Six captive-bred Western Tragopans experienced their flight to freedom in the hills of Himachal Pradesh as they were released into the wild, in a first such global effort since the conservation and breeding programme for this species began in the 1980s in the state.
Two pairs and two chicks of Western Tragopan raised in the Conservation Breeding Centre in Sarahan, district Shimla have been released in Sarkan area at Daranghati Wildlife Sanctuary on Thursday. Each of them are fitted with very-high frequency (VHF) radio tags that will allow the Himachal Forest Department to monitor their movements and survival in the forest.
The population of Western Tragopan, a brilliantly-coloured Asian pheasant species, hovers on the brink of extinction globally and is estimated to be less than 3500.
The bird, locally known as Jujurana, is also the state bird of Himachal Pradesh.
“After almost two decades of grit and determination, two families of Western Tragopans raised in Sarahan Pheasantry have been released into the wild with an aim to re-establish their population in their natural habitat. The Forest Minister Rakesh Pathania presided over the reintroduction programme on Thursday,” said Dharamveer Meena, Divisional Forest Officer Sarahan, Himachal Pradesh Forest Department while talking to The Pioneer.
The DFO said, “It is for the first time in the world that Western Tragopans have been successfully reintroduced into the wild under a conservation and breeding programme.”
He said that the adult birds are about four years old. The six birds including two chicks were last month soft-released into the nearby Daranghati Wildlife Sanctuary. A soft-release is a precursor to the full release and helps the birds in adapting to the area’s climate and environment, the DFO said.
The site of release in the sanctuary is around 3000 metres above sea level. The species inhabits the high-altitude temperate forests at elevations between 2400- 3200 m, he added.
The conservation and breeding programme (Sarahan Pheasantry) for the species began in the 1980s. In 2007, the Sarahan Pheasantry was formally designated as Western Tragopan Conservation Breeding Centre.
The breeding Centre currently has around 45 Tragopans, the DFO said.
The captive birds are housed in enclosures and breeding aviaries which try to recreate natural surroundings of the species, and the birds are fed a diet principally containing vegetative matters in the form of a mixture of fruits, vegetables, greens and sprouts.
Notably, the Western Tragopans are notified as vulnerable species on the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) red list of threatened birds globally. Tragopans are also among the five species of birds from Himachal which were listed under species of high conservation concern by ‘State of India’s Birds 2020’ report.
A global population of up to 5000 individuals was estimated in 1995 but in the recent estimates by BirdLife International in 2017, the number of Tragopans was suggested to be fewer than 3500. The wildlife experts attribute the decline in numbers to habitat degradation, hunting, extensive grazing of the forest by livestock and change in land-use practices.
The bird species is stated to have a disjunct distribution in the Northwest Himalayas from Pakistan to Northwest India including Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh and the western parts of Uttarakhand.
In Himachal, the first attempts for keeping and breeding Western Tragopan in captivity were carried out in the early 1990s. The first captive breeding of the species was reported in 1993, from a pair of wild-born rescued birds.