GUWAHATI, June 18 � With Kaziranga National Park likely to be inundated by the floodwaters of the Brahmaputra, the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) has started a pre-flood awareness campaign for the safety of wildlife in the fringe villages of this World Heritage Site.
With support of Kaziranga forest authorities, two awareness meetings for residents of six villages in the fringe areas had already been held in the Central and Eastern Ranges of the park. More such meetings will be held to cover the entire Kaziranga-Karbi Anglong landscape.
During floods, the wildlife of the park move towards the highland and hill ranges of Karbi Anglong by crossing the NH-37. This national highway has become a death trap for such animals and therefore extra protective measures are needed there to allow animals to cross this road.
A large number of hog deer in particular succumbed to road-hits during the floods in the past few years.
Moreover, to mitigate the human-animal conflict during this crisis, a plan was formulated for wildlife safety following the awareness meetings held in the fringe villages of Kaziranga and those in the foothills of Karbi Anglong.
Conservationists, panchayats, village headmen, local NGOs, civil and forest authorities attended these meetings and sensitized villagers on how to save wildlife in distress.
�In the first awareness meeting, we asked the villagers whether they need any kind of help from the CWRC. A few boys said that they wanted to know about rescue in detail, especially snakes. A lot of snake-related cases are reported from the region during floods and they wanted to know how to identify whether a snake is venomous or not. Keeping that in mind, we organised an orientation programme at the centre with eight boys and three girls,� said Dr Rathin Barman, Deputy Director, WTI.
During the course of these meetings, the CWRC�s animal welfare experts highlighted the issue of �unnecessary rescue� of wildlife that causes displacement and sometimes lead to animal mortality, especially in deer species. Through audio-visual presentation and short videos, the participants were informed about flood rescue and guidelines on dos and don�ts were shared.
The CWRC designed informative billboards and leaflets in Assamese and handed them over to the village authorities to display at strategic locations for public awareness during the floods. Every banner has emergency contact numbers of CWRC and Kaziranga Control Room for immediate rescue. Two contact numbers of Kaziranga Control Room (03776-268007) and CWRC (03776-269563) would be operational 24x7.
Mukul Tamuli, Range Officer, Central Range, Kaziranga, said at the awareness meeting, �During flood days we have to work together for wildlife safety in Kaziranga. For any wildlife emergency, forest authorities are ready to work with the community as during previous years. We also urge the villagers to keep a close watch on the movement of poachers during flood and intimate the forest authorities.