Indian Bison:
Sri Lanka recently asks India to translocate 6 Indian bisons or gaurs to reintroduce them in the island after three centuries.
- Indian Bisons are one of the largest extant bovines. It is one of the largest species among the wild cattle, reaching a shoulder height of up to 220 cm.
- They are found on the forested hills and grassy areas of south to south east Asia.
- There are about 13,000 to 30,000 gaurs in the world with approximately 85% of the population present in India. It is also found in Burma and Thailand.
- The Western Ghats in southern India constitute one of the most extensive extant strongholds of gaur, in particular in the Wayanad – Nagarhole – Mudumalai – Bandipur complex.
- The first-ever population estimation exercise of the Indian gaur carried out in the Nilgiris Forest Division in February 2020 estimated around 2,000 Indian gaurs to be inhabiting the division.
- The gaur is the State Animal of Goa and Bihar.
- It is a protected species and included in Schedule I of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972
- Listed as “vulnerable” in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
- It is listed in CITES Appendix I.
