A recent study, carried out in the western Himalayas by scientists of Zoological Survey of India, has predicted a massive decline of about 73% of the Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus) habitat by the year 2050.
What the study says?
- These losses in habitat will also result in loss of habitat from 13 protected areas (PAs), and eight of them will become completely uninhabitable by the year 2050.
- It will be followed by loss of connectivity in the majority of protected areas.
- Simulation suggests a significant qualitative decline in remaining habitats of the species within the protected areas of the landscape.
- There is a need to adopt “preemptive spatial planning of PAs in the Himalayan region for the long-term viability of the species.
Himalayan brown bear
- The Himalayan brown bear is one of the largest carnivores in the highlands of (Western) Himalayas.
- It occupies the higher reaches of the Himalayas in remote, mountainous areas of Pakistan and India, in small and isolated populations, and is extremely rare in many of its ranges.
- Himalayan Brown bear occurs in alpine, scrub and sub-alpine forests of two Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and two Indian Himalayan States Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in India.
- It is a top carnivore of the high-altitude Himalayan region.
- Their life span is 20 to 30 years in the wild.
- They are listed under Schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972.
- It has been poorly studied in India as well as in other parts of the Asian highlands due to its inaccessible and high altitude habitat.
(Source: The Hindu and Science Direct)
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