Kaziranga: At least 11 wild animals from Kaziranga National Park in Assam, displaced due to floods, have been attended to by Mobile Veterinary Service (MVS) run by the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC).
Supported by the Assam Forest Department, two units of MVS have been on alert ever since the Brahmaputra began flowing above the danger mark, Assistant Manager Awareness for Conservation of Wildlife Trust of India, Subhamoy Bhattacharjee said on Friday.
Of the 11 rescued animals between September 1 to 6, two hog deer and a wild boar were released in the Kaziranga National Park by the MVS team, he said. Like previous years, this year too Assam Forest Department personnel, Forest Protection Force, police, NGOs and locals came together to protect wildlife from the raging floods, Bhattacharjee said.
During this phase, two MVS units of CWRC covered the most vulnerable zones of the Park with 24X7 patrolling of NH-37 covering four forest ranges, he said.
Though the water level is receding, the MVS team is in constant touch with the Kaziranga authorities to ensure that no stray incident goes unattended.
Three veterinarians, animal keepers, a biologist and sociologist from CWRC are attending to all flood related incidents in the Park, he said.
Meanwhile, five hog deer died during the floods and most of them succumbed to road hits on NH-37, he said, adding, to reduce animal mortalities, the Kaziranga Forest Authority had introduced ‘Time Card’ to regulate the speed of vehicles on NH-37.
A female Eastern swamp deer with severe vehicle-hit injuries was admitted but died after three days of clinical observation at the CWRC, the WTI official said.
During floods wild animals are forced to cross the highway to reach the Karbi Anglong hills for safety, Bhattacharya said and added each year scores of animals die after being hit by vehicles on NH-37 that cuts through Kaziranga National Park.
The pre-flood awareness campaign of IFAW-WTI in the fringe villages of Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong landscape has made the villagers conscious about the safety of wild animals.
The recent floods had submerged more than 80 per cent of the Park area for a week but the rise in water levels being slow allowed animals to move to the foothills of Karbi Anglong or high ground in the Kaziranga National Park.
As the water levels are slowly receding, the animals are now retreating to the national park, Bhattacharya said. (PTI)
