A 25-member joint team from the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) and SWR completed the head count of swamp deer in three days on Thursday. The population of female swamp deer has been found to be twice higher than the male deer. [break]
Last year, the population of female deer was three times higher than male deer.
As per the census report made public on Thursday, the reserve has 505 male and 1280 female swamp deer. There were 365 male and 1077 female swamp deer in the reserve last year.
As per the census report, there are 385 fawns of swamp deer in the reserve at present. According to SWR, the swamp deer population has been constantly rising over the last five years. There were only 1715 swamp deer the reserve in 2066 BS.
“We have been counting the swamp deer for the last 12 years. Their population has been increasing every year,” said Chief Conservation Officer at the reserve Yubraj Regmi. Regmi also claimed that the reserve, which spreads over an area of 305 square kilometers, has the largest herd of swamp deer in the world.
“We had mobilized the census team with four elephants to count the swamp deer,” Regmi informed. According to Regmi, Barasingha, one of the three sub species of the swamp deer, is found in Nepal. Bardiya National Park is the only other place in Nepal where Swamp deer is found.
“We made a head count of the swamp deer with the help of binoculars,” he said.
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