By 2050 to 2070, four main wild ungulates Blue sheep, Tibetan argali, Tibetan gazelle and Kiang found in India’s Himalayan Changthang region of Ladakh may witness their home range shrinking by half due to climate-change induced surging temperatures.
While some may be forced to move uphills, others like Tibetan gazelle which are already on endangered list might become extinct if adequate and timely conservation steps are not taken, a team of wildlife experts has warned.
“The maximum predicted range loss will be for the Tibetan gazelle with an average of 90 percent loss, which might make it locally endangered with a prediction that only 9.5% of their present habitat might be suitable for them in 2070 in the context of climate change,” they said.
An estimated 100 individuals of Tibetan gazelles are known to be in Ladakh with a patchy distribution in the southern part of the study area.
Changthang is a high altitude area supporting wild ungulates and is susceptible to climate change impacts including receding glaciers and decrease in water supply and storage, which could negatively impact wildlife habitat.
In addition, environmental and social changes have been taking place in Changthang that have resulted in fragmentation of critical wildlife habitats.
Experts Anchal Bhasin and Upamanyu Hore from Noida-based Amity Institute of Forestry and Wildlife, Amity University and Pankaj Raina and Sunetro Ghosal from Department of Wildlife Protection, Leh, Ladakh had used using Species Distribution Modelling (SDM) to estimate the current and future distribution of the four ungulates.
The results suggest that these ungulates may lose 57% to 61% of their current range, depending on the algorithm used and dispersal scenarios with a northward shift in their ranges, said Raina in the study ‘Climate change impacts on high altitude wildlife distribution: Predicting range shifts for four ungulates in Changthang, eastern Ladakh.’
The study is published in the ScienceDirect.
Raina said that the Tibetan gazelle in Ladakh requires urgent conservation efforts to enable it to adapt to future climate change scenarios in the region.
“We recommend restoration and conservation of grassland ecosystems that were historically and currently occupied by ungulates with additional attention given to potential suitable habitats outside protected areas by regulation of human activities,” added Bhasin.