NAMDAPHA NATIONAL PARK AND TIGER RESERVE

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• The snow leopard has never been spotted nor recorded in the Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The 1,985 sq. km reserve bordering Myanmar has an elevation varying from 200 metres to 4,571 metres above sea level.
• However, wildlife officials in the State are eagerly awaiting the analysis of the data of a survey conducted in 2021 to ascertain the presence of the elusive snow leopard, often referred to as a mountain ghost because of its coat that helps it blend in a snowy-rocky environment.

Details:

About the park:

• The Namdapha National Park is located in Arunachal Pradesh's Changlang district.
• It is a biodiversity hotspot in the Eastern Himalayas, with over 1,000 floral and 1,400 faunal species.
• It also has a large number of dipterocarp forests.
• Namdapha National Park is India's fourth-largest national park by area.
• Namdapha National Park is nestled between the Patkai and Dapha bum ranges of Mishmi Hills in the Eastern Himalayan Sub-region. Namdapha is located on the international border between India and Myanmar, along the raging Noa-Dihing River.
• In 1972, Namdapha was designated as a wildlife sanctuary. In 1983, it was designated as a tiger reserve and national park.
• It is the world's only park with the four feline species of big cat, the Tiger (Panthera Tigris), Leopard (Panthera Pardus), Snow Leopard (Panthera Uncia), and Clouded Leopard (Neofelis Nebulosa), as well as a large number of Lesser cats.
• The park is home to a variety of primate species, including the Assamese macaque, pig-tailed macaque, stump-tailed macaque, and a large number of the distinctive Hoolock Gibbons (Hylobates Hoolock), India's only "ape" species.
• Perhaps no other national park in the world has a greater range of altitude than Namdapha, which rises from 200 metres to 4,500 metres in the snow-capped mountains.

About Snow Leopard:

• The elusive and charismatic snow leopard feeds on hoofed animals (ungulates) including the Siberian ibex, blue sheep, urial and argali in the Himalayas.
• The snow leopard detection probability was high if the site was used by its prey species, i.e., ibex and blue sheep.
• Whereas, in the case of the prey species, the probability of detection was low when the predator (snow leopard) was present and detected.
• Snow leopards use rugged mountainous areas or non-forested areas covering an altitude between 3200m-5200m.
• Habitat covariates, such as barren area, grassland, aspect, slope and distance to water were important drivers of habitat use for the snow leopard as well as its prey species.
• Classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red list and listed in Schedule-I species of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, snow leopards are elusive mountain cats whose survival depends on depends primarily on wild ungulates.
• Higher up in the mountains, predators such as snow leopards regulated the populations of herbivores such as the blue sheep and Siberian ibex, thereby safeguarding the health of grasslands and a long-term absence of snow leopards could cause trophic cascades as ungulate populations would likely increase, leading to depletion of vegetation cover.
• Snow leopards have a vast but fragmented distribution across the mountainous landscape of central Asia, which covers different parts of the Himalayas such as Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim.
• This charismatic species is largely threatened because of the loss of natural prey species, retaliatory killing due to conflict with humans and illegal trade of its fur and bones.

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