The Tamil Nadu Forest Department has temporarily suspended the initiative to radio-collar individual Nilgiri tahr in the State as part of Project Nilgiri Tahr.
The exercise, being conducted to study habitat usage, movement, and other behavioural aspects of the Nilgiri tahr — Tamil Nadu’s State animal — was being initially undertaken in the metapopulations of the species in Anaimalai Tiger Reserve (ATR) and Mukurthi National Park (MNP).
Plans were to first radio-collar 12 individuals in ATR and MNP, with three successfully being collared so far.
M.G. Ganesan, Project Director of Project Nilgiri Tahr, told The Hindu that four animals had been successfully sedated — three to be fitted with radio-collars and one to be treated for an illness — but added that the fifth individual died suddenly during the radio-collaring process in MNP on Saturday (December 7, 2024).
“We had adopted the same protocols which were applied to the four previous operations, all conducted successfully.”
“The morphological traits of the animal suggested that it was healthy, and a good candidate to be radio-collared. However, only during the postmortem did we discover that its organs, including kidneys, liver, and heart were not in a good state, which, combined with the stress of the operation, could have led to its death,” said Mr. Ganesan, adding that further analysis of the animal’s visceral organs will help the department in understanding the exact cause of death.
He added that the death had prompted the Forest Department to temporarily stop the radio-collaring exercise and to examine the possibility of formulating new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the capture of Nilgiri tahr.
Conservationists who spoke to The Hindu said that while the death of the tahr in MNP was indeed unfortunate, it should not serve to detract from the great strides made due to the implementation of the project in the State and should also not stop further research into the species. “The goal of the project is in ensuring the long-term survival of the Nilgiri tahr. Radio-collaring is being done to learn about the species, its habitat, and behaviours. There are inherent risks with such exercises, but the benefits of understanding the species and the challenges they face far outweigh the risks of this exercise,” said a conservationist from the Nilgiris.
The conservationist said that even with larger animals like elephants, sedation carried inherent risks to the safety of the animal. “Lessons can be learned, but these endeavours are absolutely necessary and there shouldn’t be any knee-jerk reactions to delay the progress of such initiatives, especially as time is of the essence in ensuring the future protection of species like the tahr,” he added.
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