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DELHI AIRPORT RAISES
AWARENESS
The Indian Customs Department, TRAFFIC and
WWF India have partnered to raise awareness
about poaching and illegal wildlife trade at the
Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi. Striking
displays of the snow leopard, greater one-horned
rhino, Indian pangolin and Asian elephant, with
the message “Don’t Buy Trouble” have been
strategically placed in the arrivals lounge of the
airport. The snow leopard is commonly poached
for its fur, the rhino and elephant for their horn
and tusks respectively, and the pangolin, reportedly
the most traffi cked wild mammal in the world, is
targeted for its scales and meat. The Customs
Department is largely responsible for preventing
illegal trade of these (and more) wildlife products
across borders. Dr. Amandeep Singh, of the Offi ce
of the Commissioner of Customs, at the IGI airport,
said: “Illegal wildlife trade has grown to become
a very serious crime globally. We recognise this
threat to our country’s biodiversity and have
therefore undertaken this awareness initiative to
help enlighten travellers as well as Customs offi cials
about the species impacted by illegal wildlife trade.”
DHOLE ON THE VERGE OF
EXTINCTION
A study based on extensive survey by the Centre
for Wildlife Studies suggests that the Asiatic wild
dog or dhole may soon cease to exist in its range
across India. The survey was conducted across
37,500 sq. km. of the Western Ghats, which is the
wild dog’s only range in India. In 2007, signs of
wild dogs were only found in 35 per cent of the
surveyed area. In 2015, this dropped to 30 per
cent. Globally, dholes have already vanished from
about 82 per cent of their range. The Western
Ghats is home to the largest meta-population of
the canines. As many as 49 sites were identifi ed
by the study as sensitive to local extinction of the
species. WWF Species and Landscape Director
Dipankar Ghose, stressed on the importance of
including local communities in conservation eff orts:
“They [communities] need to be made parties in
benefi t sharing and management
of forests. Both the red panda and
snow leopard are found in Arunachal
Pradesh, where communities own
forests.” he said. Today, according to
the IUCN, there are around 949 to
2,215 breeding dholes left worldwide.ODISHA’S MOST
SEVERE CYCLONE IN
20 YEARS
On May 3, 2019, a severe cyclonic
storm, dubbed ‘Fani’, hit Puri,
on Odisha’s coastline, triggering
extreme rainfall and winds that
blew at a staggering speed of 175
kmph. The cyclone ripped apart
infrastructure and uprooted millions
of trees along the Bhubaneswar-Puri
highway and other aff ected areas.
Large parts of Puri, Bhubaneswar
and neighbouring regions were
submerged. Two of Odisha’s crucial
ecological regions suff ered - Lake
Chilika, Asia’s largest brackish
lake and the Balukhand-Konark
Wildlife Sanctuary. The lake, which
previously had two mouths, now has
four more, which could increase its
salinity and adversely aff ect marine
life. While the sanctuary’s mangroves
survived the winds, 4.5 million of its
estimated nine million trees were
uprooted. Scientists predicted the
storm’s path ahead of time, and in
24 hours, state authorities managed
to evacuate over 11,00,000 people -
the largest mass-evacuation before
a natural disaster in India’s history.
Fani is considered to be similar in
velocity to a Category 4 hurricane;
the last cyclone with comparable
severity hit the region in 1999, when
over 10,000 people died. This timeindia
SCAN
GOVERNMENT OF ODISHA / PUBLIC DOMAINCyclone 'Fani' that hit Odisha on May 3, 2019, ripped apart infrastructure and uprooted
trees, and also fl ooded large parts of the state.India's zero-casualty approach
to managing extreme weather
events was planned in advance
and acknowledged globally.NEW SNAKE
SPECIES
DISCOVERED
Several species of snakes have
recently been discovered by
zoologists in India. A new vine
snake Ahaetulla laudankia was
found in Odisha - the fi rst one
since 1906. Vine snakes are
slender, rear-fanged, and narrow-
headed, with pointed snouts.
Though zoologists actually found
the snake in the wild in 2009,
it took them a decade to fully
describe its characteristics and
confi rm that it was indeed unique.
In Arunachal Pradesh, two new
species were found – a reddish
brown pit viper Trimeresurus
arunachalensis and a non-
venomous crying keelback Hebius
lacrima. Only four pit vipers were
known from India and this new
species discovered by a team led
by Ashok Captain makes for an
exciting addition. The species gives
Arunachal Pradesh the privilege
of being the only Indian state
with a pit viper named after it.
The crying keelback was located
by Jayaditya Purkayastha, in a
paddy fi eld. Another interesting
discovery is of the Mizo rain
snake Smithophis atemporalis by a
seven-member team led by Varad
Giri in Mizoram. Though locals
were aware of this snake and
referred to it as Ruahlawmrul or
“rain-loving snake”, the discovery
is new to science.