Telangana: Measures to quench wild animals thirst in forests pays off

Forest department shared images of different wild animals quenching their thirst at saucer pits at different locations, on social networking websites on Thursday.

Hyderabad: The initiatives taken by the Telangana State Forest department to help wild animals quench their thirst this summer has met with success and more importantly, curbed conflict with humans in the State.

Generally, wild animals tend to cover long distances in search of water. In summers with water sources drying up, they tend to enter agriculture fields or human habitats but with forest department making elaborate water arrangements like setting up saucer pits, solar powered borewells, digging water holes, the wild animals are having multiple water source points in jungles across the State, a senior official from the department said.

The department shared images of different wild animals quenching their thirst at saucer pits at different locations, on social networking websites on Thursday. These images were captured by camera traps in various places.

Before summer sets in, the department issues guidelines to officials on the measures to be taken up with special focus on provision of water for wild animals.

At present, there are about 275 solar powered borewells, nearly 3000 saucer pits and many percolating tanks, besides checkdams in different forest ranges across the State.

Each saucer pit has a capacity to store about 700 to 750 litres and they are filled once in every three days using tractors by respective forest area personnel, said the official.

These apart, water holes are dug up to two to three feet deep at different points every week as they get dried up frequently. Efforts are made to ensure provision of one water hole for every 9 square kms as wild animals can walk upto three kms easily for quenching their thirst.

In addition to this, percolation tanks are dug and those which have dried up are revived regularly during the current season, the official informed.

In places like Kawal and Amrabad Tiger Reserves, wild cats, especially tigers roam around the river banks.

In Kawal, they generally move closer to Kadem and River Godavari banks and in Amrabad, they move around River Krishna banks. Once rainy season commences, they move deeper in the forests as there will be streams and many other water resources, the official explained.

There are nearly 6000 checkdams in jungles across the State and about 30 percent of these structures hold water even during summers. In rainy season, almost all the structures get filled to the brim.

 

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