Hyderabad: September was a fairly unhappy one for staff at the Amrabad tiger reserve. For they, on an average, have been holding funerals of sorts almost every day for wildlife killed by speeding vehicles that zip through the forest on National Highway 765 that cuts through one of the largest tiger reserves in India.
This year, so far, at least 64 wild animals, including sambar deer, civet cats, various species of snakes, different kinds of monkeys, have been run over by speeding vehicles with their drivers not paying heed to the 30 kmph speed limit on the stretch of NH 765 that links Srisailam and Telangana state.
In September alone, 28 wild animals were killed on NH 765 that bisects the tiger reserve, with September 26 accounting for as many as six such incidents. Worried over the spate of wild animals being killed by vehicles speeding through the tiger reserve, ATR authorities have now set up a reporting mechanism for keeping track of such incidents.
“From now on, our staff will submit weekly reports on road kills. We need steps, including laying of speed breakers to control the speed of vehicles. Once the systematic collection of road kills is in place, the numbers may shoot up,” a worried Rohith Gopidi, forest divisional officer at the tiger reserve, said.
Meanwhile, a porcupine that was hit by a vehicle while crossing the National Highway from one side of the forest to another on September 29, is unlikely to survive the high-speed hit, Nehru Zoological Park veterinary officer Dr M.A. Hakeem said. The porcupine, after being found wounded by the side of the road inside the reserve, was rushed to the city zoo for treatment. “It’s vertebral column is broken and it is in a very serious condition. It might not survive for long,” he said.
It is not just inside the Amrabad tiger reserve that wild animals are killed regularly by speeding vehicles. Similar incidents happen across all forested areas in Telangana state but there is no formal reporting system within the state forest department on these incidents.
With more roads being sought to be laid through forests, including the recently approved ones inside the Kawal tiger reserve, hit and run deaths of wild animals are only expected to rise. Wildlife kills on the roads outside of forest areas too are becoming increasingly common, with the latest incident involving the death of a young leopard on NH 167 near Devarakadra in Mahbubnagar district on September 7.
For instance, it was only recently that ATR authorities decided to formalize the road kill reporting and within a month, to their shock, discovered 28 deaths of wild animals on NH 765 that runs through the forest. Incidentally, though the official speed limit on the road inside ATR is only 30 kmph, there is no speed regulation and not enough speed breakers to deter drivers of buses, lorries, cars, and two-wheelers from racing through the forest at high speeds.
It is also learnt that the National Highway Authority has been seeking permission to widen the two-lane road through ATR into a four-lane highway. If this is allowed, then officials fear that the road kills inside the tiger reserve would rise exponentially.
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Amrabad tiger reserve has the two-lane National Highway 765, connecting Telangana and Srisailam , running through it.
Proposals have been pushed time and again to make it a four-lane road
2021 has seen the highest wildlife road kills in tiger reserve
State Board for Wild Life recently okayed several roads through Kawal tiger reserve
State has no policy of keeping tabs of wildlife road kills
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High toll
The number of road kills in the Amrabad tiger reserve is going up year after year
2017: 11
2018: 18
2019: 32
2020: 25
2021: 64*
*Till Oct 1, 2021
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The victims
Amphibians: 2
Birds: 11
Mammals: 76
Reptiles: 60
Among the dead are sambar deer, spotted deer, jungle cat, small Indian civet, bonnet macaque, rhesus macaque, Hanuman langur, Indian rock python, red sand boa, birds of several species, reptiles like monitor lizard, many species of snakes.
