consignments while the market pulling them in keeps growing. The immediate marker is whether the consultation between the Environment Ministry and Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry ends in a repatriation or in placement at a domestic rescue centre.

    Back2Basics: Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972

    1. Purpose: It provides for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants, and for the regulation of hunting and of trade in wildlife and its derivatives.
    2. Protected areas: It is the statutory basis for national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves.
    3. Institutions: It provides for the National Board for Wild Life and the State Boards for Wild Life, and it is the Act under which the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau functions.
    4. Schedules after 2022: The 2022 amendment reduced the schedules of protected species to four, the fourth of which covers specimens listed in the appendices of CITES.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015] With reference to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which of the following statements is/are correct? (1) IUCN is an organ of the United Nations and CITES is an international agreement between governments. (2) IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the world to better manage natural environments. (3) CITES is legally binding on the States that have joined it, but this Convention does not take the place of national laws. Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 Answer: (b)”

  • Hog in the limelight

    Why in the News

    The Assam government has praised a captive breeding programme for lifting the State’s pygmy hog population over the last three decades. The species was believed extinct by the mid twentieth century, and a few individuals rediscovered in 1971 prompted the conservation effort that the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme formalised in 1995. The recovery in captivity has outpaced the recovery of the habitat. Numbers held in breeding centres can be raised on a schedule, while the alluvial floodplain grasslands the species needs in the wild continue to fragment, which is what decides whether released animals survive.

    What is the pygmy hog?

    1. Sole surviving species of its genus: The pygmy hog is the only living species of the genus Porcula and the world’s smallest wild suid (a member of the pig family).
    2. Grassland dependence: It relies on dense grassland to feed, to conceal itself and to reproduce, so it cannot persist where tall cover is removed.
    3. Range: Its surviving distribution is confined to the alluvial floodplain grasslands of Assam.

    Why does the pygmy hog work as an indicator species?

    1. Distress signals habitat degradation: Decline in an animal that lives inside dense grassland is read directly as degradation of the floodplain that produces that grassland.
    2. Protection carries other species with it: Securing the grassland the pygmy hog needs also extends protection to the Bengal florican, the hispid hare, the hog deer and the greater one horned rhinoceros.
    3. The unit of conservation is the ecosystem: Survival in the wild depends on the survival of a specific ecosystem rather than on the numbers held in any one facility.

    How was the species brought back from presumed extinction?

    1. The original cause of decline: Floodplains were converted for farms, tea plantations and flood control infrastructure, then degraded by invasive plants and altered flood cycles, with unscientific burning of grasslands fragmenting what remained.
    2. Rediscovery and programme: A few individuals found in 1971 prompted an early conservation effort, and the current work descends from the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme begun in 1995.
    3. The measured gain: Captive breeding raised the pygmy hog population in Assam 32-fold over the last three decades.
    4. What breeding from a small stock demands: Conservationists must track pedigree, follow biosafety protocols because suids are highly susceptible to swine diseases, and condition individuals before release.

    Why is the recovery still not secure?

    1. Numbers remain small: The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust records some 250 individuals in early 2025.
    2. Counting is unreliable: The animals are difficult to spot and count, so how many exist in the wild cannot be stated with confidence.
    3. One natural population is left: The last surviving natural population sits in the Panbari grasslands area of Manas National Park.
    4. Insurance is not a guarantee: Captive individuals form the insurance group against loss in the wild, and the long term evolutionary fitness of that group is not assured.

    Challenges to pygmy hog recovery

    1. Genetic bottleneck: Breeding from a small founder stock accumulates harmful gene variants and holds genetic diversity low. Eg. Researchers working on the programme flag both as limits on the captive group’s long term fitness.
      The Fix: Manage the captive population as a single studbook with planned pairings and periodic exchange between breeding centres.
    2. Disease susceptibility: Pigs carry high susceptibility to swine diseases, so one outbreak can erase decades of breeding in a single season. Eg. African swine fever outbreaks in Assam from 2020 killed domestic pigs across multiple districts.
      The Fix: Hold breeding stock at physically separated centres under enforced biosafety protocols rather than at one site.
    3. Fire used as grassland management: Widespread dry season burning carried out to ‘save’ grasslands destroys the dense cover the species feeds and breeds in. Eg. Fires set across whole grassland blocks remove the tall cover in a single sweep.
      The Fix: Move to mosaic burning on a rotation that leaves unburnt refuge patches in every season.
    4. Woody encroachment: Suppressing ecological processes altogether allows trees and shrubs to convert grassland into woodland. Eg. Embankments and flood control works on the Brahmaputra floodplain have cut the natural flooding that renews grassland.
      The Fix: Restore periodic flooding and controlled disturbance so grassland succession is held in check.
    5. Habitat fragmentation: Protected grasslands survive as disconnected blocks, so released animals cannot disperse or recolonise adjoining areas. Eg. Fragmentation of protected grassland in Rupahi and Kanchanbari separates the sites Assam is relying on for release.
      The Fix: Reconnect the fragments and restore buffer zones around Manas and Orang National Parks and the Sonai Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary.
    6. Invasive plants: Introduced species change grassland structure and displace the native grasses the species depends on. Eg. Invasive growth has spread through degraded floodplain grassland alongside altered flood cycles.
      The Fix: Fund sustained mechanical removal at release sites as a recurring operation rather than a one time clearance drive.

