The increasing traffic on stretch of the National Highway-74 from Haridwar to Bareilly which passes through areas where inhabited by wildlife in Uttarakhand is proving to be a detriment to wildlife.
A leopard was killed on Tuesday night after being hit by a vehicle while the big cat was crossing the highway in the Shyampur range, which is not an isolated incident. While wildlife activists stressed on the need for speed breakers to control speed of the vehicles on such stretches, the department officials pointed out that flyovers would be more feasible than speed breakers.
Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) State in-charge Rajendra Agrawal said, “The rising traffic on this road and speeding vehicles are causing frequent deaths of wild animals trying to cross the road. On an average a Schedule I wild animal, especially leopard, is hit fatally by a passing vehicle once every two months. Apart from this, deer and other wildlife are also often killed accidentally by speeding vehicles on this highway. The stretch of the national highway passing through Shyampur forest range is a forest road and we have been asking the Forest department to get speed breakers built on the road to discourage speeding and reduce chances of wild animals being hit by such vehicles. However, this has not been done yet.”
The Haridwar divisional forest officer MB Singh said getting speed breakers constructed on the stretch of the highway would not be feasible.
“This stretch is about 15-20 kilometres in length and introducing speed breakers along this length would not be practical. It would be better to construct flyovers at three to four places to enable the wildlife to cross without coming into contact with the traffic,” he said. However, with little being done by the department to minimise wildlife casualties, activists stressed effective measures should be taken without delay to address this situation.