Srinagar, Sep 12: With fewer than 270 Hanguls left in the wild, Jammu and Kashmir’s own silent stag is elusive even to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
Speaking at the 2nd International Conference on Hangul and Other Threatened Ungulates at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKUAST-K), CM Omar said he had never truly seen the Hangul in the wild apart from a faint blur through binoculars despite living within an hour’s drive of the Dachigam National Park.
Yet what worries him more is the possibility that the future generations might never get to see Hangul at all, like the present generation doesn’t get to see the Dodo and the Woolly Mammoth.
The CM warned that the Hangul, mostly confined to the Dachigam National Park, could slip into extinction unless urgent conservation is undertaken.
He said that the vanishing of the Hangul and other threatened species like the Markhor would not just be a loss for biodiversity, but a direct threat to the ecological balance on which human survival depends.
“Protecting the Hangul is protecting life itself,” CM Omar said.
He said losing species like the Hangul and Markhor would upset the ecological balance that sustains human life.
“If we, for a moment, were to believe that we can allow species after species to go extinct and it has no bearing whatsoever on human survival, then I think that would be a cardinal mistake,” the CM said.
He said that the future generations might know the Hangul only from photographs in books if urgent conservation steps are not taken.
“I don’t want a situation where tomorrow our children or our grandchildren will only recognise these animals from photographs in books,” CM Omar said. “And then, if protected species like this become for us like the Dodo and the Woolly Mammoth and so many other species and subspecies that one could name, that are simply now photographs in books. Yes, there are challenges – challenges of habitat, challenges of poaching, challenges of hunting, human and wildlife conflict.”
He said, obviously, the first step to finding a solution was to first identify the problems.
“Now that we know what the problems are, it is then duty-bound on us to take all the necessary steps to ensure that we take corrective measures,” he said.
However, the CM said that the government at its best times was very slow in activity.
He said that conservation was not just about wildlife but about ensuring the survival of humankind.
“It’s better to realise the need to protect the Markhor when the number is 100 than to need to protect it when the number has gone down to zero. The same is true for the Hangul,” CM Omar said.
“Conservation is not about animals alone. It is about human survival itself,” he said, quoting eminent conservationist and a 1961 batch IAS officer M K Ranjit Singh, who attended the three-day international meet at SKUAST-K. “We haven’t done enough to protect the ecological balance we inherited.”
Singh has served as India’s Secretary for Forests and Wildlife, Chairman of the Wildlife Trust of India, Regional Coordinator of the WWF’s Tiger Conservation Programme, and as regional adviser on nature conservation for UNEP.
The CM also recalled a conversation with his Advisor Nasir Aslam Wani, during the screening of the wildlife documentary in the auditorium on Markhor after the screening of the documentary on Hangul.
He said the takeaway of the evening was not his speech, but the documentaries that showed why the fight matters.
“The visuals were so stunning that I asked Nasir whether he had been fortunate enough to see a Markhor in the wild – and he has. I am sorry to say I haven’t,” CM Omar said.
The Hangul, or Kashmir stag, once roamed widely across the Valley and parts of Himachal Pradesh.
Today, fewer than 270 survive, mostly inside Dachigam National Park.
Habitat loss, livestock pressure, and deforestation have pushed the species to the brink.
The three-day international conference at SKUAST-K, attended by scientists from across the country, Europe, and Asia, concluded on Friday with calls for a roadmap to save the Hangul and other threatened ungulates, including the Markhor, Asiatic Ibex, and Bukhara deer.
