5,450 wild animals using underpasses on a protected highway
NAGPUR: While the longest national highway in the country, NH-7, travelling along Maharashtra’s Pench Tiger Reserve often features news of wild animal deaths, the animals have now found new paths to avoid vehicles.
More than 5,450 wild animals, including 11 tigers, were captured on camera using six highway underpasses, the country’s first dedicated animal crossing structures from March to December 2019, a study by Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, says. Tiger, spotted deer, wild boars, hare, and jungle cat were among the first animals caught under the systems, and are frequently captured, according to the results.
Tiger scientist Bilal Habib, who suggested the mitigation measures, said, “The monitoring exercise has shown that these crossing structures contribute to improving the permeability of the landscape. Such mitigation measures, if adopted, would help defragment fragmented landscapes.
WWI Report: 18 wild animal species use underpasses The report, based on March-Decece camera trap survey data According to the WII report, spotted deer, wild boars and wild dogs were the most frequent users of these underpasses besides tigers and leopards. Jungle cat, mongoose, common palm civet, small Indian civet, Indian hare, rusty spotted cat, and porcupine were among the other animals.
“By the mitigation structures, 89 tiger crossings have been recorded until 31 December. These crossings correspond to 11 individual tigers, which are regular users of the underpasses too, “says the report. Nine wildlife protection systems have been built along a 16.1 km stretch of the NH-7 passing through forests adjacent to the Pench Tiger Reserve and entering the Pench-Navegaon-Nagzira tiger corridor as suggested in the May 2015 WII-NTCA Joint Report. “The initial outcomes of monitoring NH-7 mitigation measures are very promising. We have recorded 5,381 captures of 18 wild animal species from these underpasses, the most frequent use of which was made by jungle cat, hare, chital, wild pig, wild dog and tiger, “tiger scientist Bilal Habib said.
