The forest department has for the first time launched a comprehensive and scientific survey of birds in Chhattisgarh's Kanger Valley National Park, which is home to the state bird ‘hill mynah’, an official said on Saturday.The three-day exercise, involving 56 experts from 11 states of the country, was kicked off from Friday in Kanger Valley, located around 300 km away from capital Raipur in the Maoist-hit Bastar district.
The jungle of Kanger Valley, flanked by hills and covered with sal trees, is also famous for reverberating Tirathgarh waterfall and Kutumsar limestone caves.The survey will ascertain the habits and population of birds in the national park, and thereby help in their management and add new dimensions to bird watching under eco-tourism, the national park's director Dhammshil Ganvir said.
This is a first such survey of birds conducted in the state in the collaboration with Bird Count India and Wildlife of Chhattisgarh. The trail survey methodology with e-bird application (an online database of bird observations) is being used in the process, he said.
Experts from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have been roped in for the exercise, the official said.Kanger Valley, which is famous for its natural beauty, biodiversity and caves, also houses birds found in the Western Ghats and Eastern Himalayas, he said.
One of the prime objectives of the exercise is to check the count of the state bird hill mynah, which was earlier facing the threat of extinction, but now its population is reportedly rising, the official said.Apart from this, the survey will help establish key hotspots for further studies with a scientific approach, he added.
( With PTI inputs)