    Conclusion

    Assam plans to raise the wild pygmy hog population to 300 by 2040. That target is a grassland target rather than a breeding target. Captive numbers can be scaled inside a facility, and the constraint sits outside it, in whether protected grassland is reconnected and buffer zones around the northern Assam parks are restored fast enough to receive the animals. Watch whether grassland restoration is funded as a standing operation, because the breeding side of the programme has already shown what it can deliver on its own.

    Back2Basics

    1. Manas National Park: Located in Assam along the foothills of the Bhutan Himalaya, on the Manas river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra.
    2. Designations: It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a tiger reserve, an elephant reserve and a biosphere reserve.
    3. Contiguity: It adjoins the Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan, forming a transboundary conservation landscape.
    4. Species: It holds the last natural pygmy hog population and is also known for the Bengal florican, the hispid hare and the golden langur.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “Consider the following : 1.Star tortoise 2.Monitor lizard 3.Pygmy hog 4.Spider monkey Which of the above are naturally found in India?”

  • As India probes origin of 5 baby orangutans, Indonesia prepares ground for repatriation

    Why in the News

    Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry has written to India offering government to government and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) coordination on five baby orangutans, and is preparing the technical requirements for their repatriation. The letter, sent by its Directorate of Species and Genetic Conservation, went to the Director General of Forests and Special Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, who is also India’s CITES Management Authority. It follows the rescue of the five animals from a forest in Balasore district of Odisha, after which a preliminary assessment placed them as Sumatran and raised the possibility of an organised transnational wildlife trafficking network. Indonesia has stated that it respects the judicial and statutory procedures applicable in India, and the Indian side has replied that state forest authorities must finish their official investigation first. Any decision on custody, transport or transfer also needs the authorisation of a competent judicial court. Repatriation is therefore not held up by either government’s willingness, and it waits on a genetic result and a court order.

    What does CITES do, and what does Appendix I mean?

    1. What the treaty regulates: CITES is a multilateral treaty more than 50 years old that regulates global trade in wild animals and plants, so that the trade is legal, sustainable, traceable and does not threaten a species’ survival in the wild.
    2. What Appendix I does: It prohibits trade in species that are endangered, which removes commercial international trade in a listed species from the set of lawful transactions.
    3. How it operates inside a country: Each party designates a Management Authority that issues permits, verifies specimens and handles correspondence with other parties, which is why Indonesia’s letter went to that office in India rather than through a general diplomatic channel.
    4. What it does not settle: The Convention regulates trade and leaves the disposal of confiscated live animals, including whether they return to the country of origin, to the seizing country’s own law and courts.

    What has Indonesia asked for, and what has it offered?

    1. The information sought: Its communication asked for details of the incident, the species, the animals’ health, the investigation being carried out, and the collection of genetic samples.
    2. The offer on verification: It conveyed its readiness to cooperate with India on species and origin verification.
    3. The commitment if origin is confirmed: If the animals are confirmed as originating from Indonesia, it would undertake the measures needed for repatriation under CITES and its own national laws.
    4. The logistics already being assembled: It is preparing health examinations, quarantine arrangements, genetic identification, transport, animal welfare safeguards and appropriate post arrival rehabilitation.

    Why does the origin question turn on DNA rather than appearance?

    1. What the current assessment rests on: The animals are suspected to be from Sumatra on the basis of preliminary observations of their physical and morphological characteristics.
    2. What morphology cannot establish: Conclusive identification requires a DNA examination, which would fix their species, their geographical origin, and whether they came from the wild or had been held in captivity earlier.
    3. The range is wider than the working assumption: The animals could be from either Indonesia or Malaysia, and only DNA sampling can establish which population they belong to.
    4. Why the wild or captive finding matters: It separates a fresh capture from the wild from an animal moved out of an existing captive collection, and the two point to different chains of supply.

    What does the case suggest about the trafficking chain?

    1. A network rather than a single consignment: The possibility of an organised transnational wildlife trafficking network is being taken seriously on the Indonesian side.
    2. An enforcement arm has been brought in: Indonesia’s Directorate General of Forestry Law Enforcement has been roped in alongside its conservation directorate.
    3. The chain details sought from India: It has asked for the suspected trafficking route, the point of entry, the transit countries, the documentation, and the preliminary investigation findings.
    4. The jurisdictional follow through: Where the evidence reveals persons, transactions or collection points inside Indonesian jurisdiction, Indonesian authorities would act under national law and through international law enforcement cooperation.
    5. No names at this stage: The stated position is that identifying particular individuals or networks before the evidence is formally established would be premature.

