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The wildlife in India is a mix utiof species of different types of organisms.[1][clarification needed]Apart
from a handful of the major famed animals such as cows, buffaloes,
goats, poultry and sheep, India has an amazingly wide variety of animals
native to the country. It is home to lions, tigers, leopards, snow leopards, black panthers, cheetahs, wolves, foxes, bears, crocodiles, rhinoceroses, camels,dogs, monkeys, snakes, antelope species, deer species, varieties of bison and not to mention the mighty Asian elephant.
The region's rich and diverse wildlife is preserved in 89 national
parks, 13 Bio reserves and 400+ wildlife sanctuaries across the country.[2]
Since India is home to a number of rare and threatened animal species,
wildlife management in the country is essential to preserve these
species.[3] According to one study, India along with 17 mega diverse countries is home to about 60-70% of the world's biodiversity.[4]
India, lying within the Indomalaya ecozone, is home to about 7.6% of all mammalian, 12.6% of avian, 6.2% of reptilian, and 6.0% of flowering plant species.[5] Many ecoregions, such as the shola forests, also exhibit extremely high rates of endemism; overall, 33% of Indian plant species are endemic.[6][7] India's forest cover ranges from the tropical rainforest of the Andaman Islands, Western Ghats, and Northeast India to the coniferous forest of the Himalaya. Between these extremes lie the sal-dominated moist deciduous forest of eastern India; teak-dominated dry deciduous forest of central and southern India; and the babul-dominated thorn forest of the central Deccan and western Gangetic plain.[8] Important Indian trees include the medicinal neem, widely used in rural Indian herbal remedies. The pipal fig tree, shown on the seals of Mohenjo-daro, shaded the Gautama Buddha as he sought enlightenment.
Many Indian species are descendants of taxa originating in Gondwana, to which India originally belonged. Peninsular India's subsequent movement towards, and collision with, the Laurasian landmass set off a mass exchange of species. However, volcanism and climatic change 20 million years ago caused the extinction of many endemic Indian forms.[9] Soon thereafter, mammals entered India from Asia through two zoogeographical passes on either side of the emerging Himalaya.[8]
As a result, among Indian species, only 12.6% of mammals and 4.5% of
birds are endemic, contrasting with 45.8% of reptiles and 55.8% of
amphibians.[5] Notable endemics are the Nilgiri leaf monkey and the brown and carmine Beddome's toad of the Western Ghats. India contains 172, or 2.9%, of IUCN-designated threatened species.[10] These include the Asiatic lion, the Bengal tiger, and the Indian white-rumped vulture, which suffered a near-extinction from ingesting the carrion of diclofenac-treated cattle.
In recent decades, human encroachment has posed a threat to India's wildlife; in response, the system of national parks and protected areas, first established in 1935, was substantially expanded. In 1972, India enacted the Wildlife Protection Act and Project Tiger to safeguard crucial habitat; further federal protections were promulgated in the 1980s. Along with over 500 wildlife sanctuaries, India now hosts 15 biosphere reserves, four of which are part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; 25 wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.
The varied and rich wildlife of India has had a profound impact on
the region's popular culture. The common name for wilderness in India is
Jungle, which was adopted into the English language. The word has been also made famous in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. India's wildlife has been the subject of numerous other tales and fables such as the Panchatantra and the Jataka tales.
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Contents |
Fauna
Main article: Fauna of India
Conservation
Large and charismatic mammals are important for wildlife tourism in India and several national parks and wildlife sanctuaries cater to these needs. Project Tiger started in 1972 is a major effort to conserve the tiger and its habitats.[12] At the turn of the 20th century, one estimate of the tiger population in India placed the figure at 40,000, yet an Indian tiger census conducted in 2008 revealed the existence of only 1,411 tigers. The passing of the Forest Rights Act by the Indian government in 2008 has been the final nail in the coffin and has pushed the Indian tiger on the verge of extinction. Various pressures in the later part of the 20th century led to the progressive decline of wilderness resulting in the disturbance of viable tiger habitats. At the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) General Assembly meeting in Delhi in 1969, serious concern was voiced about the threat to several species of wildlife and the shrinkage of wilderness in India. In 1970, a national ban on tiger hunting was imposed, and in 1972 the Wildlife Protection Act came into force. The framework was then set up to formulate a project for tiger conservation with an ecological approach.
Launched on April 1, 1973, Project Tiger has become one of the most successful conservation ventures in modern history. The project aims at tiger conservation in specially constituted 'tiger reserves' which are representative of various bio-geographical regions falling within India. It strives to maintain a viable tiger population in their natural environment. Today, there are 39 Project Tiger wildlife reserves in India covering an area more than of 37,761 km².
Project Elephant, though less known, started in 1992 and works for elephant protection in India.[13] Most of India's rhinos today survive in the Kaziranga National Park.
Recent extinctions
Hubbardia heptaneuron, a species of grass that grew in the spray zone of the Jog Falls prior to the construction of the Linganamakki reservoir, was thought to be extinct, but a few were rediscovered near Kolhapur.[15]
Some species of birds have gone extinct in recent times, including the Pink-headed Duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea) and the Himalayan Quail (Ophrysia superciliosa). A species of warbler, Acrocephalus orinus, known earlier from a single specimen collected by Allan Octavian Hume from near Rampur in Himachal Pradesh, was rediscovered after 139 years in Thailand.[16][17]
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