Six endangered species to be conserved by NWB

Kolkata(PTI): Six endangered species -- the snow leopard, Kashmiri stag( hangul), wild buffalo, Gangetic dolphin and two birds (Great Indian bustard and Jerdons courser) -- would be conserved for the first time, a member of National Board for Wildlife (NBW) said.

"We need to have long-term programmes to save these endangered animals and birds. Special care would be taken for their conservation under a special programme, member of NBW and Director of Wildlife Institute of India P R Sinha said.

With the tiger population declining, these species too were becoming scarce and need to be conserved, he said.

Snow leopards found abundantly in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand, Ladakh, Bhutan were threatened, while hangul or the red deer, was the only surviving member here of the red deer family of Europe.

The same was with wild buffaloes which were once abundant in Assam and Chhattisgarh were now becoming rare.

The Gangetic dolphin was the lone aquatic creature to be selected for the first time for conservation by the NBW.