Mukundra hills: Forest officials try to improve prey base for tigers
Nearly 100 chitals from Bikaner, 50 chitals, 60 Black deer and 40 sambar deer from Delhi zoo will be brought. They will be released into the Mukundra reserve area to serve as a prey base to wild animals.
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Jaipur: A total of 250 chital, blackbucks, and sambar deer will be brought from Delhi and Bikaner zoo to the Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve also known as Darrah Wildlife Sanctuary of Kota in Rajasthan. They will serve as prey base to tigers and other wild animals in the sanctuary. The central zoo authority of India (CZAI) has given permission to this.
Nearly 100 chitals from Bikaner, 50 chitals, 60 Black deer and 40 sambar deer from Delhi Zoo will be brought to the century. They will be released into the Mukundra reserve area to serve as prey base to wild animals.
The plan will be executed within a month, after the permission from National Tiger Conservation Authority of India (NTCA). Several herbivores animals were left in the reserve as a prey base to wild animals in the past.
According to the forest officials, more than 297 different species of deer were left in the reserve as a prey- base to the wild animals. They were brought from different zoos of Delhi, Kota, and Jodhpur.
While there is a lot of focus on conserving tigers, equal importance must be paid to conserving the prey base of the big cats, added officials.
The Darrah wildlife sanctuary was declared as a National park (Mukundra Hills National Park) in 2004. The total area of the National park is about 200 square km. It got the nod from National Tiger Conservation Authority in 2013.
Mukundra Hills (Darrah) National Park is a combination of three wildlife sanctuaries namely Darrah wildlife sanctuary, Chambal wildlife sanctuary and Jaswant Sagar wildlife sanctuary.