Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 November 2024 | 16(11): 26176–26179
ISSN 0974-7907
(Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9031.16.11.26176-26179
#9301 | Received 14
March 2024 | Final received 17 September 2024 | Finally accepted 28 October
2024
First photographic evidence of
the Chinese Pangolin Manis pentadactyla
(Linnaeus, 1758) in Raimona National Park, Assam,
India
Dipankar Lahkar
1 , M. 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 40th Street,
18th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA.
10 Nature Conservation Foundation,
1311, “Amritha”, 12th Main, Vijayanagar 1st
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:
L.A.K. Singh, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Date
of publication: 26 November 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 the Chinese Pangolin Manis pentadactyla
(Linnaeus, 1758) in Raimona National Park, Assam,
India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 16(11):
26176–26179. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9031.16.11.26176-26179
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 FWS 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), Mr. R.P. Singh, IFS (Former council head of the forests, Bodoland Territorial
Council), and Mr Suman Mohapatra, IFS (Council head of the forests, Bodoland
Territorial Council) for supporting our research. We also thank Mr. RajualIslary, chairman, of United Forest Conservation
Network (UFCN) and Green Forest Conservation, for his ground support during the
implementation of the field work. We thank all frontline forest staff and NGO
volunteers particularly Karuna Ranjan Brahma S(RO), Changma
Narzari (RO), Mathias Basumatary,
Manoj Brahma, Hayen Brahma, Pradip Gayari, Sukumar Roy, Ringkhang Narzary, Ajay Basumatary, Kamiya Narzary, Suniram Sonapaoria, 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 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.
Chinese Pangolin Manis pentadactyla
is a highly trafficked, elusive, solitary, nocturnal, burrowing mammal with
scarce information on its distribution and current occurrence across its
distributed range (Heinrich et al. 2017). Two species of pangolins—Indian
Pangolin Manis crassicaudata and Chinese
Pangolin—occur in India (D’Cruze et al. 2018).
Considering the high extinction risks due to low population level and extensive
hunting and poaching for illegal trafficking, the Chinese Pangolin was listed
in Appendix-I of CITES (Anonymous 2022), as ‘Critically Endangered’ in the IUCN
Red List (Challender et al. 2019) and in Schedule-I
of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (Anonymous 2024). In India, despite
stringent legal protections, pangolins are continuously hunted for meat, body
parts and traditional medicinal purposes (Mitra 1998;
Mohapatra et al. 2015). Although the global population of Chinese Pangolin is
unknown, it is certainly declining, and the prevailing threats are anticipated
to contribute to a rapid population loss along its distributional ranges (Challender et al. 2019).
Chinese Pangolin currently occurs in eastern, northern
and southeastern Asian countries, spanning India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal,
Myanmar, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Lao PDR, and Vietnam at elevations
of 0–3,000 m (Challender et al. 2019). In India, the
Chinese Pangolin is restricted to the foothills of the Himalaya, in the
northern and across the northeastern region. The confirmed photo-capture
records of Chinese Pangolin are from Valmiki Tiger Reserve of Bihar (Maurya et al. 2018), Neora Valley
National Park of West Bengal (Mallick 2010), Kamlang
Tiger Reserve (Jhala et al. 2020), and Pakke Tiger Reserve (Chandan Ri pers. comm. 08.iv.2024) of
Arunachal Pradesh and Dampa Tiger Reserve (Sethy et al. 2021) of Mizoram. In Assam, apart from the
sporadic media records of rescue, which source of the specimens is largely
unknown leading to uncertain distributional predictions, whereas in situ camera-trapped
records of Chinese Pangolin are extremely limited. Camera trapped record of
Chinese Pangolin in Assam was documented at Manas
National Park (Lahkar et al. 2018), Indo-Bhutan Barnadi-Jomotsangkha Forest Complex (Ahmed et al. 2019),
and Dibru- Saikhowa
National Park (Choudhury 1998). It is worth mentioning that some of the
occurrences of Indian Pangolin from northeastern India are mere
misidentifications of Chinese Pangolin as the species has not been recorded
from the wild with certainty. Similarly, one of the records from Nagaon, Assam
is based on a rescued animal, which perhaps, originated from illegal trade,
although details are not available (Anwaruddin
Choudhury pers. comm. 08.iv.2024)
Raimona National Park (RNP) is located along the foothills of
the Himalaya and is contiguous with the Phibsoo
Wildlife Sanctuary of Bhutan, the westernmost protected area within the
India-Bhutan Transboundary Manas Conservation
Area (6,500 km2) (Figure 1). RNP is considered an important
protected area in the complex that connects the forested areas of northern West
Bengal, Bhutan, and Manas Tiger Reserve to the west,
north, & east, respectively. RNP is a new protected area, established in
2021 with a total area of 422 km2, under the administration of Kachugaon division, Bodoland Territorial Region, Assam. The
area has had a long history of ethnopolitical conflicts, which have potentially
affected the conservation mechanism.
Since 2019, the RNP authority, in collaboration with Aaranyak, has been conducting systematic annual camera
trapping surveys to assess and monitor species assemblages and populations of
terrestrial mammals. During the systematic surveys, with the camera trapping
efforts of 1,470 trap-days in 2022, three independent photo-capture of the
Chinese Pangolin were obtained from the semi-evergreen forest on 30 January
2022 at 1213 h and 0239 h, and one more on 28 February 2022 at 0412 h from the Ranganadi area under the western range (Raimona) of
the RNP (Images 1 & 2). The photograph was captured on a dry stream that
joins with the river Ranganadi, covered with
semi-deciduous forest dominated by Sal Trees Shorea
robusta. The surface around the camera station
was primarily blanketed by small to medium stones covered by the dry leaf
litters. This is the first confirmed photographic evidence of the Chinese
Pangolin in the RNP.
Chinese Pangolins were formerly distributed across
protected and unprotected areas of Assam (Anwaruddin
Choudhury pers. comm. 08.iv.2024). The species is now extremely rare and
threatened across the region because of hunting and poaching to cater to the
international illegal trade. The present photographic evidence of the Chinese
Pangolin at the junction of the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Bhutan
foothills presents critical evidence of its current occurrence in the region.
For
figure & images - - click here for full PDF
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Erratum
Citation:
Kumar, N., D. Kumari, Dhani Arya & T.S.
Rana (2024). Impatiens devendrae Pusalkar (Balsaminaceae): an
addition to the flora of Jammu & Kashmir, India. Journal of Threatened
Taxa 16(10): 26035–26039. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9277.16.10.26035-26039
Correct legend of Figure 1 on page 26036 is:
Figure 1. Distribution of Impatiens devendrae: a-—Map of India | b—Ramban
District, Jammu & Kashmir | c—Collection site.