A joint survey by the District Forest Offices of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur conducted since 2013 revealed these ground-breaking results.

Friends of Nature (FON), an organization that is surveying the human-wildlife conflict scenario in the Valley, attributes the #DeathsOfEndangered to growing urbanization within the Valley.

According to them, many of these deaths took place as the animals entered human settlements from nearby forests. Out of 29 such aforementioned cases, five were taken to the forest through rescue operations and six were taken for treatment and seven escaped.

Wildlife experts believe that lack of natural resources such as water are among factors resulting in leopard sightings in the Valley.

“As urbanization goes unchecked in Kathmandu Valley, human settlements are getting closer to forests, fragmenting leopard habitat,” says Yadav Ghimirey, Wildlife Research and Conservation Director, FON.

Effective rescue operations can save most of these endangered animals, say the experts.

Senior Vet Technician at the Central Zoo Radha Krishna Gharti states that many leopards were reportedly found to have been killed before the rescue teams arrived.

“Rescuing leopards with minimal equipment and manpower is a difficult job. It turns worse when crowds of people panic and attack leopards when it could be rescued alive,” adds Gharti.

Gharti cites lack of public awareness as a reason behind the increasing killings of leopards.

“While human settlements are moving uphill towards forest areas, leopards are coming downhill to our settlements,” says Shashank Poudel, a leopard researcher.

The study identified some areas of Bhaktapur, Lalitpur, Chandragiri and Kathmandu.

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This major initiative by Nepal has drawn a wide appreciation from the global conservation community and is coming at a time when the world conservation ecosystem is deeply worried about the plight of vultures, globally.

It seems the good days have come for vultures as is evident in the recent major announcements made by the world governments on the conservation of vulture species.

The Convention on Migratory Species Conference of Parties, held in Manila in October 2017, witnessed the announcement of a Multi-species Action Plan to save 15 vulture species across 128 countries.

Next to that, the Madras High Court, India has also passed a ruling restricting the dosage of vulture-killing drug, Diclofenac, to save vultures.

Now it’s Nepal, in a move that is seen for the first time in decades. This move also marks South Asia’s first-ever release of captive-reared critically-endangered birds.

Vulture Safe Zone At its Best

The Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN, BirdLife in Nepal) and RSPB (BirdLife in the United Kingdom) have been relentlessly working, under the SAVE (Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction) consortium, against the serious threats posed by painkiller drug diclofenac to the vulture species.

 “Within the provisional Vulture Safe Zone (VSZ), we conduct undercover surveys of pharmacies and have found no diclofenac in the last four years. We also conduct surveys of vulture populations and have found that the population declines have slowed and possibly reversed,” says Krishna Bhusal, BCN.

Meanwhile, Toby Galligan, Senior Conservation Scientist, RSPB Centre for Conservation Science says, “It is time to assess whether the provisional VSZ has become a true VSZ, but only the vultures can show us that.”

Toby further informed that they are using satellite telemetry to track wild white-rumped vultures remotely and in the field.

“If any die we can recover them, examine them for cause of death and prevent other vultures dying from that cause,” added Toby.

Months prior to the release of six birds, SAVE had also tracked several species of wild vultures and concluded that all of them are currently alive and well.

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In a first of its kind exercise, Nepal will be coordinating with India in the latter’s efforts towards estimate the tiger count.

Officials from both the countries have formed a resolution in this regard in a recently-held meeting to simultaneously estimate the number of tigers.

“The resolution was passed and now we will work on the module which will be followed along the border,” says Nishant Verma, DIG of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), who was one of the key attendees of the meeting.

Both the sides also discussed trans-boundary cooperation to fight against wildlife crime through regular meetings on the issue, joint patrolling and exchange of information, among other measures.

Core Idea of the Planned Survey

This initiative by India and Nepal gains significance in view of the recent revelation by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Initiative, wherein, it said that ‘there were about 11 tigers that reached Nepal boosting the population of the specie which was under severe poaching threat’.

