Status survey on carnivores and prey in Kalesar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Haryana, India
Paper Details
Status survey on carnivores and prey in Kalesar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Haryana, India
Abstract
Abundance of carnivore and their prey reflects the habitat richness of an area. This is because carnivores occupy the top position in the food pyramid. However the survivability of carnivore depends upon the abundance of prey population in an area. Conservation of carnivore may not be practical until there is viable population of prey species. Therefore a survey was conducted to find out the presence of carnivore as well as their prey species in Kaleswar National Park (300 18` to 300 27` North latitude and 770 25` to 770 35 East longitude) and Wildlife Sanctuary (300 16` to 300 28` North latitude and between 77020` to 770 37` East longitude) in Haryana, India. Nine trails were surveyed covering 32.2 km during February-April, 2012. A total of 23.8 km trail of the national park and 8.5 km of wildlife sanctuary were covering Guga and Kalesar beats in national park area and Faizpur, Tibriyan and Ambala beats in wildlife sanctuary area. Both direct sighting and indirect evidences (pugmarks, scrape, scat, kill remains etc.) were recorded. During the survey, the carnivores that were found are: leopard (Panthera pardus), jackal (Canis aureus), hyena (Hyanea hyanea) and fox (Vulpes bengalensis). On the other hand, no sign was found about the presence of tiger in Kalesar NP and WLS. Among prey, sambar (Cervus unicolor), spotted deer (Axis axis), barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak), chowsingha (Tetracerus quadricornis), wild boar (Sus scrofa) and elephants (Elephus maximus) were bring into being during survey. The survey supports the fact that the leopard is very common carnivore in both the parks. It was also confirmed from this study that tiger is not present in both Kalesar NP and WLS. Prey populations were abundant but might be not that enough to support major predator like tiger. However, it is good habitat for small carnivore.
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A. Aisho Sharma, Prabal Sarkar, Smita Chaudhry, 2013. Status survey on carnivores and prey in Kalesar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary in Haryana, India. J. Biodiv. Environ. Sci., 3(7), 22-28.
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