The Forest Department has appointed a five-member research team for Project Nilgiri Tahr, an ambitious project for the protection and conservation of Tamil Nadu’s State animal.
Research coordinator-cum-senior scientist S. Priyanka, who holds Ph.D. in Life Sciences, is heading the team which comprises B. Subbaiyan (Ph.D. Botany), S. Gokul Prasath (M.Sc. Zoology), N. Rajesh Kumar (M.Sc. Environmental Sciences) and K. Manigandan (M.Sc. Wildlife Biology).
S. Ramasubramanian, Field Director of the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), told The Hindu that the team will conduct field visits, covering Nilgiri tahr habitats in Tamil Nadu for a month. “They will visit tahr habitats from the Nilgiris up to Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve. They will interact with the field staff, local NGOs and people. The other project components will be gradually implemented after this stage,” he said.
The team will work out of the temporary office building on the Forest Department campus at Coimbatore north till a new building is constructed. An orientation programme on the project for the research team and the field staff from forest ranges with Nilgiri tahr population was held at the Advanced Wildlife Management Training Centre, Attakatti, on June 5.
Mr. Ramasubramanian briefed the research team and field staff on the nature and scope of the ambitious project which the Tamil Nadu government launched in 2022.
James Zachariah, District Forest Officer (retd) from the Kerala Forest Department, who has about three decades of experience in the management of Nilgiri tahrs at the Eravikulam National Park, spoke on the micro and macro situations in the conservation of the mountain ungulate.
T.R. Shankar Raman from the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) briefed on a 2018 study on the State animal titled ‘Population assessment of the Nilgiri tahr using the double-observer survey method in ATR’. He also spoke on habitat assessment and management issues, including the ones posed by invasive species.
Munib Khanyari from NCF addressed the participants on the topic ‘Monitoring mountain ungulates: Application to Nilgiri tahr. Jenis Patel from NCF spoke on the results and learnings from estimating population of Nilgiri tahr in ATR.
M.A. Paul Peter Predit and N. Mohanraj from the WWF-India explained the conservation overview of Nilgiri tahr and assessment of their population using GIS applications. Bhargava Teja, Deputy Director of Pollachi Division of ATR; V. Selvam, Assistant Conservator of Forests; and J. Peter Prem Chakravarthy, biologist with ATR, also spoke.