    Challenges to returning trafficked wildlife to its country of origin

    1. Statutory machinery for the Convention arrived late: A Management Authority with powers written into domestic law is what lets a seizure move through a treaty process rather than an ad hoc one. Eg. India joined CITES in 1976 and acquired statutory CITES provisions, including a designated Management Authority and a schedule for listed specimens, only through the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022.
      The Fix: Publish a standing disposal protocol for confiscated live exotic animals, so custody, testing and transfer follow one written sequence from the day of seizure.
    2. A genetic result needs something to compare against: A DNA sample names a population only where reference profiles for wild populations already exist in an accessible library. Eg. Orangutans are recognised as three separate species, Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli, so a match has to resolve to a population rather than to an island.
      The Fix: Route seizure samples through a designated wildlife forensic laboratory that holds or can obtain source country reference profiles under a standing arrangement.
    3. Custody cost and welfare risk grow with the proceedings: Infant animals have to be housed, fed and treated for as long as the investigation and the court process run, and the holding facility is rarely built for the species. Eg. The five animals are being held in a zoological park in Odisha while the state investigation continues.
      The Fix: Set a statutory outer limit for a disposal decision on confiscated live animals, with interim custody vested in a facility equipped for the species.
    4. A returned great ape cannot simply be released: Infant orangutans learn foraging, nest building and predator avoidance from their mothers, so an orphaned animal needs years of rehabilitation before any release is possible. Eg. Indonesia’s own orangutan centres in Sumatra and Kalimantan run multi year forest school programmes before a release attempt.
      The Fix: Name the receiving rehabilitation centre and its capacity in the repatriation arrangement before the transfer is authorised, not after.
    5. No single authority covers the whole route: Source, transit and seizure fall under different national agencies, so the chain is investigated in fragments by bodies with no shared case file. Eg. The South Asia Wildlife Enforcement Network and its Southeast Asian counterpart exist precisely because wildlife crime routes cross the jurisdiction of several enforcement agencies.
      The Fix: Constitute a joint investigation team with named nodal officers in the source, transit and seizure countries at the point of seizure rather than after the first findings.

    Conclusion

    Both governments have already agreed on the process, so neither the treaty nor diplomacy is what decides where these animals end up. The sequence runs through a state forest investigation, a genetic result, and a court’s authorisation for custody and transfer, in that order. The step to watch is whether the genetic examination is commissioned early enough to be available when the court takes up the custody question, since a case decided without it settles the animals’ future on appearance alone. The wider test is whether the seizure produces a traced route and named collection points, or ends as five rescued animals and no network.

    Back2Basics: Orangutans

    1. What they are: The only great apes found in Asia, tree dwelling and native to the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra in Indonesia and Malaysia.
    2. How many species: Three are recognised, the Bornean, the Sumatran and the Tapanuli, the last described as a separate species in 2017 and the rarest of the great apes.
    3. Conservation status: All three are listed as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
    4. Reproductive pace: Females give birth once in six to eight years, the longest interval of any land mammal, which is why a poached infant is not replaced within a generation.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2015] With reference to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which of the following statements is/are correct? (1) IUCN is an organ of the United Nations and CITES is an international agreement between governments. (2) IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the world to better manage natural environments. (3) CITES is legally binding on the States that have joined it, but this Convention does not take the place of national laws. Select the correct answer using the code given below. (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3 ANSWER: (b)”

  • International Vulture Awareness Day 2026

    Why in News

    The Union Environment Minister led the International Vulture Awareness Day 2026 celebrations on 6 September 2026. The day falls on the first Saturday of September each year.

    Key Points

    1. The collapse: India’s Gyps vulture populations collapsed from tens of millions to near extinction from the mid 1990s. The cause was diclofenac, a painkiller given to cattle. Vultures that fed on treated carcasses suffered fatal kidney failure.
    2. The ban: India banned the veterinary use of diclofenac in 2006. Later restrictions targeted other toxic veterinary drugs such as aceclofenac and ketoprofen.
    3. Conservation effort: The Vulture Action Plan guides recovery through captive breeding and safe zones. Conservation breeding runs at centres such as the one at Pinjore, Haryana. Several Indian vulture species remain Critically Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
    4. Ecological role: Vultures are scavengers that clear carcasses. Their loss raised feral dog numbers and disease risk.

    Prelims angle

    • The diclofenac link to the vulture decline; the 2006 veterinary ban; Gyps species and their Critically Endangered status; vultures as scavengers in the food chain.

    [2012] Vultures which used to be very common in Indian countryside some years ago are rarely seen nowadays. This is attributed to

    (a) the destruction of their nesting sites by new invasive species

    (b) a drug used by cattle owners for treating their diseased cattle

    (c) scarcity of food available to them

    (d) a widespread, persistent and fatal disease among them.

  • Deadly span

    Deadly span

    Why in the News

    Electrocution on India’s expanding power infrastructure is emerging as a threat to vultures capable of overtaking the chemical poisoning that caused their collapse.

    How far did the chemical crash take India’s vultures?

    1. The loss was among the world’s worst recorded: Numbers fell by 99.5 per cent by 2007 from a high of around four crore in the 1980s.
    2. Three species were nearly wiped out: The white-rumped, Indian and slender-billed vultures were the worst affected.
    3. The cause was a veterinary painkiller: Diclofenac administered to cattle destroyed the kidneys of vultures that fed on the carcasses.
    4. The regulatory response came in stages: The government banned diclofenac first, then added bans in 2023 on aceclofenac and ketoprofen among other NSAIDs.
    5. The population has not returned: One official survey reported in 2025 that vultures were nesting at only 50 per cent of their historic nesting sites.

    What did the collapse cost beyond the birds?

    1. Carcasses stayed exposed for longer: The loss of scavengers left livestock carcasses in the open, which supported feral dog populations.
    2. Rabies outbreaks followed: The growth in feral dog numbers led to outbreaks of rabies.
    3. Human mortality rose 4 per cent: A 2024 study in the American Economic Review estimated that increase as a consequence of the vulture decline.
    4. The damages were valued at 69.4 billion dollars a year: The same study put the associated cost to India at that figure.

    Why does power infrastructure kill vultures specifically?

