Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2024 | 16(6): 25478–25481

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)

https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8914.16.6.25478-25481

#8914 | Received 11 January 2024 | Final received 29 May 2024 | Finally accepted 10 June 2024

First photographic evidence of Mainland Serow Capricornis sumatraensis thar (Bechstein, 1799) in Raimona National Park, Assam, India

Dipankar Lahkar ¹, Mohammad Firoz Ahmed ², Bhanu Sinha ³, Pranjal Talukdar ⁴,

Biswajit Basumatary ⁵, Tunu Basumatary ⁶, Ramie H. Begum ⁷, Nibir Medhi ⁸, Nitul Kalita ^{9 &} Abishek Harihar ¹⁰

^1,2,8,9 Aaranyak, 13, Tayab Ali Bi–lane, Bishnu Rabha Path, Guwahati, Assam 781028, India.

^3,4,5 Kachugaon Forest Division, Forest Department of Assam, Government of Assam, Assam 783350, India.

⁶ Green Forest Conservation, Kachugaon, Bodoland Territorial Council, Assam 783360, India.

⁷ Department of Life Science and Bioinformatics, Assam University (Diphu campus), Diphu, Karbi Anglong, Assam 782462, India.

¹⁰ Panthera, 8 West 40^th Street, 18^th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA.

¹⁰ Nature Conservation Foundation, 1311, “Amritha”, 12^th Main, Vijayanagar 1^st Stage, Mysore, Karnataka 570017, India.

¹ dipankar.lahkar@gmail.com (corresponding author), ² mfa.aaranyak@gmail.com, ³ sinhafor@gmail.com, ⁴ talukdar.pranjal@gmail.com, ⁵ biswajitbasumatary312@gmail.com, ⁶ tunubasu7@gmail.com, ⁷ ani.ara73@gmail.com, ⁸ nibirmedhi03@gmail.com, ⁹ nitulkalita10@gmail.com, ¹⁰ harihar.abishek@gmail.com

Editor: Anwaruddin Choudhury, The Rhino Foundation for Nature in North East India, Guwahati, India. Date of publication: 26 June 2024 (online & print)

Citation: Lahkar, D., M.F. Ahmed, B. Sinha, P. Talukdar, B. Basumatary, T. Basumatary, R.H. Begum, N. Medhi, N. Kalita & A. Harihar (2024). First photographic evidence of Mainland Serow Capricornis sumatraensis thar (Bechstein, 1799) in Raimona National Park, Assam, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 16(6): 25478–25481. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8914.16.6.25478-25481

Copyright: © Lahkar et al. 2024. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

Funding: US Fish and Wildlife Services and Panthera.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgements: We thank Mr. Anindya Swargowari, IFS (Retd. Council Head of the Forests- Bodoland Territorial Council), for supporting our research. We also thank Mr. Rajual Islary, Chairman, the United Forest Conservation Network (UFCN) and Green Forest Conservation (NGO), for his ground support during the implementation of the field work. We thank all range offices, frontline forest staff and NGO volunteers particularly Karuna Ranjan Brahma (RO), Changma Narzari (RO), Mathias Basumatary, Mano Brahma, Hayen Brahma, Pradip Gayari, Sukumar Roy, Ringkhang Narzary, Ajay Basumatary, Kamiya Narzary, Suniram Sonapaoria, Rohendra Basumatary, Rohendra Basumatary, Pankaj Basumatary, Shobit Narzari, Aprajita Singh, Sansuma Narzari, Hiron Wary, Pabitra Sutradhar, Sudem Narzary, Dhonanjoy Islary, Bitunjoy Brahma, Gladwing Narzary for helping us during the field surveys. We also thank Mr. Arup K Das and Madhumita Borthakur of the Geo-spatial Technology and Application Division (GTAD), Aaranyak for preparing the map. Aaranyak is thankful to USFWS and Panthera for financial assistance to carry out the surveys.

The Mainland Serow Capricornis sumatraensis thar is present across various habitats extending from the Himalayas on the Indian subcontinent to southern China, mainland southeastern Asia, and Sumatra (Groves & Grubb 2011; Choudhury 2013; Mori et al. 2019). Despite their widespread distribution, studies showed that Mainland Serow is highly restricted to rugged terrains between the mid- to high-elevation ranges between 200 to >2,000 m (Carr et al. 2023) and avoids human settlements (Phan et al. 2019). Listed as ‘Vulnerable’ by the IUCN Red List (Phan et al. 2020), the species’ populations are fragmented, isolated, and rapidly declining due to poaching, habitat destruction, and habitat loss. The lack of reliable data on this species’ abundance and distribution makes it difficult to implement effective conservation actions to ensure long-term survival (Phan et al. 2020; Carr et al. 2023). In the Indian subcontinent, Mainland Serow is widely distributed across community forests and protected areas of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar, from 100 m (Choudhury 2013) up to an elevation of 3,500 m (Phan et al. 2020). In Bhutan, the species is documented both in non-protected areas (e.g., Lamai Goempa Research Preserve of central Bhutan (Dhendup et al. 2019) and in protected areas (e.g., Royal Manas National Park, Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary and Jomotsangkha Wildlife Sanctuary (Ahmed et al. 2016, 2019; DoFPS 2023), that share contiguous forest with India, in the Transboundary Manas Conservation Area (TraMCA). In India, the species is continuously distributed across the Himalaya from Jammu & Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh’s Mishmi Hills (Roy et al. 2020; Ahmad & Gopi 2024).

This study presents a photographic record of the species from a newly declared protected area in western Assam. The Assam government declared the area a national park on 08 June 2021. The area was severely impacted by ethnopolitical violence for nearly three decades, beginning in the late 1980s, until peace was restored with the declaration of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTR) in 2020. The present camera trapping survey was carried out between 06 December 2020 and 05 January 2021 in Ripu Reserve Forest (presently Raimona National Park (RNP), contiguous with Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary of Bhutan, and is located in the western end of the India-Bhutan Manas Transboundary Conservation Area (TraMCA).

With the camera trapping effort of 2,542 trap-days using white flash passive Panthera (New York, USA) V6 digital camera traps, Mainland Serow was recorded in two independent events on 29 December 2020 at 0912 h and 1346 h, respectively, at an elevation of 96 m (Image 1), near Ganda Bajrum Anti-poaching camp (26.672N & 89.944E) located in the Western Range (Raimona) of RNP (Image 2). Ganda Bajrum Anti-poaching camp is just 1 km apart from the nearest settlements. This is the first photographic evidence of Mainland Serow in the RNP.

Mainland Serow is widely distributed in the neighbouring Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary (Tenzin et al. 2022) and Royal Manas National Park (Ahmed et al. 2016) of Bhutan, which may support population recovery in RNP. Contrary to previous records, the current photographic evidence of Mainland Serow is likely the lowest elevation record from the Indian sub-continent and is close to human settlements, suggesting that more studies on habitat associations are necessary. Previously, the species was recorded between the elevation of 100–300 m in Assam (Choudhury 2003). However, there are no studies on the species’ habitat requirements in this region, which is crucial for considering species-specific conservation actions. Occasional poaching for bushmeat and habitat alteration due to logging during the ethnopolitical violence are the primary conservation concerns of the RNP. With the government now protecting the park, future conservation efforts should consider securing and recovering the species’ population and restoration of the degraded habitats.

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