The idea behind this initiative is to synchronize the monitoring process of big cats across the Indo-Nepal border areas.

In India, monitoring of tiger reserves is done annually through the Phase IV analysis, followed by the estimation exercise across states once in every four years.

Whereas, Nepal’s monitoring activity has been based on protocols of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the apex body that checks tiger conservation in India.

Nepal has around 200 tigers compared to India, which reported 2,226 tigers in its last estimation in 2014-15.

Initiative to Help India and Nepal

“We share common boundary and this comprehensive estimation will help both countries in estimating tiger numbers especially on border areas,” says Bivash Pandav, Scientist at Wildlife Institute of India.

The joint exercise will extend from Dudhwa National Park of Uttar Pradesh till the Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary and Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary of Nepal. Valmiki Tiger Reserve of Bihar, Pilibhit Tiger Reserve of UP, Chitwan National Park and Shukhlaphanta of Nepal would be covered in the process.

Whereas in Uttarakhand, the boundary is shared across Pithoragarh and Campawat forest divisions.

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Recent floods in South Asia have not only hit the public and infrastructure, they have also shown a severe impact on endangered species of the region, displacing many of them.

Intense flooding swept away endangered one-horned rhinos of the Chitwan National Park (CNP), one of the main habitats of endangered one-horned rhinos hosting 606 of the total 645 one-horned rhinos of Nepal, into different areas of West Champaran District of Bihar (India).

With this, forest officials of Nepal and experts from Bihar began their joint rescue operations in search of missing rhinos of Nepal that were swept away into India, informed the Chitwan National Park (CNP) authorities on September 04, 2017.

Authorities further informed that they have so far rescued eight rhinos (three rhino calves and five adult rhinos) and are still continuing their search suspecting more such cases.

“Eight rhinos have already been rescued, but there could be more stranded in India. So, we have been searching for them,” said Nurendra Aryal, Assistant Conservation Officer, CNP.

According to the forest officials’ estimates, around 15 rhinos were swept away into different parts of Bihar due to heavy floods caused by the River Gandak or Narayani in Bihar and Nepal from August 12, 2017. However, there is no information on the status of remaining rhinos.

“At least 15 rhinos from Nepal were swept into West Champaran in the floods that came after very heavy rainfall in the catchment area of the Gandak. There could be more. So far, a joint team of around 250 people from Bihar and Nepal has been able to rescue six of them,” said Amit Kumar, DFO-cum-deputy director of Bettiah-2 forest range in West Champaran on September 01, 2017.

World-famous Kaziranga of Assam Badly Hit

Not just Nepal! Kaziranga National Park of Assam, home to the world’s largest population of rare one-horned rhinos and other endangered species, also suffered a major damage due to recent floods.

According to Kaziranga Director Satyendra Singh, rescue teams have recovered 225 dead animals since August 12, 2017, with 15 of them were rhinos (as of September 21, 2017).

“Nearly 200 deer, four elephant calves, four wild boars, two water buffaloes and one porcupine were among the other animals found dead in Kaziranga, which is still 20 percent under water. A Bengal tiger also died in a fight with a herd of elephants. It is possible that due to floods, there was a space crunch and it led to a territorial conflict,” informed Singh on September 21, 2017.

Joint Rescue Operation, A Great Opportunity

Speaking about the joint rescue operation being undertaken by officials of both the countries, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) of Bihar Bharat Jyoti said, “The joint operation is a great opportunity for us and a progressive step in mutual cooperation between India and Nepal to save wildlife.”

Bharat Jyoti also informed that officials from both the countries are going to discuss trans-boundary arrangements on wild animals, biodiversity and conservation later in September 2017, in New Delhi. Valmikinagar Tiger Reserve in Bihar and Dudhwa National Park in Uttar Pradesh are contiguous to the forests in Nepal, he added.

A team of veterinary and CNP officials have been in India since August 15, 2017 and a joint team of more than 250 people from Bihar and Nepal were in search of missing rhinos (as of September 01, 2017).

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