The first population estimation exercise of Indian gaur carried out in the Nilgiris forest division in February has revealed that more than an estimated 2,000 Indian gaurs inhabit the 300 sq. km range.
The exercise has also revealed that majority of the animals in the division live perilously close to human habitations due to habitat loss and fragmentation.
According to the statistics revealed by the Forest Department, 794 gaurs were directly sighted over a one-week period during the exercise which was conducted in February this year.
K. Vijayakumar, Senior Project Officer, Worldwide Fund for Nature - India, who assisted the department during the exercise, said it was estimated that there were more than 2,000 Indian gaurs across the division, with an average of eight individuals per sq.km.
The department officials said the decision to estimate the population of Indian gaur, alongside other major fauna in the division, especially around the major towns of Coonoor, Udhagamandalam, Kotagiri, and Kundah, was necessitated by an increase in the number of problematic human-gaur interactions in the Nilgiris over the last few years. In 2019, three people were killed and seven others injured by Indian gaur.
It was noticed that a majority of the gaurs seen around Kundah, Kotagiri, Coonoor and Kattabettu, where a majority of these interactions occurred, preferred to inhabit tea estates and human settlements, while the animals largely avoided forested areas. Officials said that the reasons for this could be due to the easy availability of food in and around human settlements, and the lack of threat from predators, as well as the spread of invasive flora into reserve forests.
“Moreover, many of these ‘conflict-prone’ regions are witnessing changing land-use patterns. What were tea estates were being converted into resorts and buildings. This also translates to fences becoming more prominent around these properties and severely limiting traditional pathways used by the gaur to move between habitats,” said a Forest Department staff from the Nilgiris division.
It was clear that increasing human pressure was leading to more problematic interactions between humans and gaurs in these regions as, in areas such as Pykara and Naduvattam where the population of the animals was equally high, the interactions were comparatively less due to native forests being largely free of invasive flora, and land-use patterns also remaining relatively stable, officials said.
The notion that more Indian gaur were being spotted within the towns due to a steady increase in their population over the last decade could also be wrong because officials state that, on an average, a total of 60 gaurs die each year in the Nilgiris forest division, many due to accidents, owing to their proximity to human habitations.
District Forest Officer, Nilgiris division, D. Guruswamy, said gaur census had to be conducted in the coming years to accurately gauge the dynamics of the Indian gaur population in the Nilgiris division.
“This is the first population estimation exercise which has been conducted in the division in the recent years. We will need to continue to conduct such periodic estimations to ascertain whether the population of gaurs is increasing or if the population is stable,” said Mr. Guruswamy.
