According to a recent report, the Union government’s geo-technical investigation that involved drilling of 12 boreholes inside Sharavathi Valley Lion-tailed Macaque Sanctuary, is posing threat to the animal for whose protection this sanctuary was created for on 7 June 2019.
- Sharavathi Valley lies in the Shimoga district of Karnataka.
- Sharavathi Valley gets its name from its river’s place of origin.
- River Sharavathi originated in Ambutheertha of the Thirthahalli taluk in Karnataka.
- Lion-tailed macaque (Macaca silenus), a primate endemic to small and severely fragmented rainforests of the Western Ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, continues to be in the ‘endangered’ category in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
- It is endemic to rainforests of the Western Ghats It is listed in Appendix 1 of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
- It is a Schedule 1 species under WPA, 1972 and thereby, accorded the highest protection under the Indian law.
- Their total (global) population is 2,500 mature individuals. This is about the number of people that live in one village in a country having 640,867 villages.
(Source: Down to Earth, The Hindu)