    1. A wingspan can bridge two conductors: A large individual can contact two conductors at once, which is what completes the circuit through the bird.
    2. The birds seek elevated perches: Vultures habitually perch on elevated structures and are drawn to open landscapes, which is what a transmission corridor provides.
    3. Predictable food concentrates them: Vultures congregate where food availability is predictable, and dumping of food waste around electrical installations creates exactly that draw.
    4. Medium-voltage lines are also lethal: An assessment prepared for the State Climate Resilient Power System Development Project recorded an Egyptian vulture and steppe eagles electrocuted on medium-voltage rather than high-voltage lines.

    Why is the evidence on electrocution weaker than the threat?

    1. The deaths are removed before they are recorded: Avian electrocution is likely under-documented in India, since a dead bird can be taken by people or eaten by scavengers.
    2. The comparison with drugs understates the risk: Electrocution has not become as deadly as NSAIDs were, and the population it now acts on is a fraction of the one the drugs acted on.
    3. A local population can be lost to it alone: Research has noted that persistent mortality from electrocution by itself could render a local population extinct.
    4. Waiting for the data repeats the first failure: The fragility of the surviving population and the proliferation of unsafe power infrastructure are together the case for acting before the mortality record matures.

    Which interventions has the evidence actually tested?

    1. Moving the food source worked: Relocating a livestock carcass dump 2.4 km away from high-tension power infrastructure near Dehradun in Uttarakhand may have saved these scavengers from electrocution, per a recent study in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.
    2. Separation is the cheapest measure available: Keeping vulture feeding sites away from power infrastructure is a siting decision rather than a capital works programme.
    3. Insulating conductors removes the contact risk: Covering energised components stops a bird bridging them.
    4. Increasing clearances answers the wingspan: Widening the gap between energised and grounded components has to be sized against vulture wingspans rather than against smaller birds.
    5. Safe perches redirect the birds: Installing perches that carry no current gives raptors an alternative to the energised structure.

    Challenges to vulture conservation in India

    1. Human formulations substitute for the banned veterinary drug: Multi-dose human vials of diclofenac remain on sale and are diverted to cattle, so the ban is defeated at the pharmacy counter. Eg. India capped the human diclofenac vial at 3 ml in 2015 because larger vials were being used on livestock.
      The Fix: Make sale of injectable diclofenac without a veterinary prescription an enforceable offence policed by drug inspectors rather than by forest staff.
    2. New painkillers enter the market faster than they are tested: A molecule is approved for cattle without a vulture safety trial, so each ban is followed by the next drug. Eg. Nimesulide has been shown to be toxic to Gyps vultures and remains in veterinary use.
      The Fix: Require safety testing on Gyps vultures as a condition of veterinary marketing approval for any NSAID, with meloxicam as the reference safe alternative.
    3. Captive breeding cannot outpace adult mortality: Vultures lay a single egg a year and mature slowly, so releases add birds far more slowly than a landscape threat removes them. Eg. The Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre at Pinjore has released birds only in small annual batches.
      The Fix: Certify the release landscape as safe before any release, with drug residue sampling and line insulation audited as the precondition.
    4. The food base has been engineered away: Rendering and burial of livestock carcasses removes the open food supply that once sustained large scavenger populations. Eg. Vulture restaurants in Maharashtra and Punjab exist because the traditional open carcass dump has disappeared from many districts.
      The Fix: Fund supplementary feeding sites from State animal husbandry budgets and site them by rule away from transmission corridors.
    5. No agency is answerable for bird deaths on power lines: Transmission and distribution utilities carry no reporting duty for wildlife mortality, so the threat has no dataset behind it. Eg. Bird deaths on power lines in the Thar landscape became visible only after Great Indian Bustard litigation forced surveys.
      The Fix: Make wildlife mortality reporting a licence condition for transmission and distribution licensees, with the returns published by the State electricity regulator.
    6. Bird safe design is not written into line standards: Construction standards specify electrical clearances, not clearances sized for large raptors. Eg. Directions on undergrounding power lines in Great Indian Bustard habitat were later narrowed on feasibility and cost grounds.
      The Fix: Write raptor safe pole and cross-arm geometry into the national electricity standards for new lines in identified vulture landscapes.

    Conclusion

    The chemical crash was answerable on paper, because a single molecule could be identified and banned. Electrocution offers no such lever, since the killing agent is ordinary infrastructure doing what it was built to do. The unresolved tension is that conservation authority sits with forest departments while the hazard sits with the power sector, and no rule connects the two. Until that link is made, the threat will keep being measured only after the fact.

    Back2Basics: White-rumped Vulture

    1. Status: Listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List and protected under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
    2. Identification: It carries a white neck ruff and a white rump against black and brown plumage.
    3. Range and nesting: It is found near human settlements across northern and central India, nesting in tall trees and on cliffs.
    4. Ecological role: It is a social scavenger that feeds in flocks on carrion, garbage and slaughterhouse waste, which is how a small population clears waste across a wide landscape.

    [2012] Vultures which used to be very common in Indian countryside some years ago are rarely seen nowadays. This is attributed to:

    (a) the destruction of their nesting sites by new invasive species disease among them

    (b) a drug used by cattle owners for treating their diseased cattle persistent and fatal

    (c) scarcity of food available to them

    (d) a widespread, persistent and fatal disease among them

  • A quiet move that has kept Dehradun’s vultures safe

    Why in the News

    Relocating a livestock carcass dump 2.4 km away from high-tension power infrastructure near Dehradun in Uttarakhand appears to have ended vulture deaths at the site. The finding comes from a decade-old study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Threatened Taxa, which documented electrocution mortality at Sudhauwala before the move. Electrocution from power infrastructure is the most under-reported of the threats to vultures, a group already among the most threatened birds globally after severe population declines across Asia and Africa. The case sets a low cost siting decision against a threat that conservation policy has so far organised itself around drugs and poisoning to address.

    What did the Sudhauwala surveys record?

    1. The survey base: The study rests on 34 surveys conducted between May 2011 and February 2014 in the Sudhauwala region of Dehradun.
    2. The population observed: It recorded 743 individual vultures belonging to five species.
    3. The mortality count: 46 vulture carcasses attributable to electrocution were documented in proximity to high-tension power transmission structures.
    4. Which species paid most: The highest proportion of mortality relative to observations was recorded for the Himalayan griffon (Gyps himalayensis), followed by the Eurasian griffon (Gyps fulvus) and the cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus).

    Why has electrocution stayed off the vulture conservation agenda?

    1. The recognised threat list excludes it: Poisoning, veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), food scarcity and habitat loss are the survival challenges vulture policy in India is built around.
    2. The under-reporting is the point: Electrocution from power infrastructure has been the most under-reported threat, so it does not enter the mitigation measures those policies fund.
    3. Siting concentrates the risk: A carcass dump placed near high-tension transmission structures draws large soaring scavengers directly into a hazard they do not otherwise encounter.

    What changed after the dump was moved?

    1. The intervention: Local authorities relocated the carcass dumping site about 2.4 km away from the high-risk electricity infrastructure in April 2015.
    2. The birds still came: Subsequent observations indicated continued use of the new site by vultures, so the food source was not lost in the process.
    3. The deaths stopped: No mortality events were recorded during the limited post-relocation monitoring.
    4. Other raptors followed: The black kite (Milvus migrans) and the crested serpent eagle (Spilornis cheela) were also recorded at the relocated site.

    How far does the evidence carry?

    1. The surveys were not systematic: The authors state the surveys were conducted on a non-systematic basis, which limits how far the counts can be generalised.
    2. The signal survives the caveat: The number of mortality events observed still suggests electrocution may represent a significant localised threat, particularly for long-lived scavengers such as vultures.
    3. The follow-up stopped: No studies have been conducted at the site after 2015, so the post-relocation result rests on limited monitoring rather than sustained observation.
    4. The measure is portable: Relocating carcass dumping sites away from hazardous power infrastructure is offered as a practical conservation measure that could be applied in other affected areas.

    Conclusion

    A single siting decision, moving a carcass dump away from transmission lines, removed a mortality source that no drug ban or breeding programme would have touched. The result stands on limited post-relocation monitoring and on surveys the authors themselves describe as non-systematic. No further study has been done at the site since 2015. The open question is whether carcass dump siting relative to transmission corridors is audited elsewhere in India, since the measure costs almost nothing and the threat it addresses is not currently counted.

    Back2Basics: Himalayan Griffon (Gyps himalayensis)

    1. What it is: One of the largest Old World vultures, a carrion feeding scavenger dependent on livestock and wild ungulate carcasses.
    2. Range and habitat: It breeds on cliffs across the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau at high elevations, and descends to lower hills and adjoining plains in winter.
    3. Conservation status: Listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
    4. Why status differs within the genus: Its high altitude range kept it away from the veterinary drug residues in plains livestock that pushed the resident Gyps vultures of the plains into the Critically Endangered category.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2012] Vultures which used to be very common in Indian countryside some years ago are rarely seen nowadays. This is attributed to: (a) the destruction of their nesting sites by new invasive species disease among them (b) a drug used by cattle owners for treating their diseased cattle persistent and fatal (c) scarcity of food available to them (d) a widespread, persistent and fatal disease among them ANSWER: (b)”

  • Importance of elephant corridors in reducing conflict

    Importance of elephant corridors in reducing conflict

    Why in the News

    A Supreme Court Bench led by the Chief Justice of India directed the Centre to conduct a fresh survey of elephant corridors. The Bench held that these corridors cannot be blocked out of a fear of crop damage, because elephant herds by nature travel long distances. The Bench was hearing a writ petition on managing human-elephant conflict, which had earlier sought to prevent the use of fireballs, spikes and similar materials to drive elephants away. In its order the Bench asked the Centre to indicate the steps taken to prohibit those methods and any other “coercive measure” used to divert the natural movement of elephants. The direction sets a conservation requirement against the immediate economic loss of farmers whose fields lie along those routes.

    What is an elephant corridor?

    1. Definition: An elephant corridor is a movement pathway connecting two natural habitats, allowing herds to pass between them without entering settled land.
    2. The mapped stock: The government’s last major mapping exercise, in 2023, documented 150 elephant corridors across 15 states.
    3. Why they carry legal weight: Disrupting a corridor both sparks human-elephant conflict and poses a direct threat to the animals, which is why blockage is treated as a conservation failure rather than a land use choice.

    Why do elephants need to move over long distances?

    1. They are highly mobile mammals: Asian elephants are highly mobile and social animals, and a male elephant’s average home range, the area it typically uses for food, water and shelter, extends between 50 and 300 sq km.
    2. Movement takes more than one form: Elephants move through their range in herds or individually, so a corridor must accommodate both group and solitary passage.
    3. Home ranges are not fixed: Ranges extend or contract depending on habitat type, food availability, water sources, population density and human disturbance.
    4. Movement is seasonal: Elephant movement is strongly influenced by the seasonal and spatial distribution of food, water and habitat.
    5. A documented seasonal pattern: Seasonal migrations into Kerala are common during the dry months, as elephants seek water and food in the relatively moist forests of the Western Ghats, according to a recent Environment Ministry report.
    6. Climate has driven movement historically: Climate change and drought have both played a role in forcing elephant migration.

