Ecology & Environment Current Affairs August 2015 Part 1

Newly Discovered Frog Species Named after Goan Forest Officer

• A species of leaping frog discovered in a farmhouse in the South Goa’s Netravali forest sanctuary as on July 29, 2015. The frog has been named after State Range Forest Officer Prakash Salelkar as ‘Indirana Salelkari’.
• The species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of morphological characters, according to a research paper published in The Journal of Threatened Taxa.
• Salelkar is the 2nd Range Forest Officer to be recognized by the scientific community for his contribution to conservation of wildlife.
• Goa’s Western Ghats lie at the confluence of the Northern and the Southern Ghats and thus are unique. Already a few species of caecilians, a spider, one dragonfly and few herbs have been discovered from the State.

15 Gharials to be Released in Beas to Boost Tourism

• Punjab government announced,on July 28, 2015 that 15 Gharials, the last surviving species of the family Gavialidae will be released in the Beas river belt near Harike Patan as part of its plan to make if a habitat of the species.
• More Gharials will be released depending upon the success of the initial phase. Harike Patan water bodies have 15 Dolphins, besides having various varieties of Wild Boars, Cat and Fish making this region a perfect site for promoting and developing wildlife.
• Experts from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN), an NGO have planned to release Gharials in February-March, 2016 near Karmovval v illage which has ample water bodies with sand banks thereby making it suitable for being developed as habitat for the species.

Royal Bengal Tiger Count Fall Rapidly

• The year-long survey ended in April 2015 shows that the tiger population in Sundarhan. Bangladesh has declined sharply to 106 from 440 in 2014. There are apparently 74 tigers on the Indian side of the Sundarbans.
• The new tiger census was Bangladesh-India Joint Tiger Census Project and the project was carried out under ‘Strengthening Regional Cooperation for Wildlife Protection in Asia Project’ with financial support from the World Bank.
• Sundarban is the mangrove forest that stretches for nearly 4000 miles across both India and Bangladesh. Royal Bengal tiger is one the 6 surviving and 3 extinct subspecies of tiger mainly found in India.

Read Also – India and World Current Affairs August 2015 Part 1.

Artificial Breeding of the Great Indian Bustard

• Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and State governments of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra collaborated for artificial breeding of the Great Indian Bustard to increase the population of the bird as on July 24, 2015.
• The program will start in 2016. The bird comes under the critically endangered species category. Technical expertise for this programme will be provided by Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun.
• The Great Indian Bustard scientifically known as Ardeotis Nigriceps, has an ostrich like appearance and is among the heaviest of the flying birds. Bustard is now concentrated only in the three Western States of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

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