News Update: January 2006

The team has had a successful three week expedition. However, although we had proposed to cover three districts in the project proposal, we were actually able to thoroughly survey only two of them.

I am delighted to say that our surveys have identified a very important site that we will propose to be protected for wildlife conservation. During the coming year, I am also planning to start some community based conservation work in this site We were able to establish the occurrence of the snow leopard, bharal, wild dogs, takin, serow, musk deer, goral, marmots, pikas and much other fascinating wildlife in the region. We have also been able to identify the main conservation problems/ issues in the region.

One of the highlights of our expedition was the discovery of the Chinese goral Nemorhaedus caudatus, a species not known previously to occur in India – this is, in fact, a new addition to the list of large mammals of the Indian sub-continent.