    What does an intact corridor actually deliver?

    1. Genetic exchange: Corridors allow elephants genetic exchange or dispersal, which maintains diversity in their population pool and prevents isolated herds from inbreeding.
    2. Seasonal resource access: Well conserved corridors give elephants access to food and water in natural habitats during seasonal changes.
    3. Fewer crop encounters: That access is what prevents elephants entering crop lands, so the corridor is the mechanism that reduces the crop damage farmers fear.
    4. Reduced mortality: A functioning pathway removes the need for herds to cross highways, railway lines and settlements, which is where non natural elephant deaths occur.

    What is fragmenting the corridors?

    1. Infrastructure construction: The major issues in recent disruptions are infrastructure construction and industrial and mining activity along or across corridor routes.
    2. Linear infrastructure specifically: Highways, existing and new railway lines, canals and power lines push elephants towards farmlands and human settlements, triggering conflict.
    3. Land use change on the fringes: Changing land use, plantations and farmland fencing fragment habitat at its edges, which closes off the approaches to a corridor even where the corridor itself survives.
    4. Mining pressure drives displacement: Habitat loss and mining pressure have pushed elephants out of established ranges and into new ones over the past two decades.

    Where is the fragmentation worst?

    1. India has four principal elephant landscapes: These are the Western Ghats; the North-Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra floodplains; the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains; and Central India and the Eastern Ghats.
    2. Western Ghats: The habitat of the Western Ghats population is rapidly fragmenting owing to changing land use, plantations and farmland fencing, as noted in the last all-India elephant population estimation report released in 2025.
    3. Shivalik and Brahmaputra: The same report recorded similar disruptions in the Shivalik and Brahmaputra plains.
    4. Central India and Eastern Ghats: This landscape carries the biggest challenge, with Chhattisgarh receiving elephants arriving from Jharkhand and Odisha over two decades owing to habitat loss and mining pressures.
    5. The range is still expanding: Elephants have also expanded their range into parts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, creating conflict in states with no history of managing elephant populations.

    What has the Court asked the Centre to do?

    1. A fresh survey: The Centre must conduct a fresh survey of elephant corridors, which resets the 2023 mapping exercise as the operative baseline.
    2. Crop damage is not a ground for blockage: Corridors cannot be blocked out of a fear of crop damage, since elephant herds by nature travel long distances.
    3. An account of prohibition steps: The Centre must indicate the steps taken to prohibit the use of fireballs, spikes and similar materials to drive elephants away.
    4. A wider category of prohibited action: The order extends to any other “coercive measure” used to divert the natural movement of elephants, which covers methods the petition did not name.

    Challenges to protecting elephant corridors

    1. Corridors have no independent legal status: A mapped corridor is not a notified protected area, so land inside it can be diverted for a project without triggering the safeguards that apply to a sanctuary. Eg. The 150 corridors mapped in 2023 span forest, revenue and private land with differing tenure rules. Fix. Notify identified corridors as conservation reserves or ecologically sensitive areas so diversion requires the same clearance as protected area land.
    2. The mapping baseline is dated and voluntary: The last major mapping was completed in 2023 and carries no requirement that project appraisals check against it. Eg. The Court had to direct a fresh survey rather than rely on a periodic statutory exercise. Fix. Fix a statutory five year corridor survey cycle and make the corridor layer a mandatory input to environmental clearance appraisals.
    3. Linear projects are cleared one at a time: Each highway, railway line, canal and power line is assessed on its own merits, so the cumulative severance of a corridor never appears in any single appraisal. Eg. Elephant movement in Central India was reshaped by two decades of accumulated mining and infrastructure pressure rather than any one project. Fix. Mandate landscape level cumulative impact assessment for all linear infrastructure crossing a mapped corridor.
    4. Mitigation structures are built to the wrong specification: Underpasses and overpasses are often sized for smaller species and sited for engineering convenience rather than on observed elephant crossing points. Eg. Corridors carry herds as well as solitary bulls, whose passage needs differ. Fix. Tie animal passage design to radio collar and camera trap movement data for that specific corridor before construction is approved.
    5. Corridors cross state boundaries with no joint manager: Elephants moving between Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh pass through three forest administrations with separate budgets and separate priorities. Eg. Chhattisgarh has absorbed elephants displaced from two neighbouring states over two decades. Fix. Constitute statutory inter-state elephant landscape authorities with a pooled budget and a single management plan for each of the four landscapes.
    6. Farmers carry the cost of a conservation decision: A ruling that a corridor cannot be blocked leaves the crop losses on the cultivator who farms beside it. Eg. Seasonal migration into Kerala during the dry months moves herds through cultivated valleys. Fix. Link corridor notification to guaranteed, time bound crop compensation through direct benefit transfer, so protection and compensation are notified together.

    Conclusion

    The Court has established that an elephant corridor is not negotiable against crop protection. The binding constraint is that the network was last mapped in 2023, while infrastructure, mining and land use change have continued to cut across it in all four elephant landscapes. The next step is the Centre’s response to the two directions recorded above, on the fresh survey and on prohibition.

    Back2Basics: The Asian Elephant

    1. Status: The Asian elephant is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is placed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
    2. Domestic protection: It is listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the highest level of protection available under Indian law.
    3. Range: India holds the largest wild population of the species, distributed across the four elephant landscapes covering the Western Ghats, the North East, the Shivaliks and Central India with the Eastern Ghats.

    “[2022] With reference to Indian laws about wildlife protection, consider the following statements :

    1. Wild animals are the sole property of the government.

    2. When a wild animal is declared protected, such animal is entitled for equal protection whether it is found in protected areas or outside.

    3. Apprehension of a protected wild animal becoming a danger to human life is sufficient ground for its capture or killing.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

    (a) 1 and 2

    (b) 2 only

    (c) 1 and 3

    (d) 3 only

  • States can’t block elephant corridors fearing crop damage: SC

    Why in the News

    The Supreme Court has directed a fresh nationwide survey of elephant corridors, noting that several corridors remain impeded, blocked or obstructed despite existing guidelines of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

    The Court held that crop damage cannot justify placing obstacles in elephant movement paths, highlighting the conflict between wildlife conservation and local livelihood concerns.

    What is an Elephant Corridor?

    • Meaning: A natural or narrow land passage connecting two elephant habitats, enabling movement between them.
    • Need: Elephants move over large areas in search of food, water and mineral licks.
    • Ecological role: Corridors maintain habitat connectivity and gene flow between elephant populations.
    • Legal status: Corridors are identified through ecological and movement studies but are not automatically Protected Areas.
    • Land ownership: Many corridors pass through private, revenue, plantation or community land.
    • India: 150 elephant corridors have been identified across 15 elephant range States.

    What did the Supreme Court Direct?

    1. Fresh nationwide survey of elephant corridors.
    2. A comprehensive report on existing corridors and measures taken to prevent their obstruction.
    3. Identification of corridors that have been blocked, choked or obstructed.
    4. States cannot justify blocking elephant paths merely because of crop destruction.
    5. The Court emphasised that elephants are a wide-ranging species and require unobstructed movement.
    6. The matter will be considered again after six weeks.

    Why are Elephant Corridors Important?

    • Habitat connectivity: Prevents isolation of elephant populations.
    • Gene flow: Allows breeding between different populations.
    • Conflict reduction: Functional corridors can prevent elephants from being forced into settlements.
    • Climate resilience: Connected habitats allow species to shift their range as environmental conditions change.
    • Landscape conservation: Corridors connect forests beyond individual protected areas.

    Major Causes of Corridor Blockage

    • Resorts and other infrastructure: Restrict access to traditional movement paths.
    • Railways and highways: Increase collision and fragmentation risks.
    • Plantations and agriculture: Conversion of corridor land narrows movement routes.
    • Electric fencing: Illegal or poorly designed fencing can cause electrocution.
    • Mining and quarrying: Remove vegetation and fragment habitats.
    • Canals and irrigation structures: Create physical barriers, particularly for calves.
    • Settlements and encroachment: Increase human presence along traditional routes.

    Elephant Conservation in India

    1. The species and its status: The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List and is India’s National Heritage Animal, declared in 2010.
    2. India’s share of the global population: India holds the largest wild Asian elephant population, about 29,964 individuals, roughly 60 per cent of the global population as per the 2017 census.
    3. Population growth under the programme: Wild elephant numbers rose from about 25,000 in 1992 to about 30,000 in 2021 under Project Elephant.
    4. State distribution: Karnataka holds the highest population, followed by Assam and Kerala.
    5. Elephant Reserves: India has 33 elephant reserves covering about 80,777 sq km.
    6. Corridors: 150 corridors have been identified across 15 elephant range States.
    7. Regional spread of corridors: The East central region holds 52 corridors, or 35 per cent of the total, the North East 48 corridors, or 32 per cent, Southern India 32 corridors, or 21 per cent, and Northern India 18 corridors, or 12 per cent.
    8. State with the most corridors: West Bengal, with 26 corridors, about 17 per cent of the national total.
    9. Why the elephant is a keystone species: It disperses seeds over long distances and opens forest canopy and waterholes that other species depend on.

    Constitutional Framework Governing Wildlife Protection

    1. Article 48A: Directs the State to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wildlife of the country.
    2. Article 51A(g): Places a fundamental duty on every citizen to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures.
    3. Seventh Schedule, Concurrent List Entry 17B: Places protection of wild animals and birds on the Concurrent List after the 42nd Constitutional Amendment, 1976.
    4. Seventh Schedule, Concurrent List Entry 17A: Places forests on the Concurrent List, which is why State forest departments implement central wildlife law.
    5. Article 21: Protects life and personal liberty, read to include a right to a clean and healthy environment, the basis for much environmental litigation.
    6. Article 32 and Article 142: Give the Supreme Court the power to entertain writ petitions and to pass orders necessary for complete justice, the source of continuing mandamus in wildlife matters.
    7. Article 253: Empowers Parliament to legislate to implement international conventions, the basis for wildlife law giving effect to treaty obligations.

    Laws and Rules Governing Elephants and Their Habitat

    1. Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: The primary law for protection of wild animals and plants and for the constitution of protected areas.
    2. Key protection: The Indian elephant is listed in Schedule I, which carries the highest degree of protection and the strictest penalties.
    3. 2022 Amendment: Rationalised the schedules, gave effect to CITES obligations in domestic law, and regulated the transfer of captive elephants for religious and other purposes.
    4. Project Elephant, 1992: A centrally sponsored scheme for protection of elephants, their habitat and corridors, and for management of human elephant conflict.
    5. Coverage: It extends to 23 States and provides the framework under which elephant reserves are declared.
    6. Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, renamed the Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam: Requires prior central approval for diverting forest land, which governs infrastructure passing through corridors on forest land.
    7. Indian Forest Act, 1927: Provides the categories of reserved and protected forest through which many corridors run.
    8. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006: Recognises community rights in forest areas, including in landscapes that carry elephant movement.
    9. Environment (Protection) Act, 1986: Provides for eco sensitive zone notifications and environmental clearance conditions applicable to projects near protected areas.
    10. Biological Diversity Act, 2002: Provides for conservation of biological diversity and equitable sharing of benefits, with biodiversity management committees at the local level.
    11. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora: Lists the Asian elephant in Appendix I, barring commercial international trade in the species and its parts.
    12. Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals: Lists the Asian elephant in Appendix I, obliging range States to conserve and restore its habitats.

    Back2Basics: Asian Elephant

    1. Scientific and common name: Elephas maximus, the Asian or Asiatic elephant, of which the Indian elephant is the mainland subspecies.
    2. IUCN Red List status: Endangered.
    3. Convention on Migratory Species: Listed in Appendix I.
    4. Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972: Listed in Schedule I, the highest protection category.
    5. Global significance: India holds the largest wild Asian elephant population in the world, about 29,964 individuals, close to 60 per cent of the global total as per the 2017 census.
    6. Range within India: Highest numbers in Karnataka, followed by Assam and Kerala, across 15 elephant range States.
    7. Habitat: Tropical moist and dry deciduous forest, grassland, scrub and adjoining agricultural landscapes, with populations in fragmented forests, tea estates and farmland.
    8. Social structure: Herds are matrilineal, led by an older female, and family units combine into clans and sub populations.
    9. Communication: Elephants use over 60 distinct calls together with gestures and physical contact, including low frequency rumbles that carry over long distances.
    10. Behavioural notes: Elephants comfort distressed companions, mourn their dead, cooperate in raising calves and adopt orphaned young, and individual animals show distinct personalities.
    11. Recorded mortuary behaviour: Research in fragmented forests, tea estates and farmland near the Gorumara Wildlife Division and Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal documented herds carrying calf carcasses and burying them in a legs upright position, then avoiding paths near the burial site.
    12. Genetic structure: A recent study identified five genetically distinct populations of Asian elephants in India.
    13. Conservation framework: Project Elephant, 1992, 33 elephant reserves over about 80,777 sq km, and 150 identified corridors.
    14. Named corridors: Kaniyanpura to Moyar in Karnataka, Chilla to Motichur in Uttarakhand, Thirunelli to Kudarakote in Kerala, the Segur corridor in Tamil Nadu, Kuldiha to Hadgarh in Odisha, Edayarahalli to Doddasampige in Karnataka, and Mudahalli to Talavadi across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
    15. Major threats: Habitat loss and fragmentation, corridor blockage, railway collisions, electrocution, poaching for ivory, and retaliatory killing arising from crop and property damage.

    Government Initiatives

    1. Project Elephant, 1992: The umbrella centrally sponsored scheme for elephant protection, habitat and corridor management, and conflict mitigation across 23 States.
    2. Elephant Reserves: 33 reserves notified over about 80,777 sq km, providing a landscape unit for management outside the protected area system.
    3. Gaj Yatra: A national awareness campaign for securing elephant corridors, launched on World Elephant Day.
    4. Haathi Mere Saathi: A public outreach campaign of the Ministry to build tolerance and awareness in elephant range landscapes.
    5. Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants: A site based monitoring programme run under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, in which India participates.
    6. Surakshya portal: A national portal for real time reporting and collection of human elephant conflict data from the field.
    7. Synchronised elephant population estimation: A periodic all India estimation exercise conducted jointly by range States using common protocols.
    8. National Wildlife Action Plan 2017 to 2031: The national policy framework for wildlife conservation, including landscape level and corridor conservation.
    9. Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority: Funds habitat improvement and conflict mitigation works, including barriers and water sources, in elephant landscapes.

    Key Facts about Elephants in India

    1. World Elephant Day: Observed on 12 August every year.
    2. National Heritage Animal: The Indian elephant was declared India’s National Heritage Animal in 2010.
    3. Project Elephant launch: February 1992, by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
    4. Largest land mammal in Asia: The Asian elephant is the largest terrestrial mammal on the continent.
    5. Distinguishing feature: Only some male Asian elephants carry tusks, unlike the African elephant where both sexes commonly do.
    6. Gestation: About 22 months, the longest of any land mammal, which makes population recovery slow.
    7. Elephant reserves and corridors: 33 reserves and 150 identified corridors across 15 range States.
    8. Gaj Yatra launch: Launched on 12 August 2017 as a nationwide corridor awareness campaign.
    9. Global population share: India holds about 60 per cent of the world’s wild Asian elephants.

    “[2022] With reference to Indian laws about wildlife protection, consider the following statements :
    1. Wild animals are the sole property of the government.
    2. When a wild animal is declared protected, such animal is entitled for equal protection whether it is found in protected areas or outside.
    3. Apprehension of a protected wild animal becoming a danger to human life is sufficient ground for its capture or killing.
    Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
    (a) 1 and 2
    (b) 2 only
    (c) 1 and 3
    (d) 3 